NEWS RELEASE​

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 1, 2016                                                 

CONTACT:     Carol Kim: carol@sdbuildingtrades.com  

Working Families Support Chargers Initiative with

Local Hire and Career Training Opportunities

SAN DIEGO, CA – In late April, the San Diego Chargers and the San Diego Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO, joined together to announce the Building Trades Council’s endorsement of the team’s Citizens’ Initiative and the agreement between the Chargers and the Building Trades Council on a Project Labor Agreement (PLA).

PLAs benefit the community with good-paying jobs and career training opportunities for local residents and veterans, along with opportunities for small businesses. PLAs invest in communities by ensuring every employee has access to a fair wage, healthcare, and pension benefits so that he or she can support a family.  The influx of family-supporting wages connected to long-term careers alleviates burdens on public assistance programs, increases the tax base, and creates a boon to the local economy.

Benefits of PLAs include:

• Smart Project Management with On-Time, On-Budget Construction;
• Quality Jobs and Careers for Local Families with Good Wages and Benefits; and
• Job Training and Apprenticeship Opportunities for Local Residents

PLAs are also known as Community Hiring Agreements or Project Stabilization Agreements, and are a type of contract used in the construction industry to set the terms and conditions of employment on large projects of long duration and design complexity. PLAs help ensure that construction projects are delivered on time and within budget, and that quality standards and workplace safety is achieved through transparent documentation with local oversight. 

Tom Lemmon, Business Manager of the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council representing over 35,000 workers, applauded the Chargers’ decision to enter into negotiations with the Council and their unions to create good paying, local jobs for the community. “Our union apprenticeship programs provide local community members with the opportunity to ‘earn while they learn,’ receive full family medical coverage, retirement benefits, and enter into a life-long middle-class career without college debt.” 

Lemmon noted that “efforts by anti-PLA groups seeking to undermine workers and the Chargers efforts to stay in San Diego are both dishonest and baseless – these contractors have a history of cheating their workers. The Associated Builders and Contractors represent 0.3% of licensed contractors in California but have the dubious distinction of having incurred 24% of labor violations in the state. They think they can get away with this in San Diego. We and the Chargers are committed to ensuring that workers’ rights are protected under a PLA with good-wages and benefits and successful, effective apprenticeship programs.”

Project Labor Agreements use a fair, open, and competitive process for union and non-union contractors alike, ensuring that everyone is playing by the same rules. Examples from other Project Labor Agreements point out that they do not result in fewer bids from contractors or increased costs, and both union and non-union contractors are well-represented on projects. Additional details can be found at: http://www.communityhiring.net/.

PLAs have been adopted throughout the San Diego region, including at San Diego Unified School District, Chula Vista Elementary School District, Southwestern Community College District, San Diego County Water Authority, and the San Diego New Central Courthouse.  PLAs are currently being negotiated with Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District and Sweetwater Union High School District.

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