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HomeMy WebLinkAbout7.1 Community Workforce Agreement with the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County and Affiliated UnionsSTAFF REPORT CITY COUNCIL Page 1 of 6 Agenda Item 7.1 DATE:January 11, 2022 TO:Honorable Mayor and City Councilmembers FROM:Linda Smith, City Manager SUBJECT:Community Workforce Agreement with the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County and Affiliated UnionsPrepared by:John Bakker, City Attorney and John Stefanski, Assistant to theCity Manager EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:The City Council will consider approving a Community Workforce Agreement with the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County and affiliated unions. The proposed Community Workforce Agreement would cover all public works projects valued at or over $1,000,000 and will ensure there are no labor issues related to major construction projects while bolstering local efforts to connect residents with careers in the building and construction trades. STAFF RECOMMENDATION:Adopt the Resolution Approving the Community Workforce Agreement between the City of Dublin and the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County and its Affiliated Unions. FINANCIAL IMPACT:The financial impacts of Community Workforce Agreements (CWAs) on public works projects have been the subject of much debate. Previous Staff Reports to the City Council have detailed the anecdotal evidence from other municipal jurisdictions and the fiscal impacts of their CWAs. However, the extent to which those impacts can be directly attributed to the CWA versus other local economic trends is not known. The proposed CWA will have a direct financial impact on the City, which will be attributed to the administrative burdens of implementing and monitoring the agreement. The City does not have the Staff capacity to manage the agreement in-house. On October 14, 2021, Staff issued a Request for Qualifications for Community Workforce Agreement Administrator/Coordinator Services to select a consultant to manage the agreement. The estimated cost of these contract services is $250,000 annually, or $1,250,000 for the term of the CWA. These costs will be spread across the various eligible Capital Improvement Program (CIP) projects, increasing individual project budgets. The approval of this consulting services contract will be considered at a later City Council 99 Page 2 of 6 meeting. Lastly, Staff may need to return to the City Council for additional budget authorization during the mid-year financial review for any CIP projects that will be bid under this agreement, and for which additional appropriation and budget authorization may be required. DESCRIPTION:BackgroundCWAs are binding, pre-hire agreements requiring the use of organized labor (unions) on public works projects. They are akin to Project Labor Agreements, which apply such pre-hire requirements to either a specific project or class of projects. CWAs typically apply to a broader class of a jurisdiction’s public works projects and include provisions, such as local hire, designated to benefit the community. Beyond those community benefits, CWAs include labor-peace provisions that prohibit strikes, work slowdowns, stoppages, and lockouts. In 2019, the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County (BTC) approached the City about potentially negotiating a CWA for capital projects. On December 3, 2019, Staff presented a report (Attachment 3) introducing concepts and key provisions of CWAs to initiate a City Council discussion on the topic. On August 18, 2020, Staff presented a second report (Attachment 3) providing additional information, research, and anecdotal evidence from other agencies that have experience negotiating and administering CWAs. After that presentation, the City Council directed Staff to initiate negotiations with the BTC and provided Staff with the general policy direction for key components of the CWA. This included the following: 1. Project Threshold—Applicable on projects when a construction cost exceeds $1,500,000, based on engineer’s estimates, unless there was a small business carveout sufficient to justify lowering or removing the threshold. 2. Core Worker—Include a Core Worker provision and not place additional eligibility restrictions on Core Workers.3. Local Hire—Include Local Hire goals and define local as “Alameda County” and a set milage radius from the City limits. 4. Apprenticeships—Include all state-approved apprenticeship training programs, not just Joint Labor-Management Apprenticeship programs. 5. Benefit Parity—The CWA should alleviate the issue of non-union firms having to pay “double benefits.” 6. Career Pipelines—The CWA should detail ways the City and the BTC will work together to help develop a pipeline of talent in the building and construction trades. 7. Timeline on Referrals—The CWA should ensure that if a hiring hall is unable to fill a role within a given period, a contractor can then deploy one of their own core workers. DiscussionSince September 2020, the City and the BTC have been working towards negotiating a mutually beneficial agreement. The result of these negotiations is the proposed CWA which is attached as Exhibit A to the Resolution. Below provides a summary of the key elements of the final negotiated CWA, with the cited agreement sections identified in parenthesis: 100 Page 3 of 6 1. Term (18.2): The City and the BTC negotiated an effective date of December 7, 2021, which was the date the City Council was to consider this item originally. However, the agreement will not become operative until 90-days following the effective date (Operative Date). This 90-day window is designed to give the City time to select a contractor to assist with the administration of the CWA, as well as give Public Works Staff time to make updates to bid packages and other relevant documents. The “Operative Term” is a period of five years,which will end on March 7, 2027.The City requested a longer term of the agreement in order to compile enough data to conduct a full analysis of the costs and benefits of this initial agreement. Most cities have elected for three-year terms but have typically had to extend their agreements to allow for more time for such analyses to take place.2. Scope (1.17; 2.2): The CWA will apply to all City construction projects where the engineer’s estimate of the total cost of the project or the cumulative bid amount(s) submitted by the contractor(s) award Construction Contracts for the Project meets or exceeds $1,000,000). The City initially negotiated for a threshold of $1,500,000 with a small business carveout. The BTC was unwilling to entertain a higher project threshold and instead offered either a $1,000,000 threshold or a small business carveout capped at 5% of the current CIP projectbudgets.1 Upon further research, Staff determined that a Small Business Carveout would add significant administrative complexity to the agreement, and therefore elected for the $1,000,000 threshold which is on par with similar agreements in Alameda County. The CWA will govern all Construction Contracts awarded during the Operative Term. Anycurrent construction contracts awarded prior to this date will not be subject to the requirements of the CWA. 3. Exclusions (2.4): Furthermore, the agreement will not apply to construction contracts awarded by entities other than the City. The CWA will not cover work performed by the City’s own employees, as permitted by the Public Contract Code. Construction contracts issued during a locally declared emergency which are associated with emergency response and recovery activities and are subject to FEMA procurement and contract requirements are exempt from the agreement. The CWA excludes construction contracts substantially funded by any federal, state, local, or other public agency that prohibits the application of this Agreement; however, with respect to such work, the City agrees to make a reasonable effort to defend the application of the Agreement.4. Labor Peace (4.1): During duration of the Projects covered by the agreement, there shall be no strikes, sympathy strikes, work stoppages, picketing, hand-billing, or otherwise advising the public that a labor dispute exists, refusal to work, walk-off, sit down, stand-in, wobble, 1 The small business carveout would have exempted those businesses with 100 or fewer employees and an average annual gross receipt of $15M or less, over the last three tax years, and could only cover 5% of the projects total budget. 101 Page 4 of 6 boycott, or slowdowns of any kind for any reason, by the Unions or employees employed on the Project, at the job site of the Project or any other facility of the City because of a dispute on the Project. Nor shall the Unions or construction persons employed on the Projects participate in any strikes, sympathy strikes, work stoppages, picketing, hand billing, slowdowns, or otherwise advising the public that a labor dispute exists at a Project jobsite because of a dispute between Unions and Contractor(s) on any other project.5. Joint-Administrative Committee (5.4): The City and the BTC will establish a Joint Administrative Committee comprised of an equal number of representatives from the City and the BTC. This committee will ensure the terms of the Agreement are being fulfilled and concerns pertaining the operation of the Agreement are address. 6. Sole Operator Carveout (8.3): The agreement will not apply to Sole Operators self-performing work on a covered project. However, should the Sole Operator hire any additional employees, the sole operator will then be treated as a core worker and the subsequent employees will be dispatched from the Hiring Hall.7. Referral Timeliness (8.6): Under the agreement should a Union Hiring Hall be unable to fill a requested position within a 48-hour period (excluding weekends and holidays), the Contractor/Employer is then free to obtain the worker from any source.8. Core Workers (8.6): A Contractor may request by name, and the local Union shall honor, referral of Core Workers. The Union will first refer to such Contractor one worker from the applicable hiring hall, and then will refer one of the Contractor’s Core Workers, up to a total of five Core Workers. After that threshold is met, all hiring must be completed through the Hiring Hall. Core Workers must have been on the contractor/employer’s active payroll for at least 90 of the last 180 days; possess all licenses and certification required by law; be able to safely perform the basic functions of the applicable trade as required by law and have worked at least 1,000 hours in the applicable craft or trade. Core Workers will be disclosed by the Contractor at the outset of the project and the Union will recognize them provisionally. These Core Worker parameters are like those included in other municipal CWAs in Alameda CountyStaff attempted to secure a higher number of total core workers, which the BTC was unwilling to entertain. However, five is the number of core workers included in other city CWAs in Alameda County. 9. Local Hires (10.1): Local Residents are those individuals that reside within Alameda County or within a 15-mile radius of the City limits (which includes but is not limited to all or portions of the Cities and unincorporated communities of Alamo, Danville, San Ramon, Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Orinda, and Moraga.). The Local Hire Goal is a minimum of 20% of all hours worked on the project to be worked by Local Residents. 102 Page 5 of 6 Many municipal CWAs have included a standard 30% local hire goal; however, staff’s research indicates that those goals have not been met. The City and the BTC believe the 20% local hire goal is achievable, given the parameters of “Local Residents” and availability of eligible workers in that area. 10.Apprenticeships (10.2): Contractors will be required to hire one new apprentice for the first $1,000,000 as determined by the engineer’s estimate. Thereafter, the Contractors will be required to hire one new apprentice for every $5,000,000 as determined by the engineer’s estimate. Apprentices must work a minimum of 10% of the total craft’s work hours and may be deployed to another project to ensure the minimum number of hours are met. New Apprentices are “Local Residents” who are being sponsored into or has been enrolled in a State-Approved apprenticeship training program administered by a Joint-Apprenticeship Training Committee for less than two years. The City attempted to negotiate apprenticeship language which would include both unilateral and joint-management apprenticeship programs. However, upon further review of apprenticeship data for the defined Local Residents, the total number of Local Residentsenrolled in a unilateral apprenticeship program was significantly lower than the number in the joint-management programs. Given this dynamic, and the BTC’s apprehension to including unilateral apprenticeship programs, the City and the BTC agreed to only joint-management apprenticeship programs. 11.Community Partnerships (10.3): Unique to Dublin’s CWA is the inclusion of a Community Workforce Partnerships clause. It states that the City and the BTC, in partnership with the Construction Trades Workforce Initiative and in conjunction with other interested Tri-Valley community-based organizations, will work together in good faith to identify and develop an initiative, or multiple initiatives, to connect residents of the Tri-Valley Region with careers in the Building and Construction Trades, with a particular focus on providing opportunities to disadvantaged individuals. The City was unable to secure any provisions regarding benefit parity with the BTC. Next StepsOnce approved by the City Council, Staff and the BTC will facilitate the execution of the CWA. Once fully executed, the City will have 90 days to take all administrative steps necessary to ensure a smooth implementation of the agreement, including selecting and onboarding the Community Workforce Agreement Administrator/Coordinator contractor. STRATEGIC PLAN INITIATIVE:None. NOTICING REQUIREMENTS/PUBLIC OUTREACH:The City Council Agenda was posted. Copies of this report have been sent to interested parties. 103 Page 6 of 6 ATTACHMENTS:1) Resolution Approving the Community Workforce Agreement between the City of Dublin and the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County and its Affiliated Unions2) Exhibit A to the Resolution -- Community Workforce Agreement between the City and the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County3) Previous Staff Reports on CWAs 104 Attachment 1 Reso. No. XX-22, Item X.X, Adopted XX/XX/22 Page 1 of 2 RESOLUTION NO. XX – 22 A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DUBLIN APPROVING THE COMMUNITY WORKFORCE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF DUBLIN AND THE BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION TRADES COUNCIL OF ALAMEDA COUNTY AND ITS AFFILIATED UNIONS WHEREAS,the City Council has expressed a strong desire to ensure labor peace during the construction of City public works projects; and WHEREAS,the timely and successful completion of the City’s construction projects is of the utmost importance to meet the needs of the City and avoid increased costs resulting from delays in construction; and WHEREAS,the City places high priority upon the development of comprehensive programs for the recruitment, training and employment of local area residents and military veterans, and recognizes the capacity of local pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs to provide meaningful and sustainable career pathways in the construction industry; and WHEREAS, the City and the Building Trades Council of Alameda County have negotiated a Community Workforce Agreement (CWA), attached as Exhibit A to this Resolution; and WHEREAS, the purpose of the CWA is to promote the efficiency of construction operations for the City of Dublin through the use of skilled labor resulting in quality construction outcomes, to provide for the peaceful settlement of labor disputes and grievances without strikes or lockouts, thereby promoting the public interest in assuring the timely and economical completion of City public works projects, and to increase training and employment opportunities in the construction trades through local hire, apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship, and community partnership programs for residents of the region. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the City Council of the City of Dublin hereby approves and authorizes the City Manager to execute the Community Workforce Agreement attached hereto as Exhibit A. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the City Manager is authorized to make any necessary, non-substantive changes to carry out the intent of this Resolution. PASSED, APPROVED AND ADOPTED this 11th day of January 2022, by the following vote: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: 105 Reso. No. XX-22, Item X.X, Adopted XX/XX/22 Page 2 of 2 ABSTAIN: ______________________________ Mayor ATTEST: _________________________________ City Clerk 106 Attachment 2 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 $WWDFKPHQW 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154