Let's be clear, if somebody wanted to get the attention of the black community in Philadelphia, if they wanted to remind us that we are still suffering from a pre-Civil Rights style of racial harassment in the local construction industry, then they did that by shaking a hangman’s noose in Paul Solomon's face on October 1st.
And it was at the Comcast Tower that a member of the Glaziers' Union told that same Paul Solomon that he "wanted to hang somebody."
Let's also be clear that the kind of racial harassment that Paul Solomon experienced is not limited just to him, and not limited to the Comcast construction site. In fact, we've been informed that racial discrimination and harassment against black workers and businesses take place at virtually every construction site in this city.
As much as the community is focused, now, on bringing an end to the racial harassment at the Comcast Tower and at the City's other construction sites, African Americans also are now committed to making sure that Philadelphia finally begins to include blacks, in numbers reflecting their representation in the workforce, throughout every level of the local construction industry.
There can be no dispute that we've been virtually shut out up to this point. Nationwide, the 8,736 African-American-owned construction firms "with employees" constitute just 1.2 percent of the 729,843 construction firms in the country. Those same black firms generate only .6 percent of the gross revenues of the national construction industry, $9.5 billion, compared to $1.2 trillion for white-owned firms.
In the Philadelphia Metro Area, according to the 2002 Census, there were 174 black-owned construction firms with employees. Those firms generated $141 million in revenues and employed 1,138 persons. By comparison, revenues for all Philadelphia metro area construction firms are estimated at about $16.2 billion. That gives local black construction firms about .8 percent. In addition, it is estimated that 80 percent of the skilled union tradesmen working on Philadelphia construction sites live outside the City, and approximately 95 percent of them are white. This takes place in a city wherein 61 percent of the population is non-white. I don’t care who’s doing the math, it doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make sense.
With this most recent wake-up call, the African-American community is now committed to finally receiving fair levels of participation, economic parity and workplace respect, from the city of Philadelphia's construction industry.
This may sound uncomfortable to those who defend the racist status quo, but it will actually be good for the industry and for the Philadelphia economy, as a whole.
We believe that a meaningful African-American inclusion in the industry will increase the capacity of the City's construction industry workforce, so that Philadelphia will gain greater competitive advantage in attracting national developers and more jobs to our city.
We believe African-American inclusion can make the local construction industry more effective, more competitive.
We believe that if black people are finally included in what has historically been a racially discriminatory construction industry, the City's construction management companies and developers will no longer have to rely so heavily on bringing workers in from New Jersey, Delaware, West Virginia, Tennessee and, illegally, from Mexico, to fill jobs that are available in Center City, North Philadelphia, South Philadelphia and at other citywide construction sites.
As we have noted, the result will be more jobs for Philadelphians and a stronger local economy.
- We believe that if African Americans are finally included in the City's historically racist construction industry, we can create jobs in black communities, where 50 percent of African-American men are currently unemployed.
For those who may be wondering why we have so much violent crime and social maladjustment in our city, it's important to note that 40 percent to 50 percent of those currently serving time in Philadelphia's prisons were unemployed at the time they were arrested. But we have a plan:
Back in the late 1930’s, the people at Alcoholics Anonymous came up with something they called the 12 Step Program, to aid people in recovering from addiction, compulsion and other behavioral problems. The program usually includes:
Admitting that one cannot control one’s addiction or compulsion,
Recognizing a greater power that can give strength,
Examining past errors with the help of a sponsor,
Making amends for those errors,
Learning to live a new life with a code of behaviors, and
Helping others that suffer from the same addictions or compulsions.
In our opinion Philadelphia’s economy, and especially its construction industry, has been addicted to racial discrimination and harassment, and we’ve devised a 13-Step Program to restore the industry to economic health, as follows:
1. - We believe that the construction work sites in the city of Philadelphia, beginning now, should begin to look increasingly like the demographic composition of the City's overall population.
To achieve that, we believe the city of Philadelphia should establish clear goals for black workforce participation and black contractor participation on these sites. This should happen on both public and private construction sites and should be clearly monitored by the government and private sector leadership. Ultimately, it should be the responsibility of the Mayor's Office and Governor's Office to ensure that these goals are achieved on an annual basis.
2. - We believe the city of Philadelphia needs to ensure that African-American workers and contractors are included among the companies and workers who provide office interior "fit-out" work on new and existing office towers throughout Center City Philadelphia. To date, virtually no black contractors and workers participate in this multimillion-dollar industry.
3. - Recognizing that black contractors are significantly more inclined than mainstream contractors to hire black construction workers, we believe the city of Philadelphia needs to launch expanded programs to support the creation and development of small, black construction firms.
4. - In addition, with programs similar to that already in place at PIDC, the City should expand efforts to provide financing and bonding assistance to qualified black contractors. It is no secret that, without such financial support, no small contractor, black or white, can be successful.
5. - We believe the city of Philadelphia needs to create a credible, accountable, accelerated apprenticeship program for African Americans who are interested in working in the construction industry. Today, it takes far too long for blacks to become card-carrying union members and the percentage of blacks who do successfully complete the overly-long, pre-apprentice and apprentice programs is abysmally low.
6. - We believe the city of Philadelphia needs to launch a credible, accountable program to ensure that qualified, experienced, African-American construction workers and construction firms are no longer denied access to union membership.
7. - We believe the city of Philadelphia, through, both, its public and private sector leadership, should commit to a locally administered and monitored anti-harassment policy.
8. - Individuals who violate that policy should be included on a central, computerized, database, whose content would be shared among all City construction management and development companies. Once listed, those who have a record of committing racial harassment should be barred from working on any City construction site.
Currently, those who perpetrate racial harassment are simply reassigned to another City construction site, where they are free to continue their racially discriminatory practices. That's exactly what happened in the case of the man who shook a noose in the face of Paul Solomon. He's not at Comcast, but he is working somewhere else, right here in the City, as if nothing ever happened.
9. - We believe that construction managers, and developers must also be held accountable for maintaining construction workplace environments that are free from harassment and discrimination.
10. - A series of significant fines should be imposed by Municipal and State governments on construction managers and developers who allow harassment and discriminatory practices to be carried out on their construction projects.
Further penalties, including debarment from bids on future public construction projects, should also be enforced.
11. - We also believe, given that workers who are harassed on a construction site are often reluctant to report the incident out of fear of losing their jobs, the City and Commonwealth should establish a construction industry "harassment hotline" to be used by workers who have been the victims of racist and/or discriminatory practices.
12. - We believe that monthly and quarterly construction industry "harassment incident reports" should be provided to the Mayor's Office, to the President of City Council and to the Governor's Office.
13. - We believe the City and Commonwealth should require that security cameras be placed on construction sites as a further deterrent to future harassment and discriminatory practices.
Finally, we believe that, if all of this is done, Philadelphia's economy will be strengthened, its construction workforce capacity will be substantially improved, the City's unemployment and poverty rates will be reduced and we can begin to reduce the propensity for people who have lost all hope of economic inclusion to become involved in criminal activities.
The fact is that in the face of more than 122 years of virtual exclusion from Philadelphia’s’ mainstream construction industry, the black community has been far too patient.
We have been so patient and so excluded, for so long, that people in this city have forgotten that, from 1684 when the first 150 African slaves were brought to Philadelphia, up through 1885, when the first racially exclusive construction trade unions were established, it was Africans who did a substantial majority of the construction work in this city, and many of the buildings that they built are still standing today. According to “African Americans in Pennsylvania,” by Hopkins and Smith, “…slaves were likely to work alongside their masters as sailmakers, bakers, carpenters, charcoal-iron workers, farmhands, or domestic servants.”
In fact, we’ve been forced to the margins of this construction industry for so long that people in this industry, and even some of African-Americans, have come to believe that we are now unqualified to do the construction work that we have always been able to do.
But now, thanks to this despicable noose incident, our eyes are wide open and we can think clearly again, and we will absolutely not be satisfied until we have our rightful place in this industry.
This is not an affirmative action issue, this is an economic issue. This is the issue that will determine, in large part, whether a significant percentage of the members of Philadelphia’s black community will have the resources to put bread on their tables and roofs over their heads, and we will not stop, today, we will not stop, ever, until it is finally resolved.
We look forward to participating in the Construction Industry Summit, being planned by Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen, and other local construction managers and developers, to address these issues.
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