Councilors Propose Repeal of Santa Fe’s CWA Ordinance

A majority of the Santa Fe City Council may be on the verge of torpedoing a new “community workforce agreement” ordinance that continues to generate controversy.

Councilors Patti Bushee and Bill Dimas said Monday they support a resolution to delay community workforce agreement projects until the University of New Mexico’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research can study the potential economic impact of the ordinance. Both also said they back a measure — newly introduced at Monday’s Finance Committee meeting — to repeal the community workforce agreement ordinance entirely.

Bushee said Councilors Carmichael Dominguez, Ron Trujillo and Chris Rivera also support the two new measures, though city legal staff noted that the three haven’t formally signed on as sponsors.

After the meeting, Bushee said that “at this juncture, I favor repeal.”

“I think you have a majority of the council that has great concern that we are not only adding costs to public projects, but we are sending jobs to Albuquerque,” she said.

The ordinance stipulates that all workers on a project must belong to a union, although they can join for just the duration of the project.

A city report has estimated the ordinance would add up to $5 million to construction costs in the next three to five years, partly because of too few local union contractors.

Mayor David Coss, who has maintained strong support for the ordinance, disputes that estimate. He and other supporters say the measure will ensure project quality and efficiency and good wages and benefits for local workers.

The ordinance applies to all city projects of $500,000 or more. The first project expected to fall under the ordinance’s regulations is a $1.4 million renovation of office space at the Santa Fe Railyard.

Councilors Peter Ives and Chris Calvert said Monday it would probably be a good idea to gauge the community workforce agreement ordinance by moving forward with a test project.

“I don’t know how beneficial the study will be. I prefer, myself, hard data to theoretical data,” Calvert said.