The “infamous” noose incident two months ago at the Comcast Construction site has sharpened the focus on an issue that has long been a glaring embarrassment to the city of Philadelphia and an impediment to the City’s economic growth. According to the most recent census data, black construction firms in the Philadelphia metro area participate in just .8 percent of construction industry revenues.
This pattern of ongoing black exclusion from contracts and workforce opportunities in the Philadelphia construction trade has also been evident in other major cities across the country.
In fact, a recent study by St. Louis University, called “The Road to Jobs: Patterns of Employment in the Construction Industry” points out that:
· African-Americans have been systematically excluded from better-paying, skilled trades, including those in the construction industry, since slavery was abolished.
· That in 18 metro areas where the University’s study was conducted, blacks were substantially underrepresented in construction and that, where they are employed, they have been concentrated in the unskilled and most poorly paid parts of the industry.
· The report also points out that if blacks were employed in construction at the same rate they are employed in the overall workforce, 42,700 more blacks would have jobs in just those 18 metro areas. In a metro area as large as Philadelphia’s, that level of participation could translate into 6960 new African-American construction jobs. By comparison, today, in the Philadelphia metro area, the 174 black construction companies ‘with employees’ employ 1138 persons, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
That represents a tremendous opportunity to have a positive economic impact on our community. When was the last time that 7000 new high-paying jobs were made available to African Americans in Philadelphia?
· The report goes on to say that the shortage of decent-paying jobs for workers without a college education has reached crisis proportions. There are approximately 8.5 million people in this country employed in construction, but the report also indicates that only 10 percent of them have college degrees. This is an industry that is especially important to a city with the lowest percentage of college graduates among the country’s 10 largest municipalities.
In addition to the positive benefits that will accrue to the African-American community, and to the City as a whole, we believe the inclusion of black and minority workers and firms will provide economic benefits to the construction industry, itself.
An increased workforce capacity and a greater number of qualified, competitive construction firms will help the industry meet its timelines more effectively and assist the industry in keeping their projects within budget. It should also help the City attract interest from national developers who would bring even more jobs to the city.
In that regard, we have also been engaged in a series of very encouraging conversations with Walter Palmer, president of the General Building Contractors Association (GBCA), here in the city, on that very subject. What is on the table in those discussions and in Philadelphia City Council, we believe, will be beneficial for the black community, for the City as a whole, and for the construction companies.
That is why we have referred to this entire effort as the “Build Smarter” campaign.
On October 15, we released a 13-point plan for increasing black and minority participation and reducing racial and gender harassment in the local construction industry. Given the recent developments in City Council, however, we’ve modified those to six proposed action steps:
1. Construction work sites in the city of Philadelphia should increasingly reflect the demographic composition of the City’s overall population. Until that objective is achieved, the City’s public and private sector leadership should work together to establish black and minority workforce and contractor participation goals. The ultimate responsibility for monitoring and ensuring goal achievement should rest with the Mayor’s Office and Governor’s Office. By the way, Governor Rendell has made it very clear that black and minority workforce and contractor inclusion is a top priority issue for him in the City’s proposed Convention Center expansion, and in other statewide construction projects.
2. The city of Philadelphia’s public and private sector leadership should work together to ensure that black and minority workers and contractors are included among the companies and workforce participants who provide office interior “fit out” work on new and existing office towers throughout Center City Philadelphia. To date, virtually no black contractors or workers participate in that multimillion-dollar industry segment.
3. In recognition of the fact that black contractors are significantly more inclined than mainstream contractors to hire black construction workers, the city of Philadelphia should launch expanded programs to support the creation and development of small, black construction firms.
Such support should extend to the inclusion of such businesses and their employees in continuing training and education programs that have long been available to large, mainstream contractors.
4. With the expansion and support of programs similar to those in operation with PIDC and several local banks, the City should increase the availability of financing and bonding assistance to qualified black and minority contractors. Without such financial support mechanisms in place, no small contractor – black or white – can be successful.
5. The city of Philadelphia should create a fair, open, accountable and accelerated apprenticeship program for African Americans interested in working in the construction industry. The program in place today for minority applicants is excessively long with an unacceptably high attrition rate. Ideally, the current program would be supplemented with one that is open to those in the City’s high schools and that would initiate actual apprenticeship training in the 10th through 12th grades.
6. We strongly support Councilman Darrell Clarke’s Bill # 070914, which addresses the issue of racial, ethnic and gender harassment on construction sites, and in other work places.
We further believe, however, that construction managers and developers of Philadelphia construction projects should also be held accountable for finally maintaining an accountable, “no tolerance” policy for harassment on their sites. That accountability should include the potential of substantial, enforceable fines for repeated incidents.
In that regard we also believe that individuals found guilty of violating the industry’s “no tolerance” policy should be included on a centralized database whose content would be shared among all local construction management and development companies. Once listed, the perpetrators would be barred from work on any public-or private-sector construction site.
Currently, those who perpetrate racial harassment are simply reassigned to another local construction site, where they are free to continue their discriminatory practices.
We believe that, if these steps are taken, Philadelphia’s economy will be strengthened, its construction workforce capacity will be substantially improved, and the City’s unemployment and poverty rates will be commensurately reduced. In addition, the availability of new employment opportunities will begin to reduce the propensity for people, who have lost all hope of economic inclusion, to become involved in criminal activities.
We will continue our meetings with GBCA, with other members of the construction industry and with elected officials at the municipal and state level, to address each of these issues.
It is time for Philadelphia to “move the needle,” finally, on black and minority inclusion in the construction industry.
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2 comments:
Bruce: The title of the publication is all the explanation you should need to figure out what needs to be done with "The Black Issue". In this day and age there should not be a black issue. The only reason there is one is because profiteers like Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson keep stirring the pot and making issue to get them self in the news. The root cause of the black issue is LBJ's Great Society Social Programs. They have totaly emasculated the black male as a father and destroyed the black family unit of two married parents one male the other female. The Great Society program was designed to create a constant voting block for the democratic party. If black society were viewed as a pro sports team and had a losing record that spanned from 1964 to 2008 44 years in all you would think that there would have to be a change is the direction of the organization. I recommend that some conservative donate the following book to all schools and communities that are majority black and are not sharing in the American Dream of Opportunity to make something of them self. The book took a lot of heat from the black liberal community but no one can dispute the facts. The title is Uncle Sam's Plantation written by a black woman Starr Parker. It will open the eyes of many in the black community. White American does not hate black America as the popular media would have black America believe. Instead the blacks are just considered another tax that we have to carry. How far does some one think they are going to go in life if they drop out of school , get pregnant , get a felony record. They will never have a chance at making it. The best part about America is that it allows a person to fail at trying new things as many times as they want. But there is no limit to the amount of times you can try something. It can be done in my life time in Philadelphia I have seen the Vietnamese immigrate here in the late 70's &early 80's, the 90's & 00's have seen the Indian's , Arabs, Russian & the former iron block countries immigrants come here with nothing and 1)Have success with out government assistants 2) Become assimilated into our culture. They don't want to be called Russian-Americans. The Spanish speaking people are going to continue to become successful hell they practically now have Spanish language considered acceptable for use.When is the last time you saw a black bus boy in a dinner or drying cars at the car wash those jobs have all been taken by the Spanish immigrants.
The common denominator is for the most part they do not rely on the assistance of the government in any way.
Do you know why you don't see a lot of blacks in the construction industry other then the labors position.1)lack of education they can't operate the equipment. 2) Ebonics construction sites are dangerous and if you can't speak English you are never going to be more then a labor. 3) Poor work habits don't show up on time or don't show up at all. Example True story.
Commercial landscaping company is working on a Federal government project crew is 100% Hispanic. EEOC official approaches site superintendent and ask to see the minority compliance forms that the contractor must fill out to be able to work on the project. Contractors says look at my crew they are nothing but minorities. EEOC says they are not the right minorities that he has to have black Americans on the site. Contractors say great if the EEOC person can get him some he will employ them. EEOC says that is not his problem. Contractors says yes I know that but my problem is I have to have the job done by a certain date. He then lets him know that he can't get black employees to stay for more then a day. The job starts at 5AM and ends some times after dark. It is hot , dirty work. Black never come back after first day not even to pick up their pay for the first day.
I don't know why the average black who is sitting around waiting for the government to take care of them from cradle to crave doesn't open their eyes and see the success that black have had in sports, entertainment, and realize that if you work hard they to could make it at something. Construction today is a line of work that needs some one who can read and write and do basic math.
They need to stop blaming everyone else for their lack of success in this country because people from around the world are going to continue coming hear and taking the low paying jobs and working their way up the ladder right past black America.
So thank LBJ and the Democrats for the state of black America.
The housing foreclosure problem was not caused by the evil white republicans. Go Google the Community Redevelopment Act passed by Jimmy Carter (Dem) and the housing law suite in Boston that Barney Frank and Andrew Cumo as secretary of HUD ? became involved in which forced banks to lend money to unqualified borrowers in what were referred to as NINJA loans. No Income, No Job, No Assets.
It is not a Republican party problem John McCain tried to have regulations and more over site put in place. He was out voted.
It isn't even Wall Streets fault. The Banks that made the loans sold them to Wall St who them included them in with other investments and sold them to the public. This was done under the belief that the mortgages that were included in the investments would be paid because when most people take out a mortgage they pay it off because they put some of their own money down on the property. But not with the NJNIA loans that Barney Frank and Cumo insisted be given to 50% black Americans.
Look it up it is all right there for any one to read.
When a person comes to America he has to have only one loyalty and that is to be American, speak the language and do what is necessary to be a good citizen of the country. There can be no Irish- American, Polish, German there can only be an American.
Not an exact quote but close from Teddy Roosevelt when running for President.
Black have to stop being considered separate from the rest of us.
TO could have been a god to the Eagles fans for life. But when he separated him self his own team mates didn't want any thing to do with him. That is happening to black America.
Bruce: As a Director and 2nd Vice President of the Pacific Northwest Chapter National Black Chamber of Commerce (PNCNBCC) and its Title VI Civil Rights Act Specialist; I can unequivocally comment that the 0.8% participation by Blacks and minorities in the construction industry in Philadelphia is only an extension of the California Proposition 209 and Washington State Initiative 200 to deceitfully hide and to covertly conceal within a supposedly race neutral educational civil rights voter ballot movement the EXCLUSION and ELIMINATION of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 REQUIRED CONTRACT RESTRICTIONS PROHIBITING THE EXCLUSION OF ANY UNITED STATES CITIZEN FROM ANY ACTIVITY FUNDED EVEN IN-PART WITH UNITED STATES TAX-PAYER DOLLARS BASED UPON THEIR RACE, COLOR OR NATIONAL ORIGIN.
Hence, we can see the duplicity in the once long time held U. S. Department of Justice position that organized crime does not exist in America; and how that position only strengthens the case that there is a real need to investigate and to enforce the laws against the ORGANIZED WHITE-COLLAR CRIME THEFT OF ECONOMIC activities administered in America, MASCARADING AS THE California Prop-209 and Washington State I-200 TYPE ANTI-AFFIRMATIVE ACTION MOVEMENT.
It has become abundantly clear that ever since the U.S. Government’s formal recognition of Organized Labor in about 1934, ORGANIZED WHITE-COLLAR CRIME in America has considered the THEFT OF ANY ECONOMIC activity in America as fair game and as an American Governmental expenditure that could, through bribes, kick-backs and legal contributions to politicians become a corruptible racket.
If discrimination is a crime and if an organized effort exists to discriminate, then the perpetrators of such an organized criminal effort are ORGANIZED WHITE-COLLAR CRIME. If this supposition is true, then this ORGANIZED WHITE-COLLAR CRIME ELEMENT should be prosecuted under the Federal Government’s Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act.
The greatest trick that Satan has ever played upon human-kind is Satan’s fostering of the illusion that he Satan does not exist. So this American ORGANIZED WHITE-COLLAR CRIME ELEMENT, being Satan under a “white-hood or a white-sheet”, or a whatever, has so spun the same illusion to the America public.
A. Phillip Randolph, the founder in about 1934 of the first American American membership in Organized Labor The International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters of which my late Grandfather was an original member and my uncle retired number two in seniority from Am-Track, one of the prime moving forces behind the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, along with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others, insisted on the inclusion of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in order to protect the ECONOMIC activities of Federal, state and local governments’ procurement and construction contacting from discrimination based upon race, color and national origin.
This Title VI protection in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to exempt the protected classes of the minor numbers of African Americans and other persons of color and emigrant communities from what we now see as a fact of life the financial depression that would be caused by the ORGANIZED WHITE-COLLAR CRIME THEFT OF ECONOMIC activities in public contracting.
This protection for those in a numerical minority status in America was so fundamental that it was carried over to include the vast minority of “Poor White Folks!” You see in 1968, my personal friend Paul Fletcher, the son of the “Father of Affirmative Action” the Late Dr. Arthur A. Fletcher, wrote into law Section 3 of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 as a race neutral provision to provide “Living-Wage” employment from tax-payer based economic activities to any United States Citizen living on welfare.
Of the 37 million persons living on welfare in America, 31 million are poor white folks, so you would have assumed that the American public being made up of a numerical majority of white folks would have supported Section 3 to end their own poverty. NOT SO!
The devil himself, Satan has deceived the vast majority of White Folks in America to believe that African Americans and other numerical minority People of Color make up the majority of the Americans that are living on the welfare roles. So, when the Republican Congress’ “Contract With America” kicked into force in the mid-1990’s with welfare reform, poor white folks were up in arms protesting and they are yet protesting today in 2008. When former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich visited Seattle in 1996, more than two thousand people picked the Westin Hotel where he was staying. Only a handful of those protesters were African American or Persons of Color, the rest were poor white folks.
The moral of that story is that the devil, Satan, that ole Trickster, has tricked White America into believing that welfare only benefits poor People of Color, African Americans, ethnic Americans and American Indians. Not So!
Evil is COLOR-BLIND. Satan takes all victims of EVIL no matter what color they might be, and the ORGANIZED WHITE-COLLAR CRIME THEFT OF ECONOMIC activities in America of public contracting is a Satanic act that violates the TENTH COMMANDMENT that “Thou shall not covet that which is thy neighbors!” It seems that the most dominant thing Satan has going on in America today is the violating of the least of the TEN COMMANDMENTS, number ten.
But in the Holy Scriptures Book of James, Chapter 2 and Verse 10, it is very clear that “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” Yes, coveting someone else’s economic rights is not the same in man’s lawful eyes as murder, yet it is the same as murder in God’s ALL SEEING EYES.
Economics structure the creation of all U.S. Contract Laws, and as such the economics of Contract Law for any civilized community or society should be enforced to highest degree of enforceability. From the United States Constitution, which the President of the United States swears under solemn oath to defend with all the resources of the United States, Article I, Section. 10, Clause 1, clearly gives instruction that: “No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.” The Constitutionally operable phrase here is “No State shall… pass any… Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts…”
Yet the State of California with Voter Proposition 209 and the State of Washington with Voter Initiative 200 is yet violating Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of the U.S Constitution. The predominately white folks controlled election process has allowed for the creation of two new laws that in-fact does impair the obligations of the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Assurance CONTRACTS signed by each of those States in order to continue to receive Federal funds. Those Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Assurance CONTRACTS forbid the denial of any United States Citizens of the benefits from and the participation in economic activities, based on their race, their color or their national origin, generated in whole or in part from Federal Government Tax-Payer Dollars.
The U.S Department of Justice’s enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is where each President elected since the Great Society President Lyndon B. Johnson has failed the American electorate. This Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides the resistant force that African Americans must utilize so as to overcome the ORGANIZED CRIME THEFT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT activities in public contracting by the members of Associated General Contractors (AGC) of America. Yes, we must identify that through this entity the AGC so as to conform to the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings requiring the “Disparate Impact Provision” not only to identify the thief of ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Civil Rights, but also to specify who and how much money has been stolen. Therefore, African Americans must know exactly from whom and how much is owed from the Public Administrators who released these members of the AGC to perpetrate the ORGANIZED CRIME THEFT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT activities from African Americans, persons of color and other persons of foreign ethnicity.
For instance, the entity AGC, through a contractor member, Ward Connerly, who happened or selectively was a Negro married to a White woman who sold his soul for his membership into the California group of the AGC and who sold-out to a contribution from David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan; initiated Proposition 209 in California and Initiative 200 in the State of Washington through his California-Based Civil Rights Institute. Those two popular voter ballot movements were to counteract the Affirmative Action enforcement of not only Title VII for employment and Title IX for White Women of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, affecting both equal and fair employment and educational opportunities based on race, color, national origin, sex and physical disabilities; but also it was to counteract the enforcement provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for public construction and procurement contracting based on race, color and national origin. However, in the Washington State voter ballot Initiative 200’s language therein was included a NULL AND VOID clause, if in-fact Initiative 200 resulted in lost of Federal funds in the State of Washington.
We must venture back to the basics of high school Latin to get the answer to “WHY?” Yes, “WHY” is this NULL AND VOID clause included in that “FAKE” Civil Rights voter initiative in the State of Washington called Initiative 200? Though through some members of the Associated General Contractors (AGC) of America their desire is to perpetrate the ORGANIZED CRIME THEFT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT activities from African Americans, persons of color and other persons of foreign ethnicity; they will do so so long as the AGC does not lose its own ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT public contracts.
This innocuous NULL AND VOID clause in Washington State’s Initiative 200 points out the ACHELLES HILL of the members of the AGC that of their not wanting to loose their own public construction and procurement contracts. By “HOOK OR CROOK” elected officials, public administrators and some members of the Associated General Contractors (AGC) of America are depriving African Americans of eligible public construction and procurement contracts. This criminal act is depriving African Americans of ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT activities. Hence, the African American community must “Be self controlled and alert.” African Americans must use the enforcement strength of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be the resistant force to overcome the ORGANIZED CRIME THEFT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT activities in public contracting. Those members of the AGC, even with their financially supported elected officials and public administrators, can not prevail.
With all this being said, one might wonder that if anything said here is not true then it is an invitation to a lawsuit. You would be right again, Inspector Colombo. A lawsuit would also allow for the entirety of discovery documents from those duplicitous and crooked elected officials, public administrators and from those members of the AGC. Yes, African Americans would surely welcome the airing of this dirty and evil laundry before the American people and the Courts.
Maybe in the end African Americans will put an end, for itself, for other persons of color and for persons of foreign ethnicity, to the ORGANIZED CRIME THEFT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT activities in public contracting. Then and maybe only then will the African American community provide its own people with some equitable and legitimate livable wage work and employment through much needed ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT activities within the African American Community and throughout America as well.
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