I don't know if anyone even reads my political blog posts. I'm sure an issue about construction isn't very exciting for many of you. But if you give a minute to the issues I discuss, and then think about how issues you care about are similarly handled by our local governments, then I hope that I can turn you from a possibly passive voter to someone who gives a damn.
Getting fed up is how great movements begin.
It is my humble opinion that the PEOPLE currently have little to no voice in our government. Our elected officials are beholden to those who fund their campaigns, whether Democrat, Republican, Tea Party or Independent. Unions and the LARGE corporations (think, Wall Street, AIG, GE, Bank of America) have almost unlimited funds to throw their weight around Washington and in our local state and community governments. Time and time again I see elected officials vote for the most insane things with no regard to taxpayers, not because they believe in it, but because they were pressured by the unions/corporations that fund their campaigns. Reason and logic never prevail in these situations, when average people or small businesses try to explain to the politicians how these policies kill jobs and hurt our communities. I sit in meetings wanting to scream - as a mother, a wife, a taxpayer, a business owner HOW CAN THESE DECISIONS MAKE SENSE!??!
I once heard that small businesses employ 80% of the workforce in our country. Who is the voice for these small businesses? Who is the voice for the voters who fall squarely in the middle between liberal Democrat and staunch Republican? Give me a candidate who represents those voters and they will absolutely have my vote. Unfortunately small businesses and mainstream America can't afford to fund a campaign, so we end up with politicians funded by the big companies with highly paid lobbyists - and the result is policy and regulation that grants favors to these special interests on the backs of small business and average taxpayers.
Last night at the Regional Transit Board of Directors meeting, our company lost the opportunity to bid on $2.5 BILLION in work on the South Sacramento Light Rail project. Due to the actions of four Directors who controlled the majority of the votes, the $2.5 billion project will completely exclude non-union contractors. Why would they do such a thing? Because they are elected officials in the City of Sacramento who are beholden to the labor unions that helped fund their campaign. Without citing any justifiable reasons for the discrimination, despite lots of testimony as to how PLAs limit competition, increase costs and discriminate against the 75% of California that is the non-union construction workforce, these Directors upheld the PLA on the South Sacramento extension. And poof - $2.5 billion is no longer available for our company to bid or our taxpaying workers to build. (I would like to thank the six Directors on the RT Board that understood and spoke openly about the discrimination and incredible cost of a PLA and voted against it.)
If you think it's bad at the local level, it only gets worse at the State level. Last week, at the very end of the legislative session, the unions sponsored and got approved several horrible anti-democratic gut-and-amend bills (bills that started as something completely different and were made into pro-union bills at the last minute).
The gut-and-amend bill that makes me the most angry is Senate Bill 922 which basically tells voters and local governments that they are too stupid to make the right decisions. SB922 stops state funding for public projects in any city/county that bans discriminatory project labor agreements. That's right, if a local government decides to pass a ban on PLAs so that projects are open to ALL contractors, or if voters approve a ban on PLAs in their community, they will no longer receive state funds for construction projects. This bill was in direct response to our ballot initiative in the City and County of Sacramento to ban PLAs. Knowing that the voters would ban PLAs as they have done overwhelmingly by ballot initiative in several other cities, the unions went to the legislature, who owed them for the campaign funds, and effectively took away the democratic rights of voters and local governments in our state. This bill was passed directly down party lines - Democrats voting for it, Republicans voting against it.
Tell me, why do we have local governments or ballot initiatives by the voters if the unions can overrule them in the state legislature?
I was accused last night at the RT Board meeting of not representing the workers, since I myself am a contractor. Like those two things are mutually exclusive! I take considerable issue with this accusation, because in fact, I represent the 200 workers that we employ in our company that should have the right to work on government projects, the 600 some apprentices that are indentured in our non-union apprenticeship program that are excluded from working on a PLA project, and I represent the 75% of the construction industry in California that chooses not to belong to a union. I volunteered last night to represent considerably more workers than the union lobbyist that was speaking in favor of PLAs.
In this state, more than many others, the decks are stacked against anyone who bucks the union system. While this can make a person feel completely powerless at times, there are times when we also win our fight to expose PLAs and government waste, and the politicians make the right decision. I will continue to fight for the small businesses and the people of our community because I am passionate about doing what is best for the industry, I believe in democracy, and I believe in the power of informed voters. And I know that as more and more voters become aware of the special interests that are currently controlling our government, we will do more to replace these beholden politicians with people who truly want to make a difference in the direction of our country.
And that is what leads to really great movements. That is the hope and change that I am looking for.
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