Letters.

LAX Deal Bad for Workers

After reading the article by Deborah Belgum, "Labor Wins Key Concession Over Project at Airport" (Aug. 14), I was disappointed to see that virtually all of the key points to the Project Labor Agreement (PLA) were omitted. The headline in itself is misleading and does not address the true nature of what the city has entered into.

By entering into this agreement with trade unions, the city has signed away free enterprise, ignored over 80 percent of its construction-related constituents and partnered with organizations that continue to disrupt the workplace with strikes. The time for accountability is now. Politicians need to be made responsible for bad business and bad politics. Under the guise of this type of agreement, unions will tell you they are eliminating strikes and providing a streamlined system of management on these projects. That is not true.

The PLA will in effect eliminate all non-union/independent/Merit Shop contractors from bidding on any of the work to be performed at all of the local airports for the next 10 years. Since Merit Shop contractors make up over 80 percent of the construction labor force in the state of California, I cannot see how "Labor Wins Key Concession."

In addition, under a PLA, Merit Shop employees will be compelled to forfeit a portion of their paycheck to the union coffers, even though they have chosen to remain non-union, but they will receive none of the traditional so-called representation that their union counterparts receive. That is nothing short of theft.

The trade unions' management has become the very thing that unions were formed to protect labor against. They, along with the City Council. only have their own interests in mind -- not those of labor, the public, or providing the best product at the lowest responsible price. In this election year, make yourself heard and support those who support us, and not themselves.

SHANE HOGGARD

Executive Director

Associated Builders and Contractors Inc.

Aerospace Price Fixing 

Your article on the aerospace giants forming an Intranet procurement Web site in the near future ("Web Deal Worries Aerospace Subcontractors," Aug. 7) was both very interesting and disturbing. They say, "The Web will change all the rules for B2B transactions," but competitors sharing each other's information on quotes sounds like collusion to me, Web or no Web.

What makes them think that if it's illegal to privately share buying info., putting it on the Web makes it all right somehow? The smaller shops supplying these parts will probably have to resort to making their bids proprietary to keep from having them shared online.

GEORGE LAASE

Culver City 

Kudes to Albom, DeGeneres

Bravo to Mitch Albom for a very moving and simply profound column, "'Wounded' Ellen Ain't So Bad After All" (July 31). While I have not always liked her style, her choice and risk-taking are important: none more so than her choice not to make fun of people. I do not find fun at someone's expense funny. Perhaps it is because in the 25 years I have been helping and coaching people, I have seen the viciously deep wounding (a most apt word) such ridicule has done, not just to gay clients but to all of us.

When we allow that kind of meanness to go unchecked, or even worse, to be the norm (I believe this wounding is perpetuated by many who have been wounded themselves), we not only wound those targeted, we wound ourselves. We create a climate of unsafe mean-spiritedness in which none of us thrive, not within ourselves, in our workplaces, nor in our organizations.

I applaud Ms. DeGeneres' courage to present material that does not perpetuate destructive norms. Thank you L.A. Business Journal and Mr. Albom for quality work: It made me glad I became a subscriber.

SUSAN M. SATYA

Director

Catalysts for Change