A bid to pair faster homebuilding with a higher construction wage has run into one of Sacramento's most stubborn divides — between unions that usually stand together.
A housing bill with a wage catch
Assembly Bill 1751, the Missing Middle Townhome Ownership Act, co-authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), would give townhome projects a streamlined, ministerial approval path — bypassing the discretionary review that housing advocates blame for California's chronic undersupply. As a condition of that benefit, the bill originally required contractors to pay carpentry and related workers at least $28 an hour, roughly 75 percent above the state's current minimum wage. The measure was sponsored by a centrist business group that argued the floor would help professionalize a residential sector long dogged by low pay and wage theft. "We have a population sector that needs to earn more," said state Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), an author of the Senate version.
Unions divided
The provision ran into a fault line between the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the California State Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents electricians, plumbers, ironworkers and others. The Trades opposed the $28 floor, warning it could "undermine federal prevailing wage requirements" — the system that sets pay on publicly funded projects — by carving out a separate standard for residential work. The Carpenters pushed back hard, arguing that residential construction workers rarely work on prevailing-wage jobs in the first place, and that dropping the requirement abandoned the workers who most need a raise.
The wage language is removed
At a June Senate Housing Committee hearing, chair Sen. Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley) made clear the bill would not advance with the wage provision intact. Facing a choice between losing the bill and accepting the change, Wicks agreed to strip the $28 requirement; the bill passed the committee without it. The Carpenters' California director publicly accused Arreguín of "a lack of leadership," while Arreguín pledged to pursue a future compromise on wages — so far a promise without a bill or a timeline.
Wages versus housing costs
The episode captures a tension at the heart of nearly every California housing debate: labor protections and housing affordability are often in direct competition. Backers of streamlined approvals say the state desperately needs more "missing middle" housing — townhomes and attached units cheaper and faster to build than large complexes — to chip at a shortfall the Terner Center at UC Berkeley estimates at more than 2.5 million homes. Homebuilders have long argued that wage mandates on market-rate housing, which can't easily absorb costs through public subsidy, get passed straight to buyers at the worst possible moment. Worker advocates counter that residential construction is among the most wage-theft-prone industries in the state, with non-union workers often earning far less for the same work. For now, AB 1751 moves ahead without the $28 floor, and carpentry workers on California's new townhomes will earn whatever their contractor pays above the state minimum.
