We are pleased to announce that the Santa Fe City Council voted on February 29^th, 2012, to approve the proposed Community Workforce Agreement. The vote was 7 to 0, in favor of the agreement, with one councilor abstaining.

This agreement means that all public works projects of $500,000 or more will be constructed by workers represented by our various NM Building and Construction Trades Council affiliates. This is the culmination of an ongoing process that was begun 20 months ago.

The City of Santa Fe's “Business and Quality of Life” committee first issued unanimous support for the Community Workforce Agreement proposal. This paved the way for the vote on February 29^th. It was the third and final committee that has vetted the proposal. This will be virtually the first time a city of this size anywhere in the U.S. has approved a CWA of this type, (the ones before have all been large cities) and will mark the first step in the NM Building Trades overall strategic plan to do more of these around the state with various entities, including, cities, counties, tribes, etc.

Along with all of the people within the BTC who have worked to make this possible, we would like to thank Executive Director of the NMBCTC Ray Baca for all that he did to see this through.

This is the first piece of a strategic path toward making more of these agreements possible around the state with various municipalities, school districts, universities, and tribal entities.

To learn more about PLA's and CWA's, Click Here.