Well, San Diego's never been a very good union town." Conventional wisdom holds this idea to be true. That's why the Republicans had their 1996 nominating convention in San Diego, and the Democrats will have theirs in more "labor-friendly" Los Angeles, the traditional thinking goes.
But a good number of folks on the front lines of San Diego labor relations would beg to differ with that hoary old chestnut. America's finest city may have been chilly to labor in the past, they say, but conditions are currently in a prolonged thaw.
Take Al Shur, for example. With periodic exceptions, he says, the local history of labor relations has been more compromise and negotiation than the strike-settlement cycle typical of cities like Los Angeles.
"People may think of LA as a better union town, but their labor relations through history have been contentious," says Shur, business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 569. Plus, he says, "here in San Diego a higher percentage of electrical workers, outside utilities, are in the IBEW than LA. That's a fact."
Judy Beal agrees. The president of Communication Workers of America Local 9509 cites the booming local economy as one factor in the sunny state of local labor.
From a union perspective, she says, "it is easier to organize in prosperous times. There are many more new companies hiring more workers. Our prosperity has allowed us to work especially hard in the community, and to organize more." These increased efforts have doubled the number of workers her local represents to 5,000 since she took office four years ago. This kind of real growth at the local chapter bests national trends, where expanded organizing has added to union rolls, but new members are largely replacing those whose union jobs were lost.
The picture is mixed, however, in the public sector. The mid-1990s were a high point in discord for some unions, especially with strikes by San Diego teachers and county workers. For county workers at least, relations have calmed since then. For example, in 1996, after a long and bitter negotiation, the bulk of county workers -- those represented by Local 2028 of the Service Employees International Union -- agreed to a 27-month contract. Then in 1998, SEIU and county negotiators signed pacts simultaneously settling a union lawsuit and approving a three-year contract.
Where the 1996 county agreement had taken more than two years to achieve, the latter contract was inked within hours of the old one's expiration.
Scott Barnett, executive director of the San Diego Taxpayers Association, observes that the Municipal Employees and the San Diego Police Officers associations have been particularly successful in pressing their demands with city officials.
"They are pretty much getting whatever they ask for," Barnett says. "The City Council has been anemic in dealing with its employee groups."
 The Municipal Employees and San Diego Police Officers associations have been successful in their demands, says Scott Barnett. (photo/Alan Decker) |
The picture is much different at the San Diego Unified School District.
Following the disruptive strike in 1996, reports teacher union president Marc Knapp, former Superintendent Bertha Pendleton and the teachers' union leaders pledged to go to virtually any length to avoid future job actions.
Knapp says they invited the famed Harvard Negotiating Project -- the same outfit that counseled the opponents in South Africa's transition from apartheid -- to facilitate the district's next negotiation more peaceably.
"We used a method called interest-based bargaining," Knapp recalls. "I was skeptical at first, but I changed my mind when I saw how collaboratively we could work together with the administration."
The result was a three-year contract in which, Knapp says, the union received much of what it requested and the district received an unprecedented number of concessions. "We actually won an award from Saturn Motors for labor-management collaboration," he says, "but by the time they were ready to come out and give it to us, we had the new administration (of Alan Bersin) and the new situation had completely turned around. We told them not to come."
Knapp says he anticipates tough sledding in the upcoming contact talks, which may start as early as this fall.
The collaboration and cooperation missing in the school district seem to be the key to success for the private sector unions. There, gains in union numbers and pay have occurred within a broader context of labor advances outside the scope of formal contract negotiations. For example, the CWA's Beal notes that when one of the union's largest employers, Pacific Bell, asked, her local joined company nonunion workers as tutors at the Polinsky Children's Center. Pacific Bell spokesman Maurice Luque adds that the CWA has also been willing to support the company on various issues before the Public Utilities Commission.
But perhaps more importantly, Pacific Bell executives gave moral and material support to their own building's janitors when they struck for higher wages and benefits last spring.
"They brought food and clothing and a lot of other stuff," Beal says. Further, Dave Nichols, Pac Bell's regional president, spoke at a press conference to support the janitors.
Local labor and management also are partnering on longer-term projects. One example is Kearny Mesa's San Diego Electrical Training Center, where IBEW Local 569 and the San Diego chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association run a five-year apprentice training program.
Some 340 apprentices work full time, then attend classes two nights a week, plus occasional weekends. Jim Westfall, the center's training director, says they begin with low-level "grunt work" on the jobsite such as hauling cable and stocking parts, while at night learning both the theory and practice of electricity.
For their labors, apprentices begin at $10 per hour, with guaranteed raises based on good work evaluations and classroom performance. Both their workplace duties and classroom learning become more sophisticated over time, and the center continually adds new courses to reflect industry needs. Upon graduation, the new journeymen and -women can expect to earn about $50,000 annually, plus the other benefits of union employment, Westfall says.
The center recently added new programs in low voltage electrical work, says Westfall, including data transmission, building automation, and high-end audio and video systems. Clark Thompson, vice president of San Diego's Neal Electric, says that fiber, data and telecom now comprise a major portion of his firm's business, anticipating it will grow to 20 percent of the bottom line within months.
Journeymen and -women also hone their skills at the center. Westfall says they must complete 18 hours of advanced training every year to stay current with their union. About 750 journeymen go back to school each year to participate in courses ranging from nuclear power plant operation to waste water treatment.
IBEW Local 569 President Emily Davis calls the training center "an extraordinary resource" and an "unbelievable benefit to our members."
The center trains its students to be the most skilled and most efficient, says Westfall, thus allowing its union electrical contractors to stay competitive in the construction bidding process.
Some local electrical contractors echo Westfall's comments. David Raspolich, vice-president and general manager of Dynalectric Co., one of San Diego's largest employers of electricians, calls the training center "the key to our existence."
"When we call the electricians' hiring hall," Raspolich says, "we know what those people can do. Only rarely do we get an unqualified person." He contrasted that situation with hiring at so-called "merit" or nonunion shops. "You bring in a candidate and ask him if he can do this or that, and he says yes. Then you sent him out in the field and he fails, and you have to start all over again with interviewing."
The reliability of training center graduates "is the most significant reason that we and other NECA members are union," Raspolich says.
But unions and employers don't necessarily have to cooperate in order to get well-trained workers, contends Russ Gould, president-elect of the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), a national organization dedicated to promoting merit shops in construction. ABC runs a local, state-approved apprentice program as well, Gould says. Because its curriculum parallels the union program, its graduates are as capable as any produced by the IBEW and NECA, he says. "I agree with (Dave Raspolich). Graduates of both programs are very able. What we don't want is a guy who has been 'hanging out,' maybe just working with his dad for 10 years. It's these guys that aren't capable of doing the work. But our people are."
Gould argues that the benefit of the ABC apprentice program is that a journeyman graduate is not tied to the union.
"Our graduates are free to work for whoever they want. And they are not obligated to pay union dues."
Despite this kind of competition, Jerry Butkiewicz, secretary-treasurer of the Labor Council of San Diego and Imperial Counties, sees training as a strategic tool for unions.
"We should be able to provide the best-trained workers to our union employers," he says. "There should be apprentice programs for hotel workers, janitorial workers -- all workers."
Butkiewicz observes that the American economy has fewer workers who spend their careers with a single employer. Employers, often in the high-tech sector, do massive hirings when new projects are undertaken, then lay off hundreds at a time when the projects wrap up.
These "migrating workers," as Butkiewicz calls them, should be able to have a union that will provide them with the training and benefits employers no longer do.
"Not only will it make for better workers, working under better conditions, but it will give these workers something to be loyal to &endash; their union."
Butkiewicz's thinking on training echoes an idea circulating nationally.
Dan Luria is vice president of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Institute. "The role for unions in a society that needs technical skills is to provide them. (Unions) will become more valuable (to employers) by providing a productivity premium to offset the wage premium."
Adding value to workers through training also suggests another way in which labor has broadened its community involvement -- in strategic community partnerships.
The point man for this approach has been Butkiewicz himself. "Just because a project is good for management or the chamber of commerce, it doesn't mean it's not good for labor too," he explains. "When a project is right for the community, including union members, we will step up."
This logic propelled the Central Labor Council to join the San Diego Chamber in active support of Prop. A, the 1998 ballot measure on Convention Center expansion, and on the expansion of Qualcomm Stadium before that.
The Labor Council also strongly supported Prop. C in 1998, to build the new Padres ballpark as the cornerstone of the larger East Village redevelopment project. Butkiewicz has called the project San Diego's "field of dreams," and the Labor Council supported the $10 million in interim funding the City Council approved last month.
For its part, the ballpark development team consented to a so-called "project-labor agreement," which guarantees various protections for workers -- including local hiring, prevailing wages for all trades, and a no-strike clause. Padres officials have denied that the agreement is a payback for organized labor's vocal support.
Such issues-based agreement also has gained labor cooperation from the business community. For example, several people interviewed for this article suggested that organized labor's success in defeating Prop. 226 was due in part to the chamber's silence on the proposal. Prop. 226 would have required unions to obtain written approval from their rank-and-file members each year before a portion of her or his dues could be used for political campaigns. It appeared on the June 1998, statewide ballot.
Fahari Jeffers is secretary-treasurer and general counsel for the United Domestic Workers of America/AFSCME. She credits Butkiewicz with recognizing that union power could be used as a strategic tool to build alliances around the community. Jeffers feels that the current positive economic climate provides organized labor with a unique opportunity to build such partnerships.
"People who are civically active in this community and in the know agree that organized labor has a legitimate place at the table, whatever the table," she says. "If we build the right relationships, and are a real partner in the community, we will not be in the boat alone when the economy inevitably turns downward."
The CWA's Beal agrees. "I think people see unions now as having value. We're no longer just the people pounding on the table in the board room. Jerry brought the unions together for the first time in a long time. Labor now has a place at the community table."
Butkiewicz himself credits increasing community awareness of the issues unions have always represented -- living wages, benefits, job security and retirement.
"The people of San Diego believe that people should be treated fairly," he says. "They weren't as aware of these issues 10 years ago. They were so worried about making ends meet that they couldn't worry about anyone else. In the economic condition we're in now, more people have something to share. But many of the people who are living more comfortably have been there. They know what it's like to not have health insurance for your kids. They are more willing to share."
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