UA Local 393 members have worked hard to make this happen. And I’m proud to report that last Tuesday night, we won big for working families in San Jose!

The San Jose City Council passed a groundbreaking set of policies to raise job quality and create career opportunities in construction, Silicon Valley’s second-fastest growing industry.

These policies will help San Jose’s construction workers support their families, and provide a pathway into the skilled construction trades for under-represented communities, by:

• Setting standards for fair wages, hiring local workers, and creating career opportunities on private developments that receive taxpayer subsidies.
• Strengthening worker protections and expanding access to middle-class construction careers on public works projects.

While Silicon Valley is best known for programmers and software engineers, the tech boom has also spurred demand for construction. More than 32,000 people in Santa Clara County work in construction, but the industry is split between high-road contractors that invest in their workforce, and low-road contractors that exploit workers and have widespread safety violations.

In 2016, our study found San Jose’s public construction projects fell short in providing career opportunities to our diverse local communities. Last month, we exposed how the two-tiered character of San Jose’s construction industry has driven tens of thousands into working poverty — and contributed to occupational segregation through major race and gender disparities in pay and representation.

“The policies adopted by the City Council demonstrate that data can overcome misinformation. These policies will lift up many working families in our city and provide construction career opportunities for many more local residents. We applaud the Mayor and Council members who were not mislead by the campaign against this vital reform,” said Ben Field, Executive Officer, South Bay Labor Council.

San Jose is now one of the first cities in California to help level this playing field by establishing workforce and hiring standards on private developments receiving public subsides. The win also builds on the community workforce policies we’ve won at VTA and the County of Santa Clara.

Last night’s vote comes after more than two years of organizing and advocacy by workers and community leaders. We’re thankful to have strong partners in the Santa Clara-San Benito Building Trades Council, Working Partnerships USA, the Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Sprinkler Fitters (MEPS) unions, and the South Bay Labor Council.

Thank you to Mayor Liccardo, Vice Mayor Carrasco, and Council members Peralez, Arenas, Jimenez and Rocha for leading the way on this issue since last year, and to Council members Jones and Nguyen for their support. And thanks to everyone who came out to actions and Council meetings over the past two years to stand up for good, family-supporting construction careers.

Now City staff will move forward with preparing ordinance language and putting the Community Workforce policy into effect — stay tuned for more updates!

In Solidarity,

Steve Flores
Business Manager
UA Local 393