Villaraigosa and MTA Board adopt local hire policy for construction projects

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Workers, job advocates and clergy lined up Thursday in support of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Board's construction careers policy. The new policy calls for hiring local and disadvantaged work on construction project using federal stimulus funds.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said, in a pre conference follo the Board's vote to adopt the plan, that this initiative and others like it will improve both the economy and the infrastructure of Los Angeles.

"This is a win-win," Villaraigosa said. "Let's double the size of our rail system. Let's rep our streets, our roads and our bridges. Let's clean up the air and invest in people. Let's create jobs."

Now that MTA has voted in support of the policy, the next step is negotiation with labor organizations.

Under the policy, 30 percent of the work hire by contr on large MTA project will live within five miles of the construction site or in zip codes identified as low-income. Ten percent of work must be Los Angeles residents identified as disadvantaged. In the policy's language, disadvantaged work include those with a household income less than 50 percent of their area's median income and those with barriers to employment like the lack of a high school diploma or a criminal history.

Another significant component of the policy is the inclusion of a project labor agreement, a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement between contr and labor organizations aimed at preventing work stoppages.

The unemployment rate for construction work in higher than that for average American work, at 13 percent.

Union work voiced support for the policy, hoping for jobs. Anthony Mitchell has been a union electrician for 12 year and has had difficulty finding work.

"This is the hardest time i have seen since I have been in the building trade, since I've been an electrician," Mitchell said. "In the past few year, I've only worked four months out of each year. I am facing foreclosure right now, with my property, which will put myself, my daughter and my two granddaughters out on the streets."

Because the new MTA policy depends on federal funds, Villaraigosa called for support of President Obama's American Jobs Act.

"If we pass the American Jobs Act, we can accelerate funding for Measure R, we can increase and reauthorize the transportation act and we can put these good people back to work."

Villaraigosa said that when negotiated, the new policy would first be applied to the Crenshaw/LAX light rail project.