Local 350 forges coalition to fix San Francisco's prevailing wage law

It’s not just Wisconsin or Ohio – state and local governments here in California are looking for any way they can to cut costs. If politicians and bureaucrats can replace good Union jobs with lower paid workers employed by contractors offering bargain basement labor costs, Union jobs will go. Seeing this threat, Local 350 has acted to insure that government employees and workers employed in the private sector under government contracts have job protection by making the payment of “prevailing wages” the law.

San Francisco is one of the few cities with local laws requiring employers outside the construction trades to pay prevailing wages when doing business with the City or operating on City property in the waste, parking, moving, theatre, and janitorial industries. However, when San Francisco put a waste haulage contract out to bid in 2009, Local 350 Secretary-Treasurer Bob Morales found that there was a gaping loophole in the existing law: “The existing ordinance allowed employers to hire independent contractors and avoid paying prevailing wages altogether.”

In response, Local 350 alerted the Teamsters Locals with jurisdiction over parking and moving, as well as the Stage Hands Union (IATSE) and Janitors Union (SEIU) to the problem and has led a campaign to close the loopholes and strengthen the protections of the employees of City contractors. According to Morales, the biggest part of this effort was, “To make it clear that a prevailing wage law has no teeth unless it applies to employees earning wages.” Because owner operators are not paid wages but piece rates based on jobs, it is impossible to enforce prevailing wage obligations on employers using owner operators. Local 350 and the other Unions also exposed the exploitation of “independent” workers who do not have the legal protections state law gives to employees.

On January 4, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors took the first step to approval of Local 350’s substantially revised prevailing wage ordinance. The new ordinance,

Bars employers from using owner-operators and requires employers bidding on City contracts to use employees only. Because any bidder will have to pay employees’ wages for their labor, there will be no difficulty in determining whether an employer is paying the prevailing wage and enforcing that obligation;

Requires employers who successfully bid to take over a City contract to retain the employees of the prior contractor for up to six months (currently up to 90 days) subject to discharge only for cause protections; and

Expands the scope of the industries covered to reach non-profits and other employers.

If Local 350 is successful here, San Francisco will have the strongest non-construction trades wage protections in the country and protect Union jobs from becoming the first casualty of government budget cuts.