Max Whittaker/Getty Images

Jerry Hill in Sacramento July 24, 2009

A historic new San Francisco law that requires city-funded public works projects to employ city residents for a minimum percentage of work would be undermined by legislation introduced by a San Mateo lawmaker yesterday.

The proposed law from Assemblyman Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) would prevent cities from enforcing local hiring rules on projects that receive any state funding or take place outside of their jurisdictions.

Hill's bill is a direct attack on the nation’s most stringent local hiring ordinance, which was adopted late last year by San Francisco lawmakers. With some exceptions, the local hiring law requires city-funded projects to employ at least 20 percent of their workforce this year from within city limits, rising to 50 percent in 2016. Failure to comply could lead to fines.

San Mateo political leaders have said the law will lock their constituents out of desperately needed construction jobs run by San Francisco within their county, including those at San Francisco International Airport and water pipeline improvement projects. The law does not apply to the existing project labor agreement at the airport, and exemptions apply to many of the pipeline projects.

San Francisco's local hiring law does not apply to state or federal money that helps pay for a project if the funding agency or grant specifically outlaws the use of local hiring laws. Hill's legislation, on the other hand, would outright prevent local hiring laws from applying to any project that receives any amount of state funding.

Economic analysis by San Francisco shows that project costs will rise as the new law takes effect because contractors will need to take additional measures to train and recruit local workers.

"The projects that will be subject to the local hire [law] will cost more," Hill said. "If state funds are used then the state is going to be paying more."

Supervisor John Avalos, author of the city's law, said Hill does not understand provisions of San Francisco’s legislation that protect San Mateo County residents and accused him of politically motivated grandstanding.

“It’s completely ill-informed, misguided and far-reaching,” Avalos said. “It’s not going to go anywhere.”

San Francisco's law was approved following a year of private and public meetings involving the city's labor and business leaders, lawmakers, city officials, prominent nonprofits, contractors and raucous crowds of unemployed residents of economically disadvantage southeastern neighborhoods.

The local hiring issue fueled a fiery regional debate and was covered in more than 50 news articles, a recent analysis by a nonprofit supportive of the law shows, and by television networks and local websites, such as SF Appeal. 

While then-Mayor Gavin Newsom opposed the apparently veto-proof legislation and allowed it to become law without his signature, his replacement, Mayor Ed Lee, has named the improvement of local hiring practices among his top priorities.