PRESS RELEASE

March 6, 2014

Contact: Eric Christen

(858) 431-6337

Coalition Demands that the Union Crafted Agreement be Made Public at Today's Contractor Outreach Meeting!

Union "agreement" has been kept hidden for months yet will impact how $500+ million arena is constructed. Group will ask once again today "Where is the PLA?!"

Sacramento, CA - Today the Sacramento Kings and their lead contractor, Turner Construction, will be holding a "contractor outreach" meeting to discuss job opportunities for local businesses. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson has even applauded the Kings and Turner claiming a commitment to local and small businesses by promoting contracting in the Sacramento region. However this will never happen if a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) is in place.

Thanks to the PLA that was crafted in a backroom deal by local union bosses and team owners, that has still not been made public, the 85% of the local construction workforce that is union-free will be implicitly excluded from bidding the work unless they essentially become union. The PLA was first announced at a press conference held by Mayor Kevin Johnson on September 4, 2013, that turned into a debacle for PLA supporters when PLA opponents showed up and dominated the media coverage.

"With the owners and Turner now having to meet with local businesses to explain how to bid the work, they may actually have to make public this secret deal they have been too embarrassed to show to date." said Eric Christen, executive director of the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction (CFEC). "It's humiliating to be claiming on the one hand that this will be a boon for local businesses when in reality you know that union labor from all over the country will build it because local bidders have been locked out."

PLAs typically require workers to pay union dues, pay into union benefit packages (even though they already have such plans), to be hired through a union hiring hall, and explicitly excludes non-union apprentices from working at all. PLAs have been banned in 11 different California cities and counties, and in 16 different states. In 2012 the city of San Diego, America's 8th largest city, voted 58% to 42% to ban their use on city-funded projects.

"We will continue to demand that this secret deal that Big Labor special interests have crafted be made public so that everyone can see first hand just how exclusionary and costly it will be for the owners, the contractors, the taxpayers, and the workers."

Today's contractor outreach meeting will be held at the Robertson Community Center located at 3525 Norwood Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95838. It will run from 5:00pm to 6:30pm.

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