The “Public Dollars for Public Benefit Ordinance,” which is expected to increase the safety and opportunities for local workers, awaits a vote from Spokane City Council on August 25.
If passed, the ordinance, called a community workforce agreement, would ensure that taxpayer dollars for city projects benefit local laborers while prioritizing the hiring of workers from distressed zip codes and minority identities, including women and people of color.
The ordinance was introduced by city council member Paul Dillon and council member Zack Zappone last month and created in collaboration with Spokane Alliance, a nonprofit coalition of churches, unions and community groups focused on promoting Spokane’s “common good,” according to its website.
As an organizer with local union Laborers Local 238 and member of the Spokane Alliance’s jobs team, Steve Winkler collaborated on the creation of the ordinance to benefit fellow Spokanites by bringing and keeping tax dollars in the community.
“The best way to benefit a community is to take your tax dollars, put them to work with our local residents, and then those local residents go back and spend that money throughout our communities,” Winkler said.
Winkler said he’s seen a trend in out-of-state contractors paying the lowest wage rate and not always paying for each job classification. Winkler explained that contractors are required to pay employees different rates for different jobs depending on the necessary qualifications. Someone laboring with a shovel will earn less than someone operating heavy machinery, who will earn less than a licensed electrician. Every job has a different associated wage, and Winkler said he’s seen as many as 13 different wages within a single project.
Contractors often hire laborers at the general rate and then use them to handle heavy machinery for a few hours – a job with a higher associated wage – before putting that employee back on a more basic job. Rather than paying the employee different rates for the different job classifications worked, Winkler said contractors pay the workers the standard, lowest rate. With many laborers coming from Idaho or Utah, where the prevailing wages are lower, Winkler said workers may often feel lucky to receive a higher wage in Washington without realizing the dollars they’re being cheated out of.
While these differences in wages between job classifications may only result in a loss of a few dollars per employee, when you add up the total number of employees and their total number of hours involved in an individual project, Winkler said single jobs can amount to more than $60,000 of wage theft going to contractors’ pockets rather than Spokane workers.
Reverend Bob Feeny, pastor of Westminster United Church of Christ and a member of Spokane Alliance, said this ordinance further expresses his values of equity and justice by ensuring that those who support and build Spokane can afford to stay in the city.
“One of the main things that I feel called to as a person of faith is being a good neighbor, and part of that is loving the place where we are, and part of that is loving the people that are an expression of that place,” Feeny said.
According to Dillon, the Spokane Alliance, in collaboration with city council members, designed a community workforce agreement best suited to Spokane’s needs using outreach and community conversations while analyzing the extensive precedent set through similar community workforce agreements implemented across the nation.
“[The ordinance] is ensuring the city of Spokane protects public interest by ensuring that there is a social and economic justice framework for these policies,” Dillon said.
The community workforce agreement will identify workers with the most needs – such as people from low-income neighborhoods, veterans and formerly incarcerated people – and create pathways for apprenticeships that grant them access to good-paying jobs, healthcare benefits and a pension. The ordinance will include a project labor agreement for city projects over $5 million, in which the city collaborates with unions to set standards for working conditions, wages and safety requirements.
The ordinance also works to address declining numbers of trade workers as tradespeople retire out of these positions without apprentices filling their shoes. By creating bridges to good paying jobs for Spokane workers, Winkler said the community workforce agreement will create more consistent trade membership numbers.
Feeny said not only will the community workforce agreement directly improve the livelihood of workers, but it will further benefit the broader community as more individuals supporting themselves will alleviate strain on city services, calling it “a win, win, win.”
Despite widespread support for the community workforce agreement across Spokane groups, opponents of the ordinance express concern that it would raise prices. The Inland Northwest Chapter of the Associated General Contractors claimed the community workforce agreement would result in a reduced number of qualified bidders, raising job costs as a result, while also placing a financial burden on the city to track and enforce the new standards.
“This ordinance sounds good in theory – but in practice, it’s an administrative nightmare,” said Cheryl Stewart, Executive Director of the Inland Northwest Associated General Contractors in a press release. “It adds a burdensome new layer of bureaucracy that will reduce competition, drive up costs, and exclude local contractors and workers from the projects they’ve helped build for decades.”
According to Winkler, data from independent research across the nation on community workforce agreements has shown that having measures that ensure a steady and trained workforce, while minimizing strikes and job extensions, can save an average of 4% at the end of the project. Feeny added that concern for profits comes less from everyday citizens and more from contractors profiting off the original standards.
“I’m yet to hear what, to me, feels like a genuine concern [with the ordinance] about something other than profit [for contractors],” Feeny said.
Also speaking to the broad range of collaborators involved in the community workforce agreement, Feeny said he found hope from working with unions and other partners who hold very different perspectives and life experiences than himself, especially given the heightened division of our current political context.
“It’s cool to work together with people that are doing something different toward a common goal, because we don’t all come to it with exactly the same reasons and rationale or understanding of the world, but we come together and we can sort of find these things that we all agree on,” Feeny said. “That feels really encouraging because we don’t see a lot of that in our national politics.”
Despite the concern of some contractors, Dillon said this ordinance furthers his mission to center everyday Spokane residents and prioritize their well-being.
“When I ran for office, my big theme was people over politics,” Dillon said. “For me, this ordinance is fulfilling that promise, because at the end of the day, I’m fighting for working families, for trying to create people-powered policy.”
Editor’s Note: This story has been edited to correct the bill’s sponsors.
