Two callers from a contractors’ association called in during public comment at the El Camino College Board of Trustees meeting Monday, April 28, regarding recent project labor agreements for a construction project.

One caller from the Western Electrical Contractors Association criticized the contract negotiations between ECC and the association for the Modular Village project and asked for ECC to stop using project labor agreements.

Another individual called in for public comment, criticizing the same labor agreements as the previous caller.

“[The callers] were both trying to undermine the project labor agreement. [Labor] is a value that our board believes in,” Trustee Trisha Murakawa said.

The first caller said the contract’s cost increased during negotiations to $11.5 million, 50% higher than it was supposed to be, and that ECC did not go through with the contract because the cost was so high.

Claiming that PLAs double the cost of projects, the caller said those agreements shrink the bidding pool and make projects inaccessible to non-unionized contractors.

Murakawa was defiant against these calls against the labor negotiations and said that they were an orchestrated attempt to undermine the project labor agreement already passed by the board between ECC and the Western States Carpenters Union for the project.

“What [the callers] were talking about — it sounded choreographed and orchestrated. We made a bold choice to support project labor agreements for our projects on this campus,” Trustee Brett C.S. Roberts said.