Marin hits deadline for firehouse project labor agreement

Marin County has met a tight deadline to approve a project labor agreement for a new fire department headquarters in San Geronimo by the end of 2028.

A project labor agreement, known as a PLA, is a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement that establishes the terms and conditions of employment for a specific construction job. The agreement was hammered out over four months of negotiations between the county, the North Bay Building and Construction Trades Council and the Northern California Carpenters Regional Council. Supervisors Dennis Rodoni and Eric Lucan participated in the negotiations.

The agreement had to be completed by the end of January. Otherwise, public works managers estimated the cost of the project, projected to be $83 million, would increase by $250,000 per month.

“There was a time in December I wasn’t sure we were going to get here,” Rodoni said when the Board of Supervisors approved the agreement on Jan. 20.

The county had to extend its initial deadline for concluding the agreement from Dec. 15 to Dec. 31 to allow for signature collections through the holidays. Also, the procedure for getting the item on the supervisors’ agenda for the Jan. 20 meeting had to be compressed.

The agreement requires that qualified contractors and subcontractors who bid on the project abide by a set of rules. These rules include giving priority to hiring workers who live in Marin County; paying prevailing wages and benefits; using state-approved joint apprenticeship programs; and agreeing not to engage in strikes or work slowdowns.

Several local union leaders expressed enthusiastic support for the agreement.

John Medina, president of the North Bay Building and Construction Trades Council, thanked the supervisors for deciding to use a project labor agreement for the first time in Marin.

“Hopefully, we’ll be back here in the years that follow talking to this Board of Supervisors about how we can do this with all the county’s projects,” Medina said.

Michael Allen, the secretary/treasurer of the organization, said, “I prefer to call these project labor agreements ‘community workforce agreements,’ because it’s all about community. It’s truly my honor to be representing men and women, who, rather than just having jobs, have careers.”

Representatives of non-union contractors criticized the supervisors’ decision to use a project labor agreement.

Technically, all qualified contractors and subcontractors may bid on and perform work regardless of union affiliation, provided they agree to be bound by the project labor agreement. But Eric Christen, director of the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, said that under the agreement, all non-union contractors will be limited to using just one of their own employees.

“So I wish we would just stop with the Orwellian language and actually explain to people what we’re doing here, which is rewarding big labor special interests,” Christen said.

Christen said the project labor agreement will increase the cost of the work because fewer contractors will bid.

Rollie Katz, executive director of the Marin Association of Public Employees, said, “I want to emphasize the importance of having working people being paid a decent salary and having health care, a pension and other benefits. These things are not guaranteed when you have non-union employers performing the work.”

Rodoni said the project labor agreement will bolster Marin’s middle-income sector “by providing good paying jobs with opportunities for benefits and health care, and apprenticeship programs.”

Lucan said, “As we’ve heard today, the PLA provides an opportunity for careers, not just jobs.”

Next month, the supervisors will consider allowing county staff to proceed with the selection process for the “progressive design-build” entity for the project. Like the project labor agreement, a progressive design-build construction method will be a first for the county.

In the past, the county has used a traditional design-bid-build construction method, in which the project is fully designed first, then advertised for construction bids. The lowest responsible bidder is typically awarded the contract.

With a progressive design-build approach, however, the county will select a designer-builder based on qualifications, then work with that entity to come up with a design before agreeing on scope and pricing.