Making a Case
Peter Brennan’s Nov. 29 article regarding a possible project labor agreement between the county of Orange and the OC/LA Building & Construction Trades was an excellent, well-written article. As the leader of an electrical union, the article was of great interest to me.
However, to really present both sides of the story fairly to your readers, I would suggest that Mr. Brennan interview those individuals who have had the opportunity of building a project with a PLA in place, vs. jobs that were built using non-union labor.
The “other side of the story” will reveal that most non-union contractors, bidding on prevailing wage jobs against union competitors, severely undercut their bids. If the customer accepts the low bid, they are soon strapped with extra work orders, huge overtime costs, labor board charges, etc.
Due to the use of unskilled labor, the customer will ultimately discover that the low bid actually means a much higher cost in the end.
It’s a shame that organized labor has been given such a bad name in Orange County. Who are we? Where do we come from? Well, guess what? We are your neighbors. We are the men and women next door, forced to leave town to work out of state, while the new store down the street is being built by the low bidder.
That low bidder imports his labor force from out of town or out of the country. He usually pays his workers a fraction of what is needed to live in Orange County, even moderately. These workers are forced to live in multiple-family situations in local motels and cheap apartments. They are a strain on our community because they are underpaid and have no benefits. They collect welfare and receive medical care that we all pay for. If they have any money left over, it is not spent here in our community, but sent home to their families.
Those of us who are fortunate enough to work within the structure of organized labor work for honest, fair contractors. These contractors negotiate with us to provide fair wages, health benefits and pension plans. Even though these contractors must factor these benefits into their overall job costs, they are still able to be competitive and provide a quality work product to their customers.
It’s true that organized labor is a minority in Orange County, but we are making strong progress to change that.
Doug Chappell
Business Manager
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Local 441
Orange
Internet Tax Debate
While ‘Net commerce is a comparatively new phenomenon, the present attempt by the nation’s governors to throw the net of taxation over it is not. The media bursts with stories on the astounding growth of e-commerce. According to Forrester Research, online retail sales totaled $7.8 billion in 1998. Total online business-to-business sales reached $43 billion in 1998, and are projected to grow to $1.3 trillion by 2002.
Inevitably, government officials have noticed this eye-popping wealth creation and clamor for an end to the Internet taxation ban, citing a pressing need for additional revenue to fund popular government services like education, public safety and transportation. This is the standard operating propaganda churned out whenever government prepares to put the squeeze on taxpayers, in hopes of cowing critics into silence for fear of being smeared as “anti-education” troglodytes recklessly endangering “our children.”
The Internet tax grab reveals a great historical truth,government never has enough money. Never.
Seeking to quash criticism that the web’s decentralized nature makes fair, non-discriminatory tax collection impossible, pro-tax governors tout the concept of “trusted third parties” to oversee the assessment and enforcement of sales taxes on Internet transactions.
The ancient world had trusted third parties. They were called tax farmers, rapacious individuals with government contracts to collect taxes, minus an agreed upon percentage. Ancient despots loved tax farmers for their prodigious harvesting of revenue. Ordinary people hated them for the same reason.
Generally speaking, privatizing government services is a good idea. Then again, tax collection can hardly be considered a service and is one government activity where the private sector’s ruthless efficiency is prudently avoided.
The Internet’s great virtue is its untrammeled dynamism. It is as much a frontier as the 18th century American West, in large part due to the absence of government oversight and control. This free environment is jeopardized by the politicization and regulation that follow in taxation’s wake like remoras swimming after a shark.
Matthew Cunningham
Director
PoliticalZone.com
El Toro, Cont’d
About the only subject not lambasted by the county in their newly released EIR regarding the V-Configuration Alternative Airport Plan presented by Charles Griffin and myself is our proposed southwest departure flight paths and arrivals to the south, both of which are over vast unpopulated open space.
In comparison to the $44-million-plus dollars poured into the controversial X-Configuration Preferred Plan which now proves twice as costly and noisy as originally thought, the county has only spent a paltry $10,000 to give the V-Configuration plan the “once-over” formal disapproval. Our plan, in both Long V and Short V versions, would require four TERPS analyses, each costing an estimated $75,000. No such record of expenditure is to be found, which means all comments pertaining to the alternative are biased and incomplete. Based on the EIR comments, the county expects our alternative to measure up to theirs when no funding was spent to adequately study it.
It is both ludicrous and asinine to expect two local citizens to provide and submit detailed plans for an alternative comparable to that created by an array of county staff and consultants with unlimited funds. Our proposal is simply the basis and rough sketch in which to prepare an extensive study.
The county’s EIR makes claims that our proposal is infeasible and creates the most noise impacts, which is blatantly false. Our Short V Alternative, self-contained within the Measure A boundary, is in fact feasible and fully functional as a long haul, semi-international commercial airport, despite being limited to only aircraft categories A-C. Boeing confirms that their 737 category C aircraft can safely operate at a 3.3-degree glide slope and fly to Hawaii. There is no evidence that category D aircraft are required at El Toro. As far as noise, there simply are no homes under the proposed southwest flight paths to be impacted.
Borrowing from the recent court ruling in the case of Dave Ellis and the Registrar of Voters office, our proposed southwest flight paths should be defined in “real time” defined as the “here and now.” The 5-mile wide southwest corridor is currently vacant and perfect for planning flight paths. Because no homes exist there, until the landowner protests the proposal of commercial aircraft over its open space, all efforts should be made to design a safe, quiet and efficient airport at El Toro which impacts no one. That would be a stark contrast to the controversial preferred plan.
Russell Niewiarowski
The New Millennium Group
Santa Ana Heights
