Why is Fresno struggling to hire city residents for construction jobs?

Fresno has a problem hiring construction workers.  Most of them refuse to pay bribes to work, bribes paid to unions.  But the city government has decided that only bribe payers get to work in their city.

“That report, presented to the Fresno City Council in January, showed the unions were short of their local hire targets by approximately dozens of journeymen and a handful of apprentices.

In a city where project labor agreements were illegal up until just over a decade ago, some labor leaders still see the numbers as an improvement over how things were before the city’s agreement required the tracking of local hires – and a suggestion that the local hire program is working, if slowly.

“I’m kind of pleased, but not by any means satisfied, with the results of the PLA,” said Chuck Riojas, secretary-treasurer of the local Building Trades Council, who negotiated the agreement.

As city officials and labor leaders evaluate how to boost local hiring under the agreement, much of the debate has coalesced around one provision: the threshold for triggering the terms of the agreement. 

Currently, a project must abide by the city’s labor agreement when the engineer’s estimate of a project’s costs — prior to receiving any bids from contractors — is at least $1 million.

You do not have to be qualified to work on city projects, just pay a bribe.  Could this be part of the reason the city has a massive deficit?  Bribe paying workers get paid 15-20% more than qualified workers.  This is why we need to vote NO on all tax and bond measures—our money should not go to finance corruption and incompetence.

Why is Fresno struggling to hire city residents for construction jobs?

In its first two years, the City of Fresno’s project labor agreement with the local building trades council didn’t hit the targets for how many city residents were supposed to be hired onto the construction jobs.

by Julianna Morano, Fresnoland, 5/23/25    https://fresnoland.org/2025/05/23/why-is-fresno-struggling-to-hire-city-residents-for-construction-jobs/

What’s at stake?

The City of Fresno’s project labor agreement with the trades unions hasn’t placed as many city residents in construction jobs as intended. But some experts and officials are at odds on how to improve that.

Fresno’s attempt to get more city residents into higher-paying, union jobs has hit some snags — but experts and officials have different ideas on what will make it more successful.

These efforts take the form of a project labor agreement. Enacted in 2022, the five-year agreement was negotiated between the city and the Fresno, Madera, Tulare, Kings Building Trades Council. 

The labor agreement establishes wages, benefits and working conditions for construction workers on public works projects with the affiliated building trades unions, while in turn guaranteeing a steady workforce and no strikes. Fresno’s agreement also sets goals for the trades unions on how many workers hired on a project should be city residents.

Labor experts have touted the agreements as a way to guarantee higher wage jobs and stimulate the economy even in an “economically depressed area,” said Edward Flores, faculty director of the Community and Labor Center at UC Merced.

“The (project labor agreement) would be the mechanism for doing that,” he said.

But Fresno’s isn’t there yet, at least in terms of getting enough city residents into those jobs.

The city’s agreement passed its second full year in early 2024, and with that came a report on how the local hire targets are going. 

That report, presented to the Fresno City Council in January, showed the unions were short of their local hire targets by approximately dozens of journeymen and a handful of apprentices.

In a city where project labor agreements were illegal up until just over a decade ago, some labor leaders still see the numbers as an improvement over how things were before the city’s agreement required the tracking of local hires – and a suggestion that the local hire program is working, if slowly.

“I’m kind of pleased, but not by any means satisfied, with the results of the PLA,” said Chuck Riojas, secretary-treasurer of the local Building Trades Council, who negotiated the agreement.

As city officials and labor leaders evaluate how to boost local hiring under the agreement, much of the debate has coalesced around one provision: the threshold for triggering the terms of the agreement. 

Currently, a project must abide by the city’s labor agreement when the engineer’s estimate of a project’s costs — prior to receiving any bids from contractors — is at least $1 million.

Some, including City Manager Georgeanne White, have voiced support for a higher threshold, arguing it would reduce the trades union’s workload in managing the agreement.

“It is a lot of work to administer this, and there’s plenty of work above a million,” White said at the January council meeting. “At five million and above, there’s a ton of projects out there that would qualify, so we would be very supportive of raising the level.”

Meanwhile, some union leaders argue the exact opposite – and are pushing for a threshold lower than $1 million.

“That’s too high, frankly,” said Dillon Savory, executive director of the Central Labor Council, which represents several of the unions also covered by the local Building Trades Council. “Because that means millions and millions of dollars are not subject to local hire components.”

But there are other factors at play as well, including the agreement’s definition of “local” and whether enough local residents are in the training pipeline for union jobs. 

The city and trades unions expect to search for some middle ground as soon as this summer. Officials on both sides have signaled their willingness to negotiate possible changes – or even an extension – to the agreement that will expire in 2027.

In terms of how the agreement might look different going forward, “anything, really, is on the table,” Riojas said.

What did local hiring look like in the first two years of the labor agreement?

Fresno’s project labor agreement set targets for the share of journeymen, apprentices and new apprentices on construction projects that are City of Fresno residents. “New apprentices” refer to apprentices who are less than halfway through their apprenticeship program. 

Under the local hiring provisions of Fresno’s agreement, the goal was to ensure 50% of all journeymen’s work hours, 55% of all apprentice’s work hours and 30% of new apprentice’s hours would go to city residents.

But in the first two years of the agreement, only 42% of journeymen hours were performed by city residents. Only 30% of apprentice hours (and 23% of new apprentice hours) went to workers who live in the city.

While the goals are measured in terms of hours worked, the city’s Capital Projects staff translated those into full-time equivalent positions in the January report to the council.

Broken down that way, the number of local journeymen was about 30 shy of what was needed in the first two years of the agreement. The report also shows the unions were about seven local apprentices short of meeting the local hire goal.

The question of the threshold

In response to the missed local hire targets, some are pushing for changes to the $1 million threshold for projects to trigger the agreement.

That includes not only city officials but also some of the city’s non-union contractors. 

Brooke Ashjian, CEO of Seal Rite Paving, heads up a non-union shop. Ashjian’s also had some of his own struggles with hiring local residents, which he said is partly due to a lack of training facilities for some trades in the Fresno area.

The closest training facility for folks wanting to learn to operate heavy machinery, for example, is near Sacramento, he said.

“They have to go up there for like six weeks,” he said, “and then continually go back and forth.”

Ashjian said he’s not opposed to project labor agreements but sees Fresno’s as an “overreach.”

“There’s enough work for both of us,” he said, meaning both union and non-union contractors. “To put the PLA at such a low limit, it limits the amount of bidders that want to do business.”

He’s advocating for the city to raise the threshold to $3 or $4 million, he said.

But others, including Savory of the Central Labor Council, worry there are already missed opportunities for local hire with the threshold at $1 million.

Other, lower-cost projects could bring in trades, like painting, that often miss out on opportunities with the million-dollar threshold, he said.

“We are letting our taxpayer dollars still go to some of the either out-of-area or, I would say, low-wage contractors that cheat employees,” Savory said, “because the threshold is too high.”

The city’s January presentation on the labor agreement included projections of how many projects in fiscal year 2025 there will be over certain thresholds, including projects over $1 million, $3 million and $5 million.

The city anticipates at least 51 projects over the $1 million threshold, 21 over $3 million and 12 over $5 million.

A $3 million threshold would cut down the number of eligible projects by more than a half. A $5 million threshold would cut it down by three quarters.

Riojas of the Building Trades Council didn’t voice support for any specific threshold change but said he’s “not opposed to talking” about it as they negotiate with the city later this year.

‘The only way to make sure that there are locals to answer that call’

But not everyone is pointing to changing the threshold as the solution to the local hire problem.

Some see the initial outcomes of Fresno’s project labor agreement as a product of how new it is – and that for over a decade before that, the city of Fresno banned project labor agreements.

“Given that we did go for years with nothing,” said Blake Konczal, executive director of the Fresno Regional Workforce Development Board, “I think it’s logical to assume that it’s going to take more than a couple of years to be able to get this thing really flying.”

Konczal’s organization runs the pre-apprenticeship program Valley Build. The program trains small cohorts of Central Valley residents for construction apprenticeships and jobs – which experts say could be key to boosting local hires.

“That’s one of the big ones we hear a lot,” said Andrea Slater, director of the CARE at Work program at UCLA’s Labor Center, “that there just aren’t enough people who are qualified or trained.”

In its fifteenth year, Valley Build has trained over 40 cohorts of 15 to 20 people over its eight-week program. Its latest cohort is all women, Konczal said.

But he hopes to expand the program with more support from the state or federal government – especially with a 2020 study from the workforce board projecting $40 billion’s worth of public infrastructure construction projects across the Central Valley through the end of the decade.

“If our local union hall cannot fill those slots with qualified apprentices, then a wider call goes out and union workers from outside our geography are imported into Fresno to take those jobs,” Konczal said. 

“The work is going to happen … The only way to make sure that there are locals to answer that call,” he added, “is through pre-apprentice training.”

Defining ‘local’

There are also questions about how “local” is defined under the city’s agreement – specifically, as city residents.

Riojas of the Building Trade Council said that under the current definition, he himself wouldn’t count as a local hire – even though he lives “in the middle of the city,” since he’s technically in a county island.

“A little bit of flexibility into what constitutes local hire maybe needs to be addressed a little bit too,” he said. “That would help.”

Slater with UCLA’s Labor Center said the current definition appears “a little restrictive.”

“Expanding it to the region would also give opportunities to those who may not live in Fresno proper,” she said, “but also provide incentive for them to be able to get the training” while remaining in their communities.

The debate around project labor agreements

Researchers have documented the benefits of project labor agreements for workers. A January 2021 policy brief from the UC Merced Community and Labor Center summarized some of the advantages, including delivering higher wages for workers and training opportunities while also reducing construction delays.

The wage and benefit standards established under project labor agreements can also help stave off some of the risks of working in the construction industry, said Flores of UC Merced.

“Without those standards,” he said, “workers experience not just low wages but wage theft.”

But the agreements, in place in many major cities across the country, have also been met with opposition. 

Critics argue project labor agreements reduce the overall number of bidders on projects and are unfair to non-union employers – a concern non-union contractors like Ashjian share regarding Fresno’s agreement.

“It’s a disadvantage for the people that are non-union,” he said.

Some opponents have also raised concerns about the agreements increasing project costs, though some academic studies have disputed that claim.

City and union officials expect to revisit conversations around the agreement this summer or fall.