Oakland Army Base

The City of Oakland’s $500 million redevelopment project of Oakland Army Base aims to create a modern logistics and warehousing center on 140 city-owned acres of the base, which was closed in 1999 after decades of being a major regional employer.

All parties involved agreed on the importance of extending the benefits of development into the surrounding community. The details were finalized after an extensive, yearlong stakeholder engagement process, involving labor, community-based organizations, employers, and others.

The core tenets of the resulting “Jobs Policies” were incorporated into the many agreements necessary for a project this size, addressing both construction employment and permanent operations employment. The final development agreement was approved in 2012.

Julian Gross was retained by the City of Oakland to assist in development and negotiation of the following documents:

Jobs Policies

The following are incorporated into the Lease Disposition and Development Agreement (Attachment 15) between the City of Oakland and the project’s private developer

• Construction Jobs Policy for Public Improvements—covers publicly-funded construction at the Base. Includes local and disadvantaged hire, apprentice sponsorship requirements, and ban the box.
• Construction Jobs Policy for Vertical Construction—covers prviately-funded construction at the Base. Includes local hire, apprentice sponsorship requirements, and ban the box.
• Operations Jobs Policy—covers non-construction jobs in Developer’s and tenants’ future operations at the Base. Includes local and disadvantaged hire, living wage, ban the box, and restrictions on use of temp workers.

Project Labor Agreement

• Covers public improvements portion of OAB construction.
• Executed by City of Oakland, Alameda County Building Trades Council, and affiliated unions.
• Contains various commitments to facilitate contractor compliance with Construction Jobs Policy, including priority referral of targeted workers, and ability of contractors to go outside the hiring hall to obtain targeted workers.
  
  Also contains a “carve out” to facilitate participation of small local contractors who are non-union.

Cooperation Agreement

• Agreement between City of Oakland and labor/community groups.
• City commits to including all Jobs Policies in the development agreement, to enforcing them, and to amending them only through a public process with additional notification requirements.
• Labor/community groups endorse Jobs Policies and release claims against the project.

To address concerns of ongoing monitoring and enforcement, a formal Community Jobs Oversight Commission, made up of representatives from community organizations, labor, employers and City of Oakland, was established to review compliance reports and address issues related to the implementation of the Jobs Policies.