‘Community work force’ repealed

One year after approving a “community work force” ordinance requiring union membership on large city construction projects, and having completed no projects under its auspices, the Santa Fe City Council voted Wednesday to repeal the controversial law.

In a victory for contractors and a loss for union advocates, the Council voted 5-3 to take the CWA requirements off the books. The ordinance would have required union membership for workers on all city building projects of $500,000 or more.

Voting to repeal were Councilors Ron Trujillo, Rebecca Wurzburger, Bill Dimas, Carmichael Dominguez and Chris Rivera. Voting no were Councilors Chris Calvert, Peter Ives and Patti Bushee.

Mayor David Coss, the principal backer of the CWA, only votes in case of a tie.

Wurzburger argued that the CWA, upon review over the past several months, was “not the legislation many of us thought we were voting for” last year.

“I, too, wish we had started the process with having unions, non-unions, the community college, workers, managers sitting down together to craft something to address the critical problems of buying local, working local and living local and I don’t think that’s what happened here,” Wurzburger said.

Rivera said also said if there had been a collaborative effort by all side, “this might have looked a little bit different tonight.”

He said this wasn’t a union versus non-union issue. “This is about representing the constituency that does not know anything about the community workforce agreement. … The people in my district, the people I represent in this time, simply want to work.”

The community workforce agreement ordinance, approved by the council early last year with little fanfare, stipulates that all workers on a project must belong to a union, although they can join for just the duration of the project.

The CWA became a hot issue when the city first started to implement its union requirements last summer.

Implementation was postponed until October. It never was applied to a single construction project – the first would have been a $1.4 million project to improve part of a commercial building in the Railyard to city office space.

Coss said amendments to the ordinance already passed by the council and slated for review Wednesday – some proposals were rendered moot after the council voted to repeal the ordinance – would have meant more local jobs.

“I think unions are essential to a strong middle class,” Coss said. He said the unions “have worked with us in good faith … they guarantee us 100 percent local workers on the job. We’re not getting that now.”

“It’s very clear that the contracting community doesn’t want unions in Santa Fe,” Coss said “I get that. It’s very clear that they’re very proud of the figure that only 7 percent of the workforce is union. Maybe that’s why we have such a dramatic, dramatic difference between the rich and poor in this town.”

Some councilors said they’d like to see the city still try to address some of the issues brought up in the CWA discussion, notably putting more locals in city construction jobs. To that end, Bushee introduced measures that would require as many local workers as possible on city construction projects and require contractors to provide benefits for domestic partners.

Over two dozen people, evenly split in favor of and against the ordinance, spoke during a public hearing.

Opponents, which include many contractors, and the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association, argue the ordinance will raise project costs, impose burdens on contractors and narrow the city’s pool of potential bidders.

Kari Biernacki, vice-president of construction company AUI Inc. of Albuquerque, said the firm deciding against bidding on a recent city project because of the CWA requirements.

“The impact of the CWA will result in fewer bidders on taxpayer funded projects … the city cannot afford fewer bidders at higher costs of construction,” she said.

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

But CWA proponents, including Coss, have disputed the $5 million figure. Supporters say the measure will ensure jobs and training for locals, project quality and efficiency and good wages and benefits for workers.

And they argue that contractors, union or not, aren’t likely to pass up bidding on big city projects simply because of the CWA.

Also on Wednesday, the City Council agreed to allocate an additional $33,000 to the city’s gun buyback program.

The city will hold its third and final gun buyback March 9.

Officials spent $52,817 during gun buybacks held Jan. 12 and Feb. 9. The funding is from a police property tax fund.

Police have collected 418 guns. They estimate the total will rise to 600 guns after the third buyback.