Toni Atkins has been centering working families and IBEW 569 since she was elected to the San Diego City Council 20 years ago. As a San Diego City Councilmember, Toni passed San Diego’s first living wage law. And as a California State Legislator — a powerful leader in both the Assembly and the State Senate — our relationship with IBEW 569 produced important outcomes.

As Speaker of the Assembly she appointed then IBEW Local 569 Business Manager Johnny Simpson to the Contractors State Licensing Board. After that, she appointed Joel Barton, Business Manager of IBEW Local 11 and Secretary/Treasurer of the California State Association of Electrical Workers, as Simpson’s replacement on the Licensing Board — the same State Licensing Board that, after an eight-year battle, recently ruled that it will be C-10 licensed contractors employing state certified electricians who are the workforce installing most battery energy storage systems!Toni helped build the foundation of that win with IBEW 569 from the very beginning.

Toni’s record on Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) is clear. She opposed and campaigned against the ill-advised local San Diego initiative to ban PLAs and then took it a step further by supporting and ensuring the passage of SB 922 in 2011, a state law that said if a local government wants to ban PLAs, then they are ineligible for state funding. IBEW 569 worked alongside our sisters and brothers in the San Diego Building and Construction Trades Council to overturn the San Diego PLA ban and to codify a citywide PLA this year. Toni was on the right side of that battle from the get-go.

She has also authored and supported laws that ensure PLAs are a part of state projects including the Swing Space and the new Capitol Annex project, housing, clean energy, and water storage projects. We know Toni will continue to ensure that construction projects must include PLAs because she has a proven track-record of doing so consistently from the very beginning of her public service. Toni doesn’t forget her roots.

Toni is a leader’s leader. One of the qualities we appreciate about Toni is her proven and consistent ability to collaborate with diverse teams for best outcomes on complex issues. She was chosen by her colleagues in the state legislature to serve as the Speaker of the Assembly when she was a State Assembly Member and as Senate President Pro Tem when voters elected her to the State Senate. In other words, Toni has demonstrated a consistent and powerful ability to unify in the service of uplifting the working families of California.