Building Industry Association
of San Diego

The California Supreme Court ruled this week that the state’s Prevailing Wage mandate can not be forced upon Charter Cities for public works projects. The Prevailing Wage law is essentially a mandatory union wage and can add up to 30% in total construction costs when compared to the private sector.   The court ruling stems from a lawsuit by the Building and Construction Trade Union against the City of Vista when the North County City constructed its new City Hall using market rate labor costs rather than the government mandate.  Vista successfully argued that its Charter City status allowed it to set its own rules and was exempt from the state government union wage mandate.  The State Supreme Court agreed in a 5 to 2 decision.

It comes on the heals of yet another union defeat at the ballot box in June when San Diego voters overwhelmingly approved initiatives that prohibit union project labor agreements and enacted reforms to the government union pension system. The decision has far reaching effects for more than 100 state Charter Cities including San Diego, Carlsbad, Chula Vista, Oceanside and San Marcos.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012 at 11:51 am and is filed under CEO Connection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.