114th Year OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION TRADES COUNCIL OF SAN FRANCISCO Volume 114, No. 7 July 2014 www.SFBuildingTradesCouncil.org Forest City to Take Pier 70 Project Height Increase to Voters ♦ The $242 Million Development Would Create 10,000 Construction Jobs By Paul Burton San Francisco Centre and de- City Development Image Courtesy Forest Contributing Writer veloped the Presidio Landmark apartment complex. he impact of The developer’s new pro- Proposition B is posal, the “Union Iron Works starting to be felt. Historic District Housing, Prop B, which Waterfront Parks, Jobs and passed last month, Preservation Initiative,” will Trestricts development along ask voters to restore the height San Francisco’s waterfront limit at the property from 40 by mandating voter approval feet to 90 feet, which is the of every project that exceeds height of the tallest existing height limits. historic structure on the site In response, representatives now. Forest City executive Jack of Forest City Development Sylvan said the ballot measure presented Pier 70 plans to to allow the 90-foot heights delegates of the San Francisco would be submitted to the City Building and Construction in July in order for the measure Trades Council at the council’s to be on the ballot this Novem- recent meeting. Forest City ber. Sylvan said the developer plans to place an initiative on decided to move forward with Forest City plans to develop a 25-acre portion of the Pier 70 Master Plan area. The site includes 2.5 million November’s ballot asking for (continued on page 6) square feet of new buildings, a major park and about 250,000 square feet of existing buildings. increased height limits for the project. Photo by Paul Burton In 2011, the San Francisco Port Commission selected For- All-Union Crews Expanding San est City to develop a 25-acre portion of the Pier 70 Master Francisco Museum of Modern Art Plan area. The “Waterfront ♦ Unique Challenges for 235,000-Square-Foot Expansion Site” east of Illinois Street between 18th and 20th streets he challenge of new 235,000-square-foot expan- includes 2.5 million square feet building a complex sion. Union contractor Webcor of new buildings, a major park, structure in a tight Builders is the general contrac- and about 250,000 square feet space is being met by tor for the project designed by of existing buildings. Forest Tthe all-union construction crews architectural firm Snøhetta in City Development has a good working on the San Francisco collaboration with the museum. reputation for working with Museum of Modern Art (SF- “The building has some union contractors and using MOMA) Expansion Project. very unique requirements,” The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is currently undergoing a union labor. The company The museum broke ground on (continued on page 7) 235,000-square-foot expansion. worked with the Westfield the new building in June of 2013 Group to build the Westfield and began construction on its District Council 16 at Rincon Hill, Tower Two Inside By Richard Bermack Carpenters 22 ..................page 10 Contributing Writer and Photographer Carpet Layers 12 ..............page 11 ith the tag line of “High Per- Electrical Workers 6 ........page 14 formance/High Value,” District Council 16 of the International Sign Display 510 ..............page 16 W Union of Painters and Allied Trades is Looking up the Hatch ......page 17 an alliance of the finishing trades unions, Cement Masons 300 ........page 17 including glaziers, floor coverers, tapers and Roofers 40 ........................page 18 painters. Their logo is a lion, and they are a high-powered organization, united by the Sprinklers 483 ..................page 18 goal of finishing buildings with style. They Bricklayers 3 ....................page 19 represent workers in Northern California Heat & Frost 16 ................page 19 and Nevada. Glaziers 718 .....................page 20 One of their current jobs is One Rincon Hill, Tower Two, a 49-story residential glass Hammers & Leads ...........page 20 tower with panoramic views of the city and (continued on page 12) BUILDING THE TRADES Google Buses and the Experience of the Trades by Michael Theriault, Secretary-Treasurer San Francisco Building & Construction Trades Council he Building Trades know If protests reach out to those work- to union agreements shed their existing well that the tech industry, so ers, if they are clear that they do not workforce and hire a new workforce Tmaligned by many San Francis- condemn the workers, but seek support entirely from our halls we did not just cans, has been good for our work. The in fights like those against the evictions make signing new contractors more dif- protests against Twitter and the tax through which some landlords are at- ficult – if they felt any loyalty at all to break that brought it to mid-Market tempting to get tech workers’ business, their employees – we made permanent have been held outside a building that the protests ask the workers to be more a enemies of those employees. put many of us back to work in its re- part of the community in which they now More than a century now of experi- inforcement and renovation. The Nema live. This is a message they need to hear. ence has taught us even bitterer lessons. apartment building across Tenth Street But it is hard to convey this mes- The arrival of Chinese workers in from Twitter employed hundreds of us sage by stopping someone from going San Francisco in the late nineteenth because Twitter was there to provide to work. and early twentieth centuries and the it tenants. Overall, many thousands of If the message conveyed instead is arrival of tech workers in the early Building Trades workers have fed their that those workers should go away, the twenty-first differ markedly. Most families from the grand harvest the protests risk alienating large blocks of Chinese workers were poor and viewed economic power, the Building Trades’ tech industry has provided. workers – and, well paid or not, tech as racial outsiders by the City’s white early opposition to its very presence As to Google, when its Mountain workers are just that, workers. majority. Most tech workers are not at became a deep liability for us. We lost View campus was being built originally We do not grow or even preserve all badly paid, and if they are viewed market share in both public and private for Silicon Graphics, I myself commut- the labor movement by alienating large as outsiders, it will rarely be for race. contracting. Only in recent years have ed there in a company-provided truck blocks of workers. But the Chinese were workers, and we filled the deep rift between us, and to run a crew of Iron Workers. We in the Trades have learned tech workers are workers, and now as even now only incompletely. One effect of rapid growth of any lessons from having ourselves made then employers want to maximize prof- Tech workers face real difficulties. industry in a given area is to disrupt this mistake too often. We have in its off the backs of workers. Their industry often would rather the lives of the residents who were recent years become better at teach- The San Francisco Building Trades import workers from abroad than train there beforehand. This disruption is ing our members picketing non-union at the turn of the last century argued here. It looks for every opportunity often enough negative. An effect of contractors that we have no beef with for the exclusion of Chinese workers. to outsource work. It makes demands tech industry growth, paired with the non-union workers, but that these We did not want more to come; we on time that do not allow a family life. long failure of San Francisco to ac- workers are potential allies and union wished those already here would leave. Its employment is usually temporary cept an adequate volume of housing members. Our organizers have become We did not believe they could under- and lacks the continuity that we gain construction, has indeed been to push better at teaching these workers that stand or belong to our movement. from our hiring halls or multi-employer working-class San Franciscans from our “Area Standards” pickets do not We succeeded in part in our efforts at benefit plans. Tech workers might wish their homes. demand that they go away, but that exclusion, but not in full. some day that they had something like In reaction, then, some members they be better paid. I am personally grateful that our a union. And they are not going away, of other unions have participated in In years past, though, by confront- success was only partial. I would not and their numbers and influence are the so-called “Google bus” protests, in ing workers we hardened divisions otherwise have my wife of thirty-two likelier to grow than decline. which busloads of tech workers have and made the growth of our ranks far years or my two sons. It would be good for all of us then been kept from making the same com- more difficult. And by insisting that As the Chinese-American commu- if they did not think we were their mute I made years ago. non-union contractors that we signed nity grew in size and in political and enemies. 114 Years SAN FRANCISCO BUILDING & CONSTRUCTION TRADES COUNCIL OFFICERS & AFFILIATES Published Since February 1900 Officers of the Council (USPC 411-860) - (ISSN 00199-6452) Michael Theriault, Secretary-Treasurer Dan Fross, Trustee Official Newspaper of the Lawrence Mazzola, President Charley Lavery, Trustee San Francisco Building & Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO Victor Parra, Vice President Pat Mulligan, Trustee 1188 Franklin St.