Labor Calls off all Gaylord Negotiations
**For Immediate Release**
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Labor Calls off all Gaylord Negotiations
After Gaylord Refuses Again to Hire Locally, Unions Urge Mayor to Focus on Finding a Trustworthy Developer for Bayfront Project
Statement from Tom Lemmon, San Diego County Building & Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO“Thank you for joining us. Our priority today is to set the record straight on our past negotiations with Gaylord, the final conclusion of those negotiations, and once and for all settle this issue so that Chula Vista can move forward with the best possible project for the Bayfront.
I want to start with a brief overview of the true story of our conversations with Gaylord Entertainment.
What many people don’t realize is that in January, after months of talks with Gaylord, we had come to a mutual agreement about how to make this project work for them and ensure the construction jobs would go to the local men and women who live in Chula Vista and the surrounding areas first.
At that point, it was just us and Gaylord, and both parties were satisfied with the compromises we made. But then, Gaylord pulled out of the deal. They abandoned us and eventually abandoned all of Chula Vista.
All we know is that Gaylord received a threat from the nonunion contractors association, the Associated Builders and Contractors—known as ABC—that if they signed a deal with us, the nonunion contractors association would sue them. ABC’s top agenda is to fight unions because we work every day to ensure that local people have good jobs that pay enough to support a family, and provide a secure retirement and health care.
In a nutshell, if there is anyone responsible for what we’re announcing today, it’s the ABC—though Gaylord and Mayor Cox played key supporting roles.
So where are we today? As we said when Gaylord first announced they were abandoning the project, we compromised on every single issue, but we wouldn’t budge on the requirement that if Gaylord wanted $300 million in public money to build this convention center, they needed to make a legal commitment to hire the local men and women who live in Chula Vista and the surrounding region first. Gaylord has proven untrustworthy in Chula Vista and other communities, and without a legally binding agreement, their track record suggests they would break any promise they make. This was the only sticking point in negotiations.
Despite the fact that it was Gaylord that abandoned Chula Vista, we recently made two efforts to reach out to them to see if we could salvage this deal. First, the national presidents of the AFL-CIO and Building Trades sat down with Gaylord two weeks ago. Gaylord again refused to hire men and women from Chula Vista and the surrounding area first. Next, we agreed with Mayor Cox to meet with them, but on the condition that if they refused to meet or still refused to hire locally, the Mayor and the Port would stop wasting precious time on Gaylord and start looking immediately for a new developer that could be trusted.
We also asked the Mayor to make a public commitment that a project paid for out of public coffers would first and foremost create jobs for the men and women who elected her. As her quotes in yesterday’s San Diego Union Tribune story reveal, securing jobs for Chula Vistans is not Mayor Cox’s priority. An untrustworthy out of state developer is.
Instead of taking our offer to meet with them seriously, Gaylord forwarded us a proposal that wasn’t even on their letterhead. Today, we voted on how to proceed. In a unanimous vote, we decided to reject this proposal and call off all future negotiations. Here’s why:
- The proposal is a nonstarter, as it doesn’t even address the issue of local workers. If Gaylord really wanted to make a deal all they had to do is make a legally binding agreement to hire local workers first and a deal would be done in less than ten minutes. Instead, their proposal discusses local contractors—which is a priority for nonunion contractors—but it doesn’t say anything about the actual men and women who will do the work. In fact, the nonunion contractors admitted on Friday that they intended to ship in workers from outside the San Diego area if Gaylord hires them.
- The proposal is dishonest. It puts union contractors at a competitive disadvantage to nonunion contractors. It demands that any union contractor pay for the privilege of bidding, and then rigs the system so nonunion contractors will get the work. Those are the same contractors who admitted they intend to ship in workers from outside the San Diego area.
- We take this proposal as the final sign that Gaylord is not serious about returning to Chula Vista. Gaylord is done with Chula Vista. We’ve compromised on everything we can and it’s time to let go.
In closing, we have done everything we can to salvage this deal. But if we can’t convince the Mayor of Chula Vista that her voters deserve these jobs, we don’t expect to convince an out of state developer with a history of importing out of state workers.
We want Chula Vista to get the right bayfront project — not just the first one that comes along. Chula Vista has a prized piece of land any developer would be lucky to develop. Gaylord was unwilling to commit to share the economic benefits with the local workforce, they were unwilling to protect our unique coastal environment and they proved to be a developer that Chula Vista just couldn’t trust.
It’s time that Mayor Cox and the Port stop wasting any more time on Gaylord and start looking for the right partner and the right project.
We’re going to do our part by committing that from this day forward, we aren’t talking about Gaylord anymore. We will work to educate the public about the role nonunion contractors played in chasing Gaylord out of town and the Mayor’s lack of commitment to her voters, but our priority is getting Chula Vista to focus on finding a trustworthy developer that understands the value of this opportunity.”
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