Letter To The Editor

Earlier this week I received a phone call from the Sacramento Bee, wanting to know more about our ballot initiative.  I did a full interview, telling him all about saving taxpayer money, stopping the discrimination against workers who didn't want to join a union and how successful these same measures have been in San Diego and other cities in California.  Yesterday I was very excited to see the article made the front page of the newspaper!


However I was a little disappointed at my supposed quote.  Out of all the good information I gave him, he quoted me on something I'm not even sure I said.  Man, now I know how Sarah Palin feels.  Ha!


Anyway, here is a link to the article.


And here is a follow up letter to the editor I sent today.  Hopefully it makes it into the paper so I can sound a little more intelligent about the issues!


Dear Editor:


Regarding your coverage of the measures we are bringing to voters in the City and County of Sacramento, this is not a union versus non-union issue as your article suggests.  Our firm is signatory to several union agreements yet we support these measures because they will encourage openness in the construction marketplace on publicly funded projects and thus reduce costs to taxpayers. 


The agreements our measures will prohibit require workers to pay into union pension and benefit programs even if they already have such benefits.  Since these workers will never vest in these programs, the workers lose this money.  Non-union workers (80% of the local construction workforce) want to avoid this pay cut so non-union contractors shy away from these projects - and decreased competition drives up the cost of the project to taxpayers.  This is why our company, and its union and non-union employees, support these pro-worker, pro-taxpayer measures.  

- Dina Kimble, Royal Electric Company