Photos by Tue Nam Ton, Contributing Photographer
Column by Rudy Gonzalez, SF Building Trades Secretary-Treasurer
The San Francisco Unified School District Construction Crafts Coalition is a small but determined crew of skilled and trained construction workers who keep the city school district’s infrastructure humming.
The coalition includes a variety of local union workers: plumbers, gardeners, locksmiths, carpenters, sheet metal workers, painters, drivers, roofers, and ironworkers. Each coalition worker is at journey-level in his or her trade and is equipped with the depth of experience necessary to ready our facilities and help promote good learning environments for our students.
This photo feature will introduce you to just a portion of the Crafts Coalition.
Coalition workers are the unsung heroes of the school district. When the pandemic hit, they stayed working and have been on-site the entire time.
They repair and maintain ventilation systems. They fabricate and build the plastic barriers that protect students and staff. They are the lifeblood ensuring most every district facility across the city is functioning correctly. They provide both consistency and customization to SFUSD. In so doing, they also provide significant cost savings to the district.
These men and women love their jobs, and they enjoy working alongside educators and students. Coalition workers are parents of current students and SFUSD graduates themselves who have been loyal and dedicated to the district for many years.
Sadly, the economic pressure has become too much for some, and we have lost — and will continue to lose — great staff to other public agencies, namely, the City and County of San Francisco.
That’s because coalition workers, who have been without a contract since the beginning of last July, are hired by the school district under the civil service system. Coalition workers’ job spec codes and job descriptions match those of city and county employees, but they get paid less — 13.8% less, to be exact — than those doing the same jobs who do work for the city or county rather than the school district.
We need SFUSD leadership to invest in retaining the fine employees of its Crafts Coalition, and that starts by negotiating a fair contract that’ll give coalition employees parity with city employees in similar lines of work.

Arturo Saloma
Lock Shop Supervisor
Member of Local 22

Charlie Piazza
Sheet Metal Worker
Member of Local 104

Everett Whorton
Carpenter
Member of Local 22

Nick Castagneri
Sheet Metal Worker
Member of Local 104

Eamonn Burns
Carpenter
Member of Local 22

Edward Contreras
Sheet Metal Worker
Member of Local 104

Richard Gallagher
Carpenter
Member of Local 22

Richard Koenig
Business Representative
Local 104

Jon Azelvandre
Locksmith
Member of Local 22

Chiu Mar
Carpenter
Member of Local 22

Dan Nicholson
Sheet Metal Worker
Member of Local 104

Andrew Pham
Locksmith
Member of Local 22