200 words: My Support of Senate Bill 922

200 words: My Support of Senate Bill 922    By Loch David Crane M. Ed.

Question: Do you support a proposed ban on the city of San Diego ever requiring project labor agreements on major construction efforts? Does SB 922 change anything for you if it’s passed?

    I do not support the ban of this important project labor agreement. SB 922 seems to be a great improvement: it assures a “collective bargaining agreement that establishes terms and conditions of employment for a specific construction project.”  This means the city may not be taken advantage of, nor the workers, nor the citizens. It requires contractors, who are seldom  bound by their consciences, to “provide significant benefits to taxpayers, promoting transparent competition, and ensuring a reliable supply of labor.”  Who could disagree with that. . . Except greedy profiteers?

    A project labor agreement would also prohibit “discrimination based on race, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, political affiliation, or membership in a labor organization.”   These are all fundamental principles of the Democratic Party which I wholeheartedly support, and for which Filner was jailed.   

    As an independent landowner, SB 992 does not change much for me as an individual; however it does provide benefits to my fellow citizens and taxpayers.  The only ways I would improve it would be to require President Obama’s E-verify program (so that legal Americans would be hired) and perhaps hiring veterans and unemployed first. There is so much good we could do if we tried.