Bini: Kathy Watanabe owes Santa Clara workers straight answers

I have built my career in the building trades, first on the job and then leading the council that speaks for the men and women who build this region.

One of the first lessons an apprentice learns is that, on job sites and in the homes of people who work for a living, a person’s word means something. Workers judge a candidate the same way they judge a contractor or coworker: Did you show up, and did you do what you promised?

Kathy Watanabe is asking Santa Clara voters to trust her as mayor. First, she owes us straight answers.

Start with Related Companies Santa Clara, the multibillion-dollar project near Levi’s Stadium that receives real public support, including reduced rent, a city-funded substation and paused development fees.

The development agreement that governs the project was approved during Watanabe’s tenure on the City Council, and it included language that avoided prevailing wages for the workers who would build it. The state Department of Industrial Relations disagreed and ruled that the project is a public work subject to prevailing wage requirements. Related Co. exhausted its appeals at the department and lost. Watanabe has never explained why a developer that depends on public money should be exempt from paying the people who build it a fair wage.

Related’s record elsewhere is no better. In New York, during the Hudson Yards project, the company refused to sign a project labor agreement with the Building Trades Council, brought in nonunion crews and sued the council’s leader. The men and women who stood up for union jobs paid the price for that fight.

Watanabe’s longtime ally, Mayor Lisa Gillmor, has a prevailing wage problem of her own. A San José Spotlight investigation found that Gillmor’s property management company appears to have failed to pay prevailing wages on work at Casa del Maestro, a 70-unit teacher housing complex. Gillmor says her company manages the property for a nonprofit foundation that pays contractors directly. That may be part of the answer, but it does not resolve whether the workers on that job received the prevailing wage the law requires.

Then there is Watanabe’s recent press event, raising new concerns about shady behavior and getting cozy with anti-worker figures. She hosted a news conference with Edward Escobar, a self-described political operative who has publicly attacked labor unions. Watanabe described the event as a community gathering. Yet attendees from an Oakland-based community group stood behind the podium holding “Watanabe for Mayor” signs. That was a campaign event, and she should say so. Standing beside someone who has built a public career attacking organized labor is not a neutral choice.

Watanabe also sought the endorsement of the South Bay Labor Council, which instead chose to endorse Gary Ferraris, a longtime labor advocate who has delivered for workers. That decision reflects a judgment about who has earned our trust.

Working people in this city build our homes, staff our hospitals, answer our emergency calls and teach our children. They deserve a mayor who answers for every vote, every donor, every ally and every company receiving public support.

If Watanabe wants our support, she needs to explain why she stood with Related, why she kept silent about the alleged prevailing wage violations tied to her ally, Mayor Gillmor, and why she is campaigning alongside people who have spent years fighting unions.

Our members are watching. So are their families. We are asking for straight answers, and we expect them.

David Bini is executive director of the Santa Clara & San Benito Counties Building & Construction Trades Council.