MUST PROJECT VOLUNTEERS BE PAID?

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

A ruling by state labor regulators that publicly funded nonprofit agencies must pay volunteers who work on construction or restoration has forced some environmental groups to shelve improvement projects, officials said Thursday.

The California Department of Industrial Relations ruling was the result of 1989 and 2001 labor laws that dovetail to essentially ban unpaid volunteers from helping on public works projects for nonprofit agencies receiving taxpayer funds or other public assistance.

``This was like a bomb going off in the environmental community,'' said Shelly Luce, director of science and policy at Heal the Bay, which was forced to halt a volunteer weed-removal project along Malibu Creek. ``Our creek monitoring and restoration is 80 percent volunteer ... We were sure it meant we had to shut everything down.''

Legislators in Sacramento are scrambling to pass a bill to resolve the problem, and regulators have stopped enforcing the rule in the meantime.

State construction and carpentry unions also have called for cleanup legislation to make it clear that volunteers are allowed to work on public projects.

But environmental groups fear they'll have to start paying for tree planting and trash pickup - chores frequently done by volunteers - if the situation isn't resolved.

``We feel very, very strongly in this time of budget cuts and shrinking resources that we and other organizations like us can play an important role in stretching those resources,'' said Ann Burroughs, executive director of L.A. Works, which links volunteers with hands-on community projects.

``We have to make sure these projects continue. If we don't do it, do the river and bay stay dirty and the school unpainted?''

Half of the dilemma results from a law enacted in 1989 that allows volunteer labor only if the work is handled entirely by unpaid workers, is completed on nonprofit facilities, doesn't impact employment and is approved by the state director of industrial relations. Failing to meet all criteria means a project is classified a ``public works'' project.

Then a 2001 bill by Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Van Nuys, required that workers be paid a prevailing wage on any project receiving public funds, bonds or assistance.

Although Alarcon said his bill was never meant to cover volunteers, the staff of the industrial relations department said overlapping provisions of both rules meant volunteers on public works projects for some nonprofits would have to be paid.

In one resulting case, a creek restoration group had to pay $33,000 for underpaying its crew, which included students and volunteers in addition to laborers.

``We think this is an extremely rigid view of the law and it doesn't comply with the intent of the laws,'' Alarcon said. ``There is no debate on whether or not volunteers can work on public projects.''

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com