Irvine construction workers may have a better chance of getting work locally, if they’re part of a union, after Irvine city councilors voted unanimously on June 13 to adopt an agreement with an organization that represents 48 local unions in 14 trades.
The agreement will prioritize the hiring of local Irvine residents for construction projects in the city that are estimated at over $500,000, as well as outlaw construction companies from not following workplace standards.
Under the agreement, contractors must first prioritize local residents for work, which will be referred to them by the local unions.
If none are available, priority will be given to construction workers that are Orange County Veterans, graduates from a union-run apprenticeship program, and finally, union workers living in Orange County.
The agreement’s goal is to have 30 percent of the total work hours on each construction contract coming from local residents.
The agreement comes after a three-year effort initiated by Mayor Farrah Khan where city staff negotiated the terms of the agreement with the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council.
She highlighted that the agreement also encourages recruiting and developing workers through an apprentice training program administered by contractors and the trades council.
“I support this agreement because it supports apprentices from a training program with a true record of graduating individuals that are then going to be earning journey-level wages and get benefits,” Khan said during the meeting.
Over a dozen residents spoke during public comment at the meeting in favor of the agreement.
“This agreement would allow skilled tradesmen and women to work on projects closer to home rather than commuting to other counties,” said a union representative for 2,400 electricians and 200 electrical contractors in Orange County.
He also highlighted that under the agreement apprentices in Irvine would have a better chance of getting work locally.
Kenny Williams, president of the Orange County Labor Federation, which represents 97 unions and 276,000 workers, also voiced support, especially for the agreement’s apprenticeship program.
“The apprenticeship program trains these folks to work safely, to keep them safe and your community members safe during construction,” he said.
Additionally, an ironworker with a union based in Norwalk said he has been driving recently to San Diego, saying there hasn’t been any work locally.
“For the past 10 months or so I was driving from my home in Orange about 125 miles every single day to San Diego,” he said.
He asked the city to adopt the agreement so that workers could “make a living closer to home [so] that we may spend more time enjoying the fruits of our labor with our family and our own communities,” he said.
But not everyone was in support.
A representative from the Associated Builders and Contractors—a trade organization representing 23,000 construction firms nationwide, including some in Southern California—asked the city council to revise the agreement to allow all state-approved apprentices to work in Irvine.
But the city council was not swayed.
Another resident, Dave Everett with the Western Electrical Contractors Association—a nonprofit representing electrical contractors, their employees, and electrical apprentices—accused the agreement of discriminating against non-union apprentices.
He said such an agreement means apprentices that are not union members in the city won’t be able to get projects in Irvine.
He also claimed that 86 percent of construction workers in California are non-union, saying the agreement would discriminate against the majority of workers by prioritizing those in unions and excluding those who are not.
According to a 2019 trades-commissioned study, which used unpublished U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, less than a fifth of California construction workers were unionized in 2017.
