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Education Day of Action Students and faculty join the carpenters in solidarity. Below: carpenters offer a balloon with a 'Sad Face' and the word ‘Unemployed’ to students headed back to school. Bottom: Roll Call sign in was cooler than usual on a brisk March morning. Thursday, March 4th was a ‘Day of Action’ for education supporters around the state, protesting the continuing dismantling of our public education system in California. It was also the day that Carpenter’s Local 217 decided to hold Roll Call at Canada College in San Mateo, protesting the Community College District’s decision to award a contract to a non-union contractor from out of the area. Although the San Mateo Community College District has a Project Labor Agreement covering their projects that includes a requirement that carpenters and other trades be hired from local hiring halls, staff went out of their way to shift the funding on this project so the PLA didn’t cover the work. Their claim was that they needed to keep costs down since they were building faculty housing. So it was especially ironic when the students and faculty of the College, who were protesting education cuts, marched over and joined the Carpenters protest in solidarity. "Students and faculty of the College, who were protesting education cuts, marched over and joined the Carpenters protest in solidarity."
The Carpenters’ Union has a long tradition of supporting public education, and has stepped up repeatedly to support measure for funding public education, and decent school facilities. It’s too bad some bureaucrat in the San Mateo College district wants to return that support by giving our work to a non-union contractor from out of the area. If you live in San Mateo, and want to express your concern as a taxpayer about the District’s failure to support the local economy and local workers, contact Barbara Christensen, the District’s Director of Community & Government Relations at (650) 574-6560 or by email at: christensen@smccd.edu   |
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