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all right so everybody well welcome let's go ahead and get started thank you everybody for being here today um this morning or sometime today or this afternoon i'm sorry this afternoon it feels like morning because it's been raining here and it's um dark but we'll have mian rice a director of diversity and contracting for the port of seattle joining us to give us some of his remarks and this morning representing the port of seattle we have tamaka thornton so i want to welcome tamaka as a sponsor for the event and then also our other sponsor for the event is united states department of transportation small business transportation resource center and the project director lily keefe is here so tamaka if you can go ahead this is our last session right now that we've scheduled session number seven for the construction port general virtual workshops so tamaka let everybody know how you're feeling about the workshops what's going on and and just your words of wisdom for us this morning or this afternoon sorry i thank you and good afternoon everyone thank you tonya lilly jessica daryl marny it's really been a pleasure um i have now gotten used to virtual i do love the fact that we still can see each other and these series of workshops for construction and the a e have been really good i think everyone has come out learning something new definitely being able to network with others has been a tremendous benefit and overall hopefully we can do this again so i really appreciate of course lilly and her team i appreciate all of you all the business owners the experts everyone and so again thank you so very much uh for taking time out of your schedule to uh be a part of this um it's really appreciated thank you tamika all right can you hear me now yes oh thank you sorry for my tardiness today's a commission day and uh you know some days you just don't know when you got your names to be called and so uh yeah today was one of those days so even though you weren't on the agenda so anyway hey i just wanted to reach out thank you for the time uh to to come on today i i first of all i i just what a wonderful class and the wonderful folks that um and i wanted to thank all of you guys for participating especially with you lilly and and tanya mata and and jessica chang and uh mr sundell the uh fabulous mr daryl sundell and marny gosh and all the subject matter experts um you guys are just awesome and i hope uh all all of you who are participating and have been participating the past couple weeks have been uh have enjoyed yourself basically and got a lot out of it uh it is uh exciting times here at the poor seattle and also across our region i know that there's some covert things going on but we're still pushing along and a lot of opportunities are still here i know that with the port of seattle we are [Music] not only are we for next year we're continuing this type of uh sessions in the future but also we're looking at doing an accelerator program as well with some uh some small cohorts as we continue to continue to sharpen our our uh our pencils and our and make sure that we're bringing along everybody um small businesses uh to the future um and especially with working with poor seattle so i you know construction consulting goods and services what we all do and operate and maintain within the port and uh your skill sets is definitely needed and i couldn't be more prouder of all you guys efforts and dedication to do trainings like this so this this is phenomenal please take i think there are surveys at the end [Music] and because we want to know how we improve and so using the toyota process kaizen gimbal way you know always looking for seeking for improvement so please submit uh send in your surveys not only just for this class but also if you participate in other classes throughout the whole sessions please uh give us your thoughts um because we want to make sure it's valuable to you not just now but also in the future so um sorry again for my tardiness um but i guess i'll turn it back over to uh let's say lily or tanya it's gonna be me absolutely so jesse i just want to echo what myan director mian mentioned it has been a pleasure working with you guys especially with our sponsor part of seattle we are so grateful that we get a sponsor that really understand and you know it's so quick when we talk about it um six months ago right me and about this uh port uh poor jen i was like you know thinking like seven weeks gonna be a long time but you know what i wanna cry because you know what and tomorrow next week we don't have the class anymore i'm gonna miss you guys and you guys been coming and joining us every week learning i mean i know tamara calling me four times yesterday to tell me that hey do we still have a class i said yes and she's like excited and another thing that um i wanna let you guys know please work with us after the class i've been telling everybody you know people go to class they network they just you know learning let's work together after that i think that's the key that's the most important thing technical assistance and i just get a text today from mari she said she get badges with the port of seattle it's a small contract but she's been with us what seven weeks come on kurt you could make it and ralph i mean i i think ronald's already on contract before seattle tamara and ophelia let's make it happen guys it's not gonna be easy again like i said it's gonna be a lot of challenges and that's why you have us tanya lily and then you know jessica and daryl and work with us and um just you know tell us what you need you know we will make it happen i mean it's not like you're going to get a contract but technical assistance holding hands that's the key so i just wanna say thank you to everybody been joining us setting a time for like three or four hours a week that's a lot of time for small business owners so i really appreciate your time so again thank you and please reach out to us please send us the survey because if you need more classes more like uh highly skilled uh more like uh advanced class we'll make it happen thank you all right thank you everybody me and so good to see you i think the last time i saw you at the urban league you were still with turner and now you are the director over at the part of seattle and that was when i was with tony benjamin so good to see you it's been a long time yeah it's been a real long time and yeah people only know i used to work for turner they don't need to know that but you know what you're making changes and and i know that um several of our our classes they talked about the port of seattle and the ranking was they were ranking the port as number one because of the commitment and so to see tanika there it's it's exciting because i know tamika and i know that her commitment to small business and equity and and justice in contracting is important to her and of course tina boyd's been there for a long time and i know tina from before so it's you know you've got a great team over at the port and so we're so thankful to see all of you every single week joining us so everybody go ahead no i think it's great and and a couple people keep me straight and that would be ralph lavera and mark wheeler over over the years and times as well as daryl so they all keep me keep me front and center and slap me around i need to be slapped so here we go yep sometimes we all need it right yeah and we gotta have our friends that we trust to slap us around and tell us what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong but the main thing is that our firms know yep yep friends our friends will always tell us the truth whether it hurts or not man but we've got really great participants and again i want to make sure because jessica wanted me to ask you all to make sure that you're responding to the surveys that have been sent out for each of the classes because it's important we're we're actually going to be compiling the data from the surveys and remember the surveys we don't know who you are you can just answer the surveys if you want to you know if you want to tell us who you are you want us to contact you as part of the survey that's fine as well but we are looking forward to your answers on the surveys because improvement is always something that we should be looking at and you know where the class is helpful so we need to hear back from you because what i keep saying to each and every one of you is these workshops are geared to serve you not the other way around and so the more we know the better off you know the better we can make our classes for all of you so today we are so blessed to have mark wheeler here with us and mark is going to educate us on on that topic that a lot of people feel like there's a cloud around it or it's not very clear which is a project labor agreement and so mark is going to talk to us about that and if you have any questions he has assured me that he he wants you to ask your questions as he's going through but that he's also going to be putting some some pauses in there and asking if there's any questions so project labor agreement he's also going to talk to you about community workforce agreements which is the same thing it's just an animal by a different name but if you have any questions about it please our expert is here today so don't be shy ask your questions welcome mark wheeler we look forward to your presentation thank you tanya and welcome everyone and like i said before i see some familiar faces and me and it's always good to see you i want to ask how is your son doing great love love to hear that i am i want to start out by saying is that you have you have access to a one-page handout which i have used the contents in previous presentations i've i've tried a different a few different formats and found out that this is probably easy to understand and then i will expound on this one page handout so we are going to talk about project labor agreements today and i'm going to provide a fair amount of detailed information and some may be relevant to you some may not be relevant to you but i encourage you to take notes and to listen to uh to the information that i'll be presenting i will be pausing throughout this presentation for any questions and tanya will be interrupting me uh if there are or burning questions that need to be answered throughout this this presentation if you would like i will be very glad to reduce my information to a uh a short powerpoint presentation and present it to lillian tanya and jessica to pass out to any of the participants but for now i will be just verbally providing the information and expanding on the one page handout but more importantly than all of that all the information that i'm disseminating and any information that you may have in your hands it is very important that when you get on a job that has a project labor agreement that you read your pla that's very important i have administered i administered a pla for several years for one of the local public agencies and one thing i did find out is that many of the small contractors subcontractors did not read their pla until later on and later on is too late you need to become familiar with it early on and if you have any questions ask the prime contractor or if it's or the owner the owner journey will have in a pla team ask them and find out what are your right what are your rights what are your obligations to operate on the pla because you want to be successful so i'm going to start out with basically some thinking that you may have or that i've seen some of the contractors have and what one of the thinking is why do i need to work under a project labor agreement i've heard many people say it's just another agreement that i have to sign and manage i have a small crew i have enough paperwork to administer i just want to get the work done get it done right get paid make a profit and move on to the next project i've heard that over and over and i can understand that that train of thought it is understandable and i'm not here to say that plays are the best thing since sliced bread i just want to share my experience and my knowledge and explain to you that pla's have been positive in my experience and i'll share some of the reasons why so first in this region many of the projects construction projects they operate under project labor agreement and plas do not have to be a hindrance and they don't have to be burdensome there's a lot of work out there that have plas and there's a lot of work that do not have project labor agreements and it's really your choice as to whether you want to work under one or not but plas do create opportunities they allow you to get more work because again many many construction projects are operating under a pla they can help you increase your capacity because as you get more work you increase your skill your skills and your experience and it can increase your capacity it allows you to work under the supervision and the mentorship of a prime contractor and labor and that is very important we operate in a labor environment and so the more you know about that environment the better off you are and also what's very important is not only building that relationship with contractors but building that relationship with labor see plas don't have to be contentious they actually are like a partnership and the more you can build that relationship with the contractor and with labor the better your work will be the easier your work will be in working with other contractors and with the crafts so with that said let's look at what is a pla that's what the this course is about we want to learn about a project labor agreement so first it is a contract and it's a binding contract and i want to let you know that that contract that binding contract was negotiated long before you started the job now some people call it a project labor agreement they may call it a a project statement stabilization agreement i like to call it a partner uh partnership agreement because it really is a collaboration between owner between labor and the contractors that sign on to the project it actually stabilizes the the the workplace or the work site and it provides for predictable and consensus consistent workforce agreement between the parties now understand that the parties are really the really labor and the owner and the owner could be a public agency such as the port of seattle such as the city of seattle such as sound transit or could be a private entity those are the parties and then the contractors become a party when they sign on to the project labor agreement and that that relationship continues until you finish your work on that on that particular project so we will have project labor agreements on large complex projects or like sound transit on a series of projects that may be of similar design and similar nature so you all are familiar with the light rail project and they they build tracks they build stations they build parking lot lots and that's pretty consistent throughout the sound transit pro throughout the sound transit projects so they have a project labor agreement that covers that type of work because it's complex and also it's similar it's a series of similar projects so what is the owner really trying to achieve when there's a project labor agreement and one they want to have a stable and predictable wage rate and that is prevailing wage they want standardized standardized work rules and what's very important in a project labor agreement is the prevention of strikes and lockouts so let's imagine you're a small contractor and you're working on a on a on a construction project and we already know that your margin may not be very very large so it's very important for you to be efficient and not to have any interruptions if there's a strike or there's a lockout and you can't work that not only costs the prime contractor money but it can cost you money and that's not why you're in business to lose money so the prevention of strikes and lockouts is a very important aspect for not only the owner and the prime contractor but also for the uh for the subcontractor contractor for the smaller contractor plas also provide an adequate supply of skilled labor and that's very important because you want to make sure that there's a skilled labor force that you can draw from for your crew and that the prime contractor can draw from and then there's always a local and economic benefits that are available for for small businesses and contractors and so under pla pla will have provisions and guidelines to ensure that there is the employment or the engagement of small businesses and you want to take advantage of that whether you work on a pla project or a non-pla project it's very important that you take advantage of every opportunity and pla pla projects provide that opportunities because they have target goals to employ businesses such as yours small businesses or you know small contractors so those are some of the objectives of the pla so how do they come together how does a pla even come into formation well as i stated before they're negotiated it's a negotiated binding contract and you have an owner and you have labor and labor is generally represented by the various crafts who sit down at a negotiation table and they start hammering out the the provisions now some provisions in the p in a player boilerplate they're pretty standard so you know they can be put in place pretty pretty easily but there's some that require more discussion and more more negotiation and more more thought such as how many people can a non-union contractor bring onto the site before they have to employ maybe union labor uh unit labors what are going to be the work hours for instance or the holidays and really very importantly what are going to be the dispute resolution processes because there's always going to be a labor there's always going to be a dispute on a construction project and instead of having multiple uh dispute resolution processes that various unions can bring in a pla standardizes all of that into one dispute resolution process and i'll give you a quick example there was a time when an agency had oh maybe 50 grievances out there and by using the pla and the administration process that 50 was reduced to zero so there are process so the pla provides processes in place to resolve disputes and so the project can be less contentious and can can be completed on time and on budget and very importantly very safely so again as i mentioned they are negotiated labor has an interest the owner has an interest because again they all are in this to uh make money for their members the the agency if it's a public agency has a commitment to its stakeholders to complete the project and of course if it's a private entity have an interest to complete the project on time on budget and of course to make a profit out of that so i'm going to stop there for a moment and see tonya are there any questions that i need to address before i move on any of our participants if you have any questions at this time you can go ahead and unmute yourself so that you can ask a direct question to mark any questions for mark uh yeah this is sharon i have a question uh mark for you so when is the pla actually um uh decided upon for a project excellent question um it it depends it can vary some agencies or let's say owners will um start negotiating a project once they know that there's going to be a project they're going to be involved in they may start the negotiation at that time of course before the project starts to work out the terms and conditions there are some other owners that already have a project in place that just carries on from project to project to project so in answer to your question it could be project specific pla where it's negotiated before the project starts or there could be a negotia uh price i'm sorry a pla that's already in place that is applied to that project or sometimes agencies will establish a pla and their established thresholds meaning that for all projects over 5 million or 10 million or whatever the threshold is a pla will apply and so you could work on a project under that threshold and no pla would apply or on a project over that threshold and a pla would apply so it really depends on the on the agency thank you you're very welcome so i want to point out uh we we've i've been talking about project labor agreements and i will uh soon talk about uh community workforce agreements but i want to point out the difference between what a project labor agreement and we'll say it's a cwa community workforce agreement and a collective bargaining agreement because you may have heard of heard of the term collective bargaining agreements when you've worked around their trades or around unions well a traditional collective bargain agreement is negotiated between contractors and laborers so you may have heard the term that some contractors are signatory they may be signatory to the teamsters or they may be signatory to the carpenters or to the operators and they have some time in the past negotiated a collective bargaining agreement and those agreements generally last three years i think i've seen one or two that have gone longer but they generally last for three years so every three years the contractors and labor will negotiate a collective bargaining agreement well you can imagine on a large project you have a lot of trades that are involved and there and their collective bargaining agreements may be coming up for renewal well that can create a little bit of not a little bit a lot of disruption on a construction project so a pla is uh different it it takes all those collective bargaining agreements and puts it under one contract which is the project labor agreement and that makes it very advantageous for the owner and for the and for the contractors because they don't have to worry about the expiration of a collective bargaining collective bargaining agreement um which would then could disrupt the workforce so that's that's an advantage of the pla also with the pla excuse me you have the owner that's a party a contractor is a party and remember the subconscious subcontractor is also a party to the pla and that's when they sign on to into the project and the owner and labor remain parties because they have this pla but the contractors and subcontractors are no longer uh parties uh once their work ends on a uh on a project labor agreement so as i mentioned before sharon in answer to your question uh traditionally plas are project specific though you know they can uh go from project to project to project if you have like sound transit and ongoing pla however a collective bargaining agreement doesn't have really a specific project in mind it's an agreement that labor and contractors have it have entered into and with no particular project in mind they just say we're going to enter to this agreement you are signatory so when you have a project you have to come under this collective bargaining agreement but again i want to emphasize a pla takes all the collective bargaining agreements of all the trades working on that project and they put it under one uh under one contract which is the project labor agreement mark uh what what about the cba that's the cba i'm sorry i want to make sure i heard your question right say it again the cba community benefits agreement okay community benefits agreement is basic when you said cb i i was thinking of collective bargaining agreement but a a cba community benefits agreement is just that it's an agreement that will benefit the community and again the provisions can change from agreement to agreement but it may contain provisions such as local hire that you have to hire people from a certain community or as i've seen in some agreements um the contractor there may be a goal or target goal for the contractor to hire residents that are impacted by that construction project so for instance if you're running a rail line through a community that community is impacted and so uh there may be a target go to hire people from that community onto that project so that local community will benefit because as you know the wages are very good the prevailing wages are very good construction projects pay very well and keeping that money in the community helps that community grow and circulates that money throughout the community there could also be goals in the community benefit agreement on hiring people below the federal poverty level or that lack a college education or provisions such as that the whole purpose is to hire uh many times disenfranchised populations uh communities that are impacted by the construction because when you have construction it does disrupt the community but the long-term benefit is geared towards that that community growing and benefiting and so you you want uh the residents of that community to be part of that benefit okay thank you you're very welcome so we've talked about project labor agreements and i will be the first to admit is that sometimes uh it's it's not uh the type of reading you want to sit down with after dinner and like you go through a good book but i do want to emphasize it's very important to understand the basics of a project labor agreement and to understand your project labor agreement so again if you sign on a sound transit project a port of seattle project the city of city of seattle project the king county project it's very important first to understand if there is a project labor agreement and second to understand it and seek out the resources to help that project labor agreements as well as the contract specs will generally have flow down language which will hold the subcontractor responsible for the same goals that the prime contractor is responsible so that's very important and i'll talk about that just a little later so are pla's new have they been around for a while is this you know the new kid on the block and the answer is no and i'm going to talk about local plas i mean in 1933 there's a pla on their grand coulee dam which is you know right outside a spokane and that's one of the largest structures in the world so they they thought because of the complexity and the size of that project that they would have a project labor agreement we were talking about the seahawks before this session started and the seahawks football stadium was built under a project labor agreement as was safeco field which is now t-mobile field was also under a pla pier 66 the seattle central library both of those projects were under a project labor agreement so we have public entities such as the port sound transit the city king county um using plas on their projects but we also have private institutions or private entities building a building project under under a pla and i'll use one that you all are familiar with the company toyota toyota has built uh several i think as many as 10 of their plants under a project labor agreement and toyota i don't know if they are now but they i know they started out non-union but they saw the value of the pla so we've talked about project labor agreements we talked about you know entities that that use them so why is it so important for owners and laborers and contractors to have a project labor agreement and so i want to talk briefly about some of the common components and you may hear me mention this throughout this presentation and that's because these components are important one that standardizes work rules as i mentioned before on a large construction project you can have 10 15 20 different trades they all have their own work rules under their agreements they all may have different starting times different dispute resolution processes and you can imagine that if any one of these uh items there's an issue with any one of these items trying to manage that would be just it's like trying to manage 10 kids okay they all have different personalities they all have you know different ways of processing information and so you want to make sure that there's some consistency that there's some ground rules and that's what a pla does it streamlines and standardizes those processes also it prevents project delays and that is so key you can imagine that if you have an important project and it has to be finished by a certain deadline what a labor dispute can do to that to the timeline of that project including cost i mean we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars a day being lost if the project is shut down so this no strike no lockout clause is very important to owners it's very important to contractors now we do know that that labor has used that as a tool in getting uh in resolving issues or addressing issues and so they are actually giving up that right in order to have standardized work rules and make sure prevailing wages are paid so that that's important for all the parties involved the owner the contractors and labor what's also important for contractors and for laborers and for owners is that if you know that you're going to have projects out in the future and of course you have your current projects you want to secure an adequate and reliable supply of skilled workers i remember participating in a study it wasn't wasn't too long ago and because of all the construction work that was going on that was going to be undertaken by by the port of seattle by the city of seattle by sound transit by king county in addition to all the private work and just to let you know the public agency work and this this may this information is about a year and a half old maybe two years old but the public sector work accounts for about 13 maybe 14 of all the construction work out there most of the work is private work that's really the the the big ticket in town however they are competing for the same amount or the same labor force that the public agencies are looking to so it's important not only on the public side but also on the private side to make sure there's a reliable supply of skilled workers for all the crafts and so plas have provisions and components built in to help ensure that there is a supply of skilled labor and if you're a small contractor then it's important that you also know that there's skilled labor out there because you never know when you may need to add to your crew in larger crew or a larger crew and you want to make sure that you're able to get skilled labor out there and then finally pm plas will promote diversity and employment um we all have heard horror stories of how there hasn't been people of color represented on a work site or women were pre represented on a work site or veterans or or whatever disenfranchise or or or disinfect franchise population on a um on a pla we've all heard those horror stories or place promote diversity because it's important to build a diverse workforce and if you look at the community around you it is very diverse and so it's important that we have a diverse workforce which is important not only for future projects but also for the worksite itself a diverse a diverse workforce also educates the total workforce so now you know how to interact with people of color and with women and not use offensive terms and not use on terms that may disengage people you want to have a collaborative workforce and a diverse workforce and pla's offer uh those opportunities and those provisions so i'm going to stop there again and see if there's any questions all right i have a project i'm doing right now and i signed pla so it's a project agreement only job so it's just for that contract okay i'm sorry can you say that again i i uh i have a small project that i'm doing right now and i signed the pla so that's a project agreement only okay just for that project so we're saying the um other one is for the whole signatory is for all the jobs right great question yeah collective uh a collective bargain agreement is an agreement between labor and owner and it just it applies for any work that that contractor will engage in they they are signatory but you're absolutely right tamara that when you sign onto the project that you mentioned and you signed on to the project labor agreement once you finish that work then you're no longer a party to that pla yes that's correct and i think i'm uh i'll do it like that right now before i do the signatory because once you sign signatory that's for all your jobs everything that's for all your jobs that's right yeah yeah it's okay right now it's working out pretty good but you still need to read more of the information like you said in the background yes yes yes and it's working out pretty good okay so antonio oh you're very welcome and tanya um as you know i'm available for any follow-up questions uh after this presentation and into the future it's it's okay i feel free uh tanya to disburse my email and i'll do the best i can to answer any questions that any of the participants may have okay thank you mark very welcome deborah did you have a question i did mark uh thank you for this presentation i have a question regarding um a cba or or a pla when reading some of them they will say okay you can have two of your workforce but then you have to hire a union and and we're open shop so it's really confusing as a smaller business how do i have two [Music] two sets of payroll because you know it's not it's not a simple uh just hiring someone that's union it's now i have to pay into their union uh fund i mean i've done it on a pla um but can you i don't and i don't know i haven't been able to speak with anybody who's come up with this plan as to why that is um a requirement when it seems so difficult for a smaller company to to juggle both an open shop and a union shop basically at the same time very very good question and i'm going to answer that in a in a couple of ways one plas do not have to be restrictive meaning that they don't necessarily discriminate against union and non-union i am familiar with plas where [Music] more than 40 percent of the contractors have been non-union and not just small contracts but even some of the larger larger contractors uh they were subs but even some of the larger contracts so that's contracts that's the first thing second as i mentioned earlier in negotiating uh pla labor and the owner they do have their interest and some of their interest and there's always this compromise and one of the interests for labor is to make sure that their members are employed to the greatest extent possible and that's why you have what we call the core requirement contained in the pla and the core requi the core requirement requirement can vary from pla to pla sometimes small contractors can bring up to five of their crew sometimes it's three of their crew it depends on the pla um and you do have to manage both and it's just a nature it's a nature of the pla there's no quick and easy way out of that and so that's that's the first part of the first uh response to your question so remember it's the protection of interest and sometimes it's not a seamless and always uh easy approach but it is part of the pla the second part thing that you mentioned was the trust and that is very very very important paint when you bring on after you bring in your core workers which may be two or three or four um you uh and you bring on a union person you have to pay into that trust and don't ever forget that that's all i can say that is that's like paying your taxes to the irs you've got to pay into the trust because the penalties can be very stiff and if you feel like there's going to be an issue get with your prime contractor right away and say hey listen i need to i need help working through this challenge if it's financial maybe i can't speak for the prime contractor but maybe they can give an advance or or you know cut a check earlier or whatever but you want to make sure you do that and then finally and i've experienced this uh in myself when i administer in the pla the core requirement is very important to the to the trades however i have found out if you have a crew of let's say four and the core requirement only allows you to bring in two and now you have these other two people sitting there you have to lay them off and they've been working with you for years and years they're almost like family it is not out of the question to sit down with that particular trade and say hey listen this is a situation i'm in and just be very up front because this is as i mentioned earlier on in the presentation this is a partnership agreement i i consider it a partnership agreement collaboration and communication is key and you can work through excuse me you can work through a lot of issues and a lot of situations by sitting down with the with the union rep and saying this is my situation how can we work this out and i've seen that happen over and over and over okay okay thank you so much you're very welcome we've been talking about the different components of their pla we've talked we've talked about what's important to labor what's important to the contractor what's important to the the owner um let's talk about social equity and social equity is very very key especially in today's times we want to make sure we have a diverse workforce the owner has wants to make sure there's a diverse workforce for a couple reasons one that's their mantra they definitely want to have a diverse workforce and then second there are local and federal regulations that require it and so you'll find provisions written into and built into the pla to make sure that there are that there are social equity uh requirements now sometimes those social equity requirements are negotiated and now i'm going to move in briefly into community workforce agreements so again traditionally if we look at a traditional pla it's going to cover standardized work rules and wages uh that again that language is built into into the pla and it's that agreement between labor and and the owner but we have this agreement called a community workforce agreement and i can't say they're absolutely new but they are newer than the traditional pla and the community workforce agreement is really a comprehensive pre-hire collective collective bargaining agreement so i've used some terms here that i want to explain and expound on uh and i'll start with comm collective bargaining agreement i explain the difference between a collective bargaining bargaining agreement and a pla so when i use that term i'm i'm using that term uh when i use it with the community workforce agreement i'm using that term in reference to an agreement that's like a community work for workforce agreement or or pla not the traditional collective bargaining agreement that i i talked about and then i want to excuse me then i want to focus on the word comprehensive and comprehensive in my opinion means not only the standard language that you would have in the commun in the pla but also the social equity terms that we spoke about that governs people of color that governs women the employment of women giving women the opportunities giving giving people of color the opportunities to have construction careers giving veterans the opportunity to have construction careers giving people who may be disenfranchised because of poverty or lack of education the opportunity to have a construction career so it's comprehensive because it encapped it in it captures all of those elements into what we now call a community workforce agreement now you may have seen various plas and i'll talk to you about the one that i'm most familiar with and that's the sound transits project labor agreement again it was negotiated and implemented back in 1999 decades ago but they put into that project labor agreement community workforce language they set target goals for women and people of color and for veterans and for disenfranchised populations to make sure that those opportunities were created for them so now they can have living wage jobs and that raises them up from below the federal poverty level to now middle class and above and as you know working on a construction job can pay very good money well into the six figures and i want to speak quickly uh about that i spent a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of resources going to school i don't regret it but i ended up with a lot of student debt my son who went to a private university a lot of student student debt and we don't regret it but when you look at an apprenticeship program where you get four years of training and there's no debt at the end you can make a very good living so i have always touted that um an apprenticeship program for and especially for people of color who haven't had the opportunity to take advantage of of a higher education you have you get a four-year degree through an apprenticeship program without the college debt making well into the six figures with benefits and a great retirement not a bad deal so yes i do promote college and going to school but i also want to emphasize that there is another track out there for uh people to get a great tren to get great training and to earn good money and have a good retirement so i do support language in community workforce agreements and plas that promote uh training especially for women and people of color and those and and the disenfranchised populations so we've talked a lot about pla's community workforce agreements and about collect collective bargaining agreements uh so before i get into the pros and cons or the different schools of thoughts about project labor agreements uh and community workforce agreements i want to first talk briefly about the administration so you could have the best written pla and i've seen some plas and they are drafted very very well but if the administration of the pla falls short it can cause problems so first again as i mentioned before pla is put together because there's a meeting of the minds between the owner and labor and put in and built into that pla is some type of administration and i'm going to mention three administer three administration models that i'm familiar with one's the ones they're hands-on and one's the gatekeeper the hands-off is typically the owner has entered into a project labor agreement with labor and they say okay labor and contractor you work it out well sometimes that can work sometimes it won't work because the owner has stepped back from uh its administration and it and when you let labor and contractor get together then sometimes that can become contentious and the owner would need to intervene to break that contention if they take a totally hands-off approach in the beginning and then there's a hands-on where you have the owner that is just managing the day-to-day operation and i haven't seen that work as well simply because the owner isn't really geared to work the day-to-day issues that arise on the on the on the construction project that typically is run by contractor in labor but again the owner needs to have some involvement which leads me to the third model and that's the gatekeeper and that's the role that i promote and really think is most effective that the owner is involved and so it's not hands off the owner is not trying to manage the day-to-day operation that is really between labor and the contractor but when an issue arises the owner steps in to help resolve disputes so it's like a referee in a football game the referee doesn't call the plays offensively or defensively the referee stands back and watches the field but if there's a penalty they throw the flag and they step in to to make things right and that's the gatekeeper role and that's the role that i think is most effective so the best administration is when there's collaboration which i believe is key and disputes can be can be resolved when the parties can sit down and discuss the issues so again using the example i have seen grievances 50 grievances go down to zero because of the agency stepping in and working out the issues with labor and getting them resolved so i'm going to end this presentation with with some of the pros and cons now again where you stand with the pla is really a personal choice but don't want the personal choice to interfere with the business choice because as a business you're in business to make money and to make a profit and of course to to build capacity you want to scale up your business and so when you have when you're making that business choice it's important to evaluate all the opportunities before you and as i said before that is a a decision whether you want to work on a pla we're not working on pla but don't don't just eliminate those opportunities because of a personal reason but it is important to decide what's best for your business model and it's not always about making money even though that's important it's not always about making money it's important to examine your business model and see what works best under the pla so let's go quickly over uh the two schools of thoughts and you have your pros and cons and um one of the proponents for pla's say that it eliminates the need of a uh to no go to excuse me to negotiate a separate agreement with each one of the trades like i said if you have multiple trades on the project you can have multiple agreements out there and all those agreements come under their their pla which is advantageous it standardizes the work rules and the wages the work hours and also it shows a collaborative effort between the owners and and the contractors and again yes are you saying that on one project there could be more than one 1pla not one pla there could be uh on on a project there could be one more than one collective bargaining agreement oh yes okay okay misunderstood yes the pla brings all those collective bargaining agreements under one agreement that's what's important um also a a conception that's out there again is about the union and non-union contractors i have not seen a pla and i'm not saying they don't exist but i have not seen a pla where there's a requirement that you have to join the union so if you're a non-union i haven't seen the re there's a requirement to join the union but remember under pla when uh when you get union members you have to get them from the hall you need to register your excuse me you have to register your non-union workers when i say register with the hall sign them up in the sense that they can track who's on the job and that you're making the proper payments into the trust fund that's very important so um i know there is one question about um managing uh the different uh payrolls well that's just one of the uh results of having union and non-union workers on on the project also um again it provides contractors with the reliable and un interrupted supply of qualified workers and then very importantly it's it's provides this positive career path for women and minorities veterans and people of color and so pla has those advantages so some of the people that are against plas and i have been in presentations and we've been on opposite sides of the table concerning place because i will tell you again i can't tell you whether you ought to be in a pla or not i can just tell you that i've had a positive experience in administering a pla and then negotiating plas because i can see how they can how they can work for the advantage of to the owner to the contractor to labor and specifically to people of color and women so some contractors feel that uh plas interfere with the employer employee relationship and free enterprise uh though i may not agree with that i do understand uh why they may say that and some will say that they discriminate between union and non-union contractors one of the most common things that i've heard against plas is that it adds to the administrative cost and i can't say it doesn't i can't absolutely say it does there is a uh a minister there is administration involved with the pla and it may add to your cost the question you need to ask yourself is the cost of administering that pla is that outweighed by the fact that i now have a contract with this contractor i'm building a relationship with uh labor and with the contractor and i'm building my capacity and again that's a question you need to ask yourself um and then they some uh people feel that when a pla is mandated by law that is unnecessary and so we've had administrations presidential administrations that have said all government projects will be under a pla and then we've had administrations that said nope there will be no plas it's really up to the up to the owner so it's gone back and forth and again it just depends on which administration is in in our office at the time and then finally some people believe that plas hinder the use of non-union contractor training program so there are a couple of non-union contractor training programs in the area that will train and train very effectively people to work on projects and then you have your union apprenticeship programs uh and training programs which are trained of course union workers to work on a project and contractors want to feel that they can pull from from both of them or pla may prohibit pulling from a non-union training program and you need to pull from a union training program and why is that important or of course the union has a vet vested interest to build their membership to build the skilled workforce and i can't say there's a difference between the two in the sense of quality you'd have to make your own judgment i can say that i've seen quality workers come out of union and non-union training programs and the choice is yours if you have that choice to um to build your workforce using either union or non-union training programs mark i think we have a question sure tamara yes so can if you have a pla contract can you do a can you have a p-l-a-n can you have a non-union contract too at the same time a non-union contract um can you help me understand what you mean by non-union if i got a contract and i got a pla on this one and the next one i don't have a pla would that be a conflict but it wouldn't be a conflict no um as i understand your question if you're working on project a and there's a pla of course you are bound by the terms and conditions of that pla once you finish your work on that project even if that project is still going on but you've completed your work you can move on and your next project may be a non-pla project it might even be a non-union project now if you're a signatory that's a little different because you have a you're bound by a collective bargain agreement and that follows you wherever you go but if you're non-union and you have finished your pla project and you move to another project which is non-union you're okay well what about at the same time they still going on there no you're those are two different projects those are two different projects okay and another one um for for being in uh the pla and the union and all that i i take it like this when you the difference when you pay the trust fund is if that job is a union prevailing wage job then you're really not coming out of your pocket no more when you pay the truck fund because that's if i say i'm in the flagging business and the flagging business unions um the rate is 30 something dollars an hour the prevailing wage for the flagging is 43 or 44. so the difference that i'm paying is going to the trust fund i have to pay that black or that either or that's exactly right that goes for the trust line that's another one the zip code the priority higher already higher they have all these jobs in the city and they're talking about all these tax funds and the federal stuff and none of these companies are hiring us small companies for priority higher i'm gonna sign them for king county section three hud zip code all that and none of these contractors in the city are hiring us small companies so we can make a difference with the local community to make the difference i'm priority hire i got jobs all around me right now and none of these companies are hiring us for the zip code change yes and that's my goal i've been i've been teaching the class for eight years so many people have what i didn't send 300 people are sold to the union hall that's how they get their feet in the door yes i think the apprenticeship program is great but people need to figure out what apprenticeship program they want to get into before they just join the union and then make them a carpenter when they're electrician that's right so so that's very important right now too so the the lagging uh i have like i said three to five hundred people who went to the union right now and i've changed lives so that's the goal with all these different projects going on how do we get into more of hiring these different people and making this happen with the zip code change very good and there's uh in your question in your comment uh you brought up a few different issues and i want to go to dual benefits and you said that when the prevailing wage was x and uh you know the difference went to the the trust i clearly understand that sometimes a in some project labor agreements and the ones i'm familiar with they have this provision uh you may have a crew and you will be paid you have benefits for that crew and let's say that's those benefits equal ten dollars an hour and then uh you get onto a pla project and you're required to pay into the trust fund for your total crew and so now you're saying oh gosh i'm paying into unions trust fund plus i have these benefits i've been paying all along well plas that i've seen have a dual benefits clause okay and if it's not in the pla's it's in the contract specs and the contract specs will incorporate the pla but bottom line is this dual benefits clause and that's important because if you have to pay dual benefits as i just described then you are eligible for reimbursement for the benefits that you have paid your crew so you're not paying double and so that's a very very important clause so if you're paying benefits to your crew and then you have to pay benefits from the trust fund also for your crew then you need to make sure or find out if there's a dual benefits clause okay that's that that's one second when you mention priority higher uh in my understanding of priority hire it's uh very important to to understand that priority hire is really a workforce tool to give opportunities for people like you said in a certain zip code um to be able to have a construction career okay on the other side you have your small business or dbe requirements such as your business to engage you onto projects and you want to make sure that you push that effort and there are target goals in a project labor agreement by the agency so you have one to build the workforce through priority higher and then you have your dbe or small business goals okay yeah all of those yeah all of those very good thank you you're welcome so mark then it kind of begs the question if there is no dual benefits clause in some of these plas like you said some of them may have them some of them may not have them if they don't have them then what are the owners being told to do because if if um if they're paying for benefits right now but then out of their check right because it's really the employee that pays in in the end it's coming out of their hourly rate right um i'm sorry i say that again i i'm gonna make it employee that's actually paying for all of these things that's going to the union because it comes out of their hourly rate the employer is just a fiscal fiscally responsible to transfer all of these things that they've withheld from the employee so if there is no dual benefits clause and let's say tamra is paying for her people and but then you know part of what they have to pay for is those benefits but then there's a vesting period so they cannot take advantage of it when does that come into play where somebody takes a look at that and says you know what that doesn't work yes that's a good question that's been one of the um that's been one of the uh issues when it comes to paying into a a union trust some people may not vest in it and so what happens to that money and it it's of course stays into the trust um first to answer your question about dual benefits just one second my wife is knocking at the door trying to get in can you give me just 30 seconds of letter yes that's that's fine thank you this is the new normal of zooming from home right my dog barks somebody rings the doorbell and you're like i'm on a zoom call excuse me everybody yeah i can't get on i can't turn the volume on i'm gonna knock you out it is it is hilarious okay i'm i'm back thank you um when uh with respect to dual benefits and again out there's two parts here your question inspector dual benefits if it's not in the pla it should be contained in the contract specifications all right so it should be containing the contract specifications the second thing about the money that's in a trust again if you're paying into the trust and your worker has excuse me only worked 40 hours and you need 80 hours to vest in the trust and you just haven't made those hours that money just it stays in the trust that that's that's what happens to it so um you know and i we've i've looked at workarounds and that requires a lot of uh negotiation with not only labor but also with the trusted ministry administration with the trusted trusted administrators so right now i can't say there's i'm not familiar with the way around that um that issue okay yeah thank you i think that's um i think that has been a point for a really long time that we've been trying to work through um you know working through those issues of the dual benefits to ensure that whatever is being paid for they're able you know it's like anything else right would you walk into a store drop a hundred dollar bill and walk out no you expect to walk out with something right of equal value and and then you're you're happy with that so i guess you know that's a feeling and i think sometimes that's where some of our firms have a rub about getting onto some of these onto some of these jobs but what i will tell you is there is a symbiotic relationship between the unions and our small businesses okay the unions are trainers of employees you are employers they need you just as much as you may need them to staff up your jobs if you've got a big job and you really need to staff up we've negotiated i can tell you that i have negotiated with the iron workers um you know like a single time like look hey this person has a huge job in nevada they need the skilled workforce they can't bring people on fast enough but they're not signatory to the union allow them to take you out for a buggy ride because who knows what can happen after that and they were willing to do it so if you need that type of help if you're trying to understand the pla does the dual benefits clause exist and all of that then call us so that we can help you but don't just walk away from it yes because because you're afraid right because that's when we will contact mark and say hey mark we've got firms that are interested in this they're going to need your assistance they need your legal assistance to look at this to make sure that they are protecting themselves because we also have to make sure that you're using the right rates along with everything else when you start putting your um your quotes together so if you are interested it is there it is an avenue for you to contract but don't be afraid of it you know take advantage of it and and utilize it because it is another vehicle for you to introduce your companies like mark said to prime contractors i mean most of the big prime contractors are signatory anyway and so you want to be able to you know at least understand how to and if it's negotiating with the union let us know because we will talk to them and i'm telling you it's it's not as bad as it may seem um you know i've negotiated a lot of things with the union because at the end of the day these are people that are our neighbors okay these are the people in our i mean the union workers too they are our neighbors there are people in our community and when when something is happening in a community these are the same people that are answering the call you know helping to repair somebody's house or you know helping to donate food so we're all part of one huge community but let the naysayers be the naysayers go after the knowledge that you need let us know if you need to contact mark so that we can we can get this thing clarified for you so that you can actually know what you're getting into before you get into it okay very good that's an excellent excellent point uh tanya um i as tanya alluded to you may hear you may have heard horror stories about oh it's difficult to work with the with labor that is not true i mean tanya from her own experience you know has been successful in working out and working collaboratively with labor and i have too and it's just so important communication collaboration will get you a long long way um the other thing that i've done too is when my firms have been working on a pla we've talked to the union and their employees that are actually assigned to that project or working on that project they've taken advantage of the training that the union offers so we said hey these people are paying so technically they are members you know even if they're temporary members for right now they're not signatory you know the company isn't signatory so they're not going to be long-term members but for right now show them what the benefits are show this owner what the benefits are because this owner may be coming out of pocket to pay for um you know confined space training or whatever they're paying for um you know so that if you if these people can if the people that are on this job can take advantage of it the owner can start calculating hey how much is it saving me you know if everybody was to go the drug testing program is automatic i mean there's a lot of things to think about but if you just are interested and you want to you know just want to figure out like hey you know is this for me let me know because i'm willing to go out there and talk to them and say listen camera camera may want to do this and i'm just using you tamara as an example so i hope you understand tamara may be interested in doing this however she's not gonna sign you know like for everything right now but can she do it like just on this project and see how it works she just wants to take it out for a buggy ride to see if she wants to belong to the club and show her you know what the advantages are of being an owner signatory to the union her company being signatory to the union yeah i'll go signatory a little later on but right now the pla is fine for me good i teach the the flaggers classes when i get to when they get their certification they go directly to the union hall i was sending so many people down there one time they were turning away well the state requires one eight hour training and they were calling me looking for flaggers so they can go into there as a flagger or they can go in there and get into the apprenticeship program and that's what they've been doing so and and i tell them about all the training when they go in there once you pay those dudes you have availability to take all that training that they have that's true so thank you so much yep thank you any other questions for mark no okay seeing that we don't have any other questions mark i just wanted to say thank you so much for your informative presentation um and if we have anybody that has any specific questions um we'll be sure jessica myself and lily will be sure to oh look at ralph he does the clapping i just love that i don't he does it so quickly it's like wow ralph is like really on it but um your presentation was really on point it helped to explain a lot um if there's anybody that is specifically having any questions or needs to talk to you um we'll make sure that we get them in touch with you mark so thank you so much for your time today i appreciate it for moderating this i appreciate you oh no problem appreciate seeing you it's been a long time mark it has been okay all right all later all right thank you mark take care