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The regional planning board responsible for the infrastructure needs of San Diego County voted Friday to open negotiations with local labor leaders for an agreement that would ensure construction workers on future projects are paid union wages.
By a vote of 11-7, the board of directors of the San Diego Association of Governments, or SANDAG, agreed to enter into exclusive talks with the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council to adopt a “community benefits agreement.”
If adopted later this year, the community benefits agreement could affect billions of dollars in future transportation and other projects proposed by SANDAG, the regional board representing San Diego County and its 18 cities.
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SANDAG’s board on Friday is expected to approve a project labor agreement platform affecting billions of dollars in future construction work in the region, but a group representing Black contractors is urging it to reconsider.
Members of the Black Contractors Association of San Diego rallied outside SANDAG headquarters in downtown San Diego Wednesday saying the platform would exclude Black Americans from future apprenticeship opportunities in construction. The association, part of the National Black Contractors Association, is the only state and federally approved apprenticeship program specifically for Black Americans.
A project labor agreement, sometimes called a community benefits agreement, involves a government reaching a collective bargaining agreement with labor organizations establishing terms and conditions of employment for a specific construction project.
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San Diego County had the biggest increase in homebuilding in Southern California in 2020 during a pandemic that shuttered much of the economy.
There were 9,486 homes constructed in 2020, up 18 percent from a dismal 2019, said the Real Estate Research Council of Southern California. It is still way off from the more than 17,000 homes built in 2004 but was a return to about average for what has been constructed annually since the region climbed out of the Great Recession.
Real estate experts say the region is still short of meeting its housing needs. Despite many stories of people leaving California because of high costs, San Diego County’s population has continued to grow, albeit more slowly.