Labor union attorneys have filed a 200-page protest with the
City of Gilroy in response to the environmental impact report for
the long-planned and city-approved Glen Loma Ranch project.
Labor union attorneys have filed a 200-page protest with the City of Gilroy in response to the environmental impact report for the long-planned and city-approved Glen Loma Ranch project.
The EIR, required under the state’s environment protection law, CEQA, was prepared at a cost of $118,000 by EMC Group, which has been producing these documents for a quarter of a century. The company knows CEQA inside and out and would not produce a report with so many flaws that it takes more pages to list and describe them than the original EIR contains.
So what’s up? It sure looks – and smells – like blackmail in a perfume bottle to us.
The unions’ protest, which took four firms to prepare, was filed after Glen Loma Group refused to sign a labor agreement promising to use union labor exclusively on the project that will be built over the next 11 years.
When Glen Loma Group declined to sign the unions’ labor agreement, union attorneys filed their environmental protests that could delay the project for weeks, months or years.
“This is a vehicle to tie up projects and that’s all it is,” Jim Severson, the lawyer for Glen Loma Group developer John Filice, told reporter Eric Leins.
The unions’ hollow and transparently false concern for the environment is hypocrisy of the highest – or perhaps, more accurately, lowest – order. That the environmental protest was filed only after Glen Loma Group refused to sign the labor agreement ought to outrage all Gilroyans. We urge City Council and all Gilroyans to view the unions’ environmental concerns with a jaundiced eye.
Enforcement of California’s environmental laws is outside the purview of labor unions. Use of the labor laws as a threat to developers who don’t knuckle under to union demands smacks of extortion.
We urge Gilroyans to contact the labor unions – who have taken a sudden and intense interest in Gilroy politics of late – to let them know in no uncertain terms what they think of the unions’ apparent strong-arm tactics. And while you’re at it, share a copy with your City Councilmembers to make sure they’re aware of your feelings on this issue as well.
We may not have expensive hired-gun attorneys who can file scores of protests filled with “boilerplate” language, but we have our voices and we can make them heard loudly and clearly. Tell the unions involved in the Glen Loma EIR protests that these tactics aren’t welcome in Gilroy.
Here’s how:
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 232, 2125 Canoas Garden Ave., Suite 100, San Jose, 95125 or call 269-4332
Sheetmetal Workers Union Local 104, 2350 Lundy Place, San Jose, 95131, or call 225-3939
South Bay AFL-CIO, 2102 Almaden Road, Suite 107, San Jose, 95125, or call 266-3790
