This summer a legislative roadblock in Sacramento could create a
multiple charity pile-up, halting creek restoration projects across
the state, as well as park construction, library renovations and
Habitat for Humanity, a program that builds homes for the poor.
This summer a legislative roadblock in Sacramento could create a multiple charity pile-up, halting creek restoration projects across the state, as well as park construction, library renovations and Habitat for Humanity, a program that builds homes for the poor.
Unbelievably, under current California law, if a nonprofit group receives any taxpayer funding for a charitable venture, and pays even one of the workers on the project, that project may not accept any volunteer help at all, and all workers must be paid the so-called “prevailing” (i.e., union) wage.
Citizens who willingly and happily volunteer must nonetheless be paid the “prevailing” wage. And if public funds to cover the immense additional cost aren’t available, then guess what? The trees don’t get planted, the trash in parks doesn’t get picked up, the schools get by without aides, museums operate without guides and libraries cancel storytelling time.
California’s anti-volunteer law has been on the books for several years, but was not strictly enforced. Recently, this changed when Laborers Union bosses in Redding, successfully used it to sue the nonprofit Sacramento Watersheds Action Group (SWAG) for employing volunteers on a state-funded project to clean up a canyon and build a trail for the community. The courts fined SWAG $33,000 and ordered them to provide $17,000 in “back pay” to Shasta College students and other young people who thought they were volunteers!
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his administration strongly favor changing the anti-volunteer law, but have no choice but to keep enforcing it until it is changed.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that Californians on both sides of the aisle are outraged about the law, that may not happen soon. What in the California State Senate could possibly be preventing an end to this anti-volunteer law, a law so obviously detrimental to the interests of the Golden State and its citizens?
The answer … union lobbyists and their grim determination to wipe out what is, in their opinion, a terrible plague, “illegitimate” volunteer work.
In a May 2 commentary on Big Labor’s effort to block enactment of A.B. 2690, a bill that would let volunteers work along side skilled laborers earning the “prevailing” wage on all public works, Sacramento Bee columnist Daniel Weintraub rhetorically asked:
“What is legitimate volunteer work, other than work that a citizen agrees to do for free, without coercion, out of a desire to benefit his or her community? Whether it’s picking weeds, moving brush or using my personal grader to level a playing field, I ought to be able to do it without fear of running afoul of labor laws.”
But California building-trades union bosses disagree. Spokesman Jim Lewis first claims the union brass won’t oppose a change in the law allowing for “legitimate volunteer work.” He then contradicts himself in practically the same breath stating that “work that requires the use of skilled labor, heavy equipment, and so on” must be “reimbursed under the prevailing wage law … .”
In plain English, if you have any skills that are especially valuable to a volunteer organization, it’s “illegitimate” for you to volunteer to do what you do best.
According to the questionable criteria clarified by Lewis, A.B. 2690, a measure designed to repeal California’s anti-volunteer law and let volunteer groups function as they did before Laborers Union officials declared war, is unacceptable. But union lobbyists aren’t so brash as to think they can stop this measure by openly opposing it.
On May 26, after being held up for weeks by Big Labor opposition, A.B. 2690 won approval by the California Assembly in a unanimous vote. This has yet, however, to be assigned to a Senate committee. A spokesman for the Rules Committee said he had no idea when this bill would be assigned.
While the union-label politicians who run the California Senate decide whether they should risk a public backlash by submitting to the will of union lobbyists and burying A.B. 2690, or instead should make a rare stand for common sense, trail and creek restoration projects, school programs, and beach cleanups are put on hold.
Discerning California union bosses’ real agenda for trying to protect the anti-volunteer law is not hard. Volunteer workers don’t have to pay compulsory union dues to serve their communities, but most paid workers on public projects in California do.
Big Labor’s ongoing crusade to see that no good deed in California goes unpunished is yet another example of how government-authorized compulsory-union dues corrupt the political process and furnish unscrupulous union officials with an enormous incentive to act against the public interest. It demonstrates yet again why Americans should be determined to wipe out all forms of compulsory unionism.
Mark Mix is the president of the National Right to Work Committee, a non-profit organization that fights forced unionism in all its manifestations.
