For the past two years, a sea of ​​California carpenters have clogged the Capitol every few months to show their support for high-profile housing legislation, their yellow and orange vests, hard hats and work boots standing in stark contrast to the suits, dresses and fancy shoes are more common in the hallways and interrogation rooms of Sacramento.

Their grassroots lobbying has paid off with major legislative victories

in the past two years

, including a pair of housing bills that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law on Wednesday.

The laws represent more than the possibility of much-needed new homes in a state with a housing shortage of 2.5 million homes. They also signal a shift in power dynamics among California unions, and which unions have the greatest influence on labor standards at housing sites.

“The Carpenters’ commitment to housing policy has been an absolute gamechanger,” said Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who chairs his chamber’s housing committee and is the author of both bills, Senate Bills 4 and 423.

The first bill, SB 4, will make it easier for nonprofit colleges and faith-based organizations to build affordable housing on their land, while SB 423 will expand the current law that allows developers to expedite construction of multifamily projects in cities that are lagging behind. are affected by their state. set housing objectives. The measures build on Assembly Bill 2011, a law enacted in July to convert buildings traditionally zoned for commercial retail and office space into affordable housing.

The new laws come after years of gridlock on housing proposals, leading to a rift between the California Conference of Carpenters, which is taking on new power in the Capitol, and the State Building and Construction Trades Council, one of the most influential players in Sacramento. the past ten years.

Divisions arose last year when the carpenters broke with the

Construction trade

council and other influential unions and sponsored AB 2011, legislation opposed by the broader labor movement because it lacks stricter labor standards.

AS OF 2011, developers are still required to pay union-approved, or “prevailing,” wages and provide certain health care benefits to workers, whether they are unionized or not. But the work standard is lacking

Construction trade

The construction union prefers a mandate known as “skilled and trained,” which generally means that workers on construction sites belong to a union.

In the Democrat-controlled legislature, where labor has outsized influence

at the Capitol

Last year’s union battle put many lawmakers in the uncomfortable position of having to choose a side.

Opponents of the skilled and trained standard argue that it is unattainable for housing developers because there are not enough union workers to meet the threshold. The

Construction trade

Unions claim it is a model that protects workers from exploitation and inadequate job safety protection.

“I think the prevailing wage in housing legislation is a positive step,” said Chris Hannan, who was elected president of the United Nations

Construction trade

State Building and Construction Trades Council this summer. “We don’t believe that’s enough.”

Hannan

replaced the former president of Building Trades

Andrew Meredith, who passed, resigned

his position

this year as president, as the battle over labor standards raged

on

at the Capitol.

Carpenters union leadership says they had no choice but to move forward with their own plan after talks with the union

Construction trade

council fell apart.

Jay Bradshaw, executive secretary-treasurer of the Northern California Carpenters

union

Union said the new standards will help dismantle and create the underground construction economy

new

employment for union members, while protecting all workers from wage theft and other unfair labor practices currently taking place at residential job sites.

The carpenters approach with the new standards is to organize members at job sites, but the

Have construction workers

The trade council has historically preferred to require a unionized workforce to begin with.

“The labor standards we have developed will significantly help our current membership. … And it will also take wages out of competition for those who are not represented,” Bradshaw said. ‘And then it is our job to organize those people, not the government’s.’

Todd David, a Wiener political consultant who served as executive director of the Housing Action Coalition in 2022, said the Carpenters’ increased influence

‘

helped pave the way for new housing legislation.

“There were a lot of quiet conversations between lawmakers with people who knew the carpenters very well, like, can they really do this?” David said.

They did.

Thus began a new era for the carpenters and their Democratic allies eager to pass bigger housing bills into law, using the same labor language.

“They showed up, and they really planted a flag in AB 2011,” said Assembly Member Buffy Wicks, the Oakland Democrat who wrote the legislation and chairs the Assembly Committee on Housing. ‘It was, I think, a breakthrough moment for the carpenters, where they decided that enough is enough, we are going to build homes, we are going to introduce strict labor standards, we are going to break the juggernaut that has existed for years. it kept us from actually accomplishing things in California in terms of housing policy, in terms of labor standards. And they did that.’

The

Construction trade

construction trade council and

theirs

his allies consider the battle far from over.

Hannan et al

Calm

view the labor language dispute as an easy choice between protecting workers or making them vulnerable to exploitation and occupational safety issues that can arise from a lack of training.

“Our members… are the very best at what they do. And they deserve us to fight as hard as we can for them,” Hannan said. “And we believe we will be the strongest and loudest voice for the construction worker.”

But the

Construction trade

lost counsel

theirs

his second battle this year after Wiener introduced his two bills, which include largely the same labor standards as last year’s deal.

Considered this year’s most consequential housing measure, SB 423 will extend for another decade the current policy that allows developers to streamline multifamily development in cities that have failed to plan enough housing units, which would be available by 2026 expire. The original law was passed in 2017 and led to more than 18,000 proposed units, the majority for low-income families.

Last year’s coalition included the California Housing Consortium and other affordable housing groups and two other major unions, the California School Employees Assn. and the Service Employees International Union.

But

This year, Wiener and the carpenters expanded support for the labor changes by adding more construction unions.

“We held on, and I think the nature of the crisis forced people to do what they weren’t comfortable doing on labor issues,” said Danny Curtin, director of the Carpenters Conference. “Breaking ranks, or however you want to put it, is never simple or easy. And you don’t want to do it unless you really think there’s no real alternative. But it was untouchable, our bill was untouchable.”

Others don’t see it that way.

Scott Wetch, a lobbyist who represented several unions in the negotiations, described SB 423 as an undemocratic bill that would come back to haunt any lawmaker who voted for it, a “political aneurysm” that will “one day burst.”

He criticized the way housing can be built in a streamlined capacity that disregards community input and questioned whether health care requirements will be able to withstand future legal challenges.

And while some unions began advocating for their members to fight for stricter labor rules, Wetch said, others, like the carpenters, “sold their members down the river.”

“The carpenters went to a handful of developers and told them, ‘Hey, we want to get some work, we want to work with you, and we’re going to be the Judases that remove these worker protections that you guys don’t like because we want to get some work out of you want to get,” Wech said.

The carpenters have shaken off that criticism. They see the issue as a done deal: the new labor standards are now the blueprint for California’s housing laws.

“The carpenters prefer to be problem solvers rather than just problem fighters,” Bradshaw said.