SAN JOSE — Members of Santa Clara County’s plumbers and steamfitters union protested Monday morning in downtown San Jose, calling for developers in Silicon Valley to hire local workers at a fair wage.

About 100 members of Local Union 393, which includes workers from Santa Clara and San Benito counties, protested at Market and Santa Clara streets in front of a new high-rise condominium construction project. Union workers say jobs for plumbers and steamfitters were given to a company in the Sacramento area that offers “significantly less pay” than workers in the San Jose area.

“We feel local people should be given an opportunity to work in their community,” said Bill Guthrie, business manager of local union 393. “This developer and general contractor have chosen contractors that choose largely to displace local people for people coming from the valley and Sacramento at significantly less wages.

“That’s not right. We’re the soccer moms and soccer dads of the community. We pay taxes here. We support local businesses here. We should be afforded an opportunity to work on these jobs.”

A message left with the developer, Esses Property Trust, Inc., was not immediately returned.

Guthrie said workers are coming from as far as Lodi for $23 per hour.

“There’s local people here that should be given the opportunity to be able to work on the job, whether it be returning veterans or regular residents of the community,” Guthrie said.

Contact Mark Gomez at 408-920-5869. Follow him at Twitter.com/markmgomez.