Why the minimum wage proposal for CA workers failed

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A proposal that would establish a minimum wage unprecedented for some California construction workers, was delayed this year in the face of fierce opposition from a grand coalition of construction unions.

Assembly Bill 1751 will speed up the approval of new townhouses. In exchange for complying with this law, real estate developers will have to pay their workers at least $28 an hour.

In a hearing before the state Senate’s housing committee, Oakland Democrat Buffy Weeks, a co-sponsor of the bill, reluctantly agreed to eliminate the minimum wage “because of strong opposition to this change from construction unions.”

Sen. Jesse Arreguin, the committee’s chairman, ultimately conditioned its approval on eliminating the wage measure. The Berkeley Democrat has vowed to push for a minimum wage policy in the coming months that is acceptable to all parties, including the State Construction Trades Council.

The council, known colloquially in Sacramento as “the Guilds,” is a union coalition of electricians, plumbers, metalworkers and other skilled workers. He has spoken out against the measure since its introduction in April, arguing that would undermine federal minimum wages even the highest required for publicly funded projects.

The state’s carpenters unions, a frequent political opponent of unions on housing policy, disputed that characterization, arguing that housing construction workers rarely work on projects where pay is governed by federal public works rules. The bill is sponsored by the New California Coalition, a centrist political lobbying group made up mostly of business groups.

After the wage provision was withdrawn, the unions whose members gathered at the hearing took a neutral position on the bill.

The bill eventually passed the Senate Housing Committee, but Carpenters was outraged by the removal of the labor language, sentiments that were directed in part at the committee chairman.

Despite Arreguín’s promise to seek compromise in the future, “(I) don’t think he understands how difficult it is … his lack of leadership,” Danny Curtin, director of the California Council of Woodworkers, said in a text message.

Several Democratic members of the committee expressed similar, though less intense, disappointment.

“We have a segment of the population that should be earning more than the minimum wage,” said Sen. Lena Gonzalez, D-Long Beach.

Weeks ended her testimony on a similar note.

“The idea of ​​raising the threshold from $16 to $28 seems like something we should be able to do easily in this legislature as Democrats,” he said.

Even with the wage provision removed, AB 1751 could cause problems. Another Democrat on the committee, Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, said the changes made today do not address her concerns about the bill’s circumvention of local government land use. Durazo chairs the Local Government Committee, where the bill will head this week.