True - Illegal to volunteer in California!

The Fladen Experience ^ | May 22, 2004 | Elliot Fladen

[ElliotFladen]

Read it with the links at the original site - the links make it worthwhile. http://fladenexp.blogspot.com/2004/05/this-was-like-bomb-going-off-in.html

[doug from upland]

I love it when the left finds a way to screw each other.

[coloradan]

The enviralists elect Grayout Davis and this is what they get. Sleep with dogs, wake up with fleas.

Let's just be sure to prosecute EVERY SINGLE group that used volunteer effort in violation of law. Starting with those groups that gave the most support to Grayout.

[headsonpikes]

This is why socialism, under whatever guise, leads to cannibalism and genocide.

TANSTAAFL.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Somehow, even though this was done during the Davis Admin, they will find a way to blame republican officeholders. Just watch...

[muawiyah]

Maryland is stuck with a similar piece of "prevailing wage" legislation and Virginia isn't.

In planning for the new Wilson bridge across the Potomac Maryland's Democratic regime wanted the U.S. Secretary of Labor to mandate that the project's federal component had to also be done under the federal "prevailing wage" law.

This would have had the effect of pretty much doubling the bridge's total cost.

Virginia, which is providing about half the non-federal funding decided it could not be bound by previous agreements and would simply not pay for any of the increases in cost.

Maryland's Democrat regime then backed off. The federales, under Bush 43, didn't certify the project for federal "prevailing wage" status anyway.

What's interesting with the California business is the very first groups to get hurt are another wing of the Democrat's coalition, the environmentalists! In Maryland, the first groups to get hurt were Marylanders. After all, the bridge is of much more economic consequence to Maryland than it is Virginia.

Otherwise, few people care about the "prevailing wage" theory of poject construction (unless you want to stop the project!)

[dufekin]

Sounds like it's time for California to repeal its entire legal code--or at least vast sections, chapters, or whatever they're called--and start again.

[twntaipan]

The horns of a liberal dilema.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Doug, currently there is an exhibit at the Old Courthouse Museum in Santa Ana that I designed. Just last Wednesday I was over there for a presentation by a paleontologist from the LA County Museum of Natural History. I had a conversation about this topic with a county employee of the Parks & Rec Department. Apparently, there are several laws that Davis pushed through in cahoots with public employee unions. It's really going to hurt a lot of programs, and needs to be changed.

[doug from upland]

Thanks for the info. I guess it is more of the Davis legacy. :)

[jpsb]

If these groups really were "volunteer" group they would not be taking government money. Screw em.

[ElliotFladen]

BTW - they are trying to fix it with a bill called AB 2690. One problem delaying the bill was that labor unions wanted a sunset provision, concerned about "potential abuses".

[steplock]

Stupid law - but I like that the left has been caught in one its own traps!

We are going to hell in a handbasket - unless we rid ourselves of ALL the current crop of tyrannical politicians, lawyers, and judges.

[SoCal Pubbie]

The way it works is that there is a permanent staff of paid employees, augmented by volunteers who perform certain tasks. For example, in a case I'm somewhat familiar with, paid employees oversee the curation of fossils belonging to the County of Orange, while volunteers do the actual work of picking through the fossils, removing unwanted material, and cleaning the specimen for study and display. Another example are "Heal the Bay" kind of events when people come together to pick up trash in a bay or estuary. I know the Morro Bay National Estuary Program does this.

I guess you have to decide what you feel is right but outlawing volunteering seems ridiculous to me. Do you suppose they have outlawed unpaid internships in Sacramento or in Hollywood?

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[VOA]

I guess you have to decide what you feel is right but outlawing volunteering seems ridiculous to me.

My understanding is that more than a few projects that parents wanted to do
to improve their children's public schools (painting, etc.) have been
stopped by the unionized maintainence workers of the school districts.

[Kozak]

When we lived in Sacramento our kids school needed painting in the worst way. No funds in the budget, so a group of us parents volunteered to paint the school, supplying all the paint and the labor.

NO WAY. The custodial union blocked it. so the school didn't get painted. But the left of course Loves all the Children. / sarcasm /vomit

[John Jorsett]

receiving governmental assistance turns construction (defined loosely) into a "public works project"

Does this mean we have to pay volunteers who work on presidential campaigns that receive federal matching funds? That would be a fun lawsuit to file.

[John Jorsett]

Sure, environmentalists and other non-profits would get out of the high costs associated with this law, but many government contractors would remain stuck with it leaving taxpayers to pony up the higher costs.

One problem is that a lot of municipalities write prevailing-wage restrictions into their construction contracts whether the law mandates it or not. In my city, the city council arbitrarily requires prevailing wage, and school construction costs are conservatively 25% higher than they would be otherwise. I think an initiative that expressly forbids requiring prevailing-wage -- or at least redefines it to something more accurate than what union workers are getting -- is in order.

[asgardshill]

True - Illegal to volunteer in California!

Your headline is misleading and false. There is nothing in your article that confirms your assertion that it is "illegal" to volunteer in California.