Playing in traffic
PHOTO BY WENDI FITZGERALD
On July 12, 1999 — 10 years ago to the day, yesterday — between 200 and 300 activists, most of them African-American, some of them prominent leaders, staged a brief shutdown of Interstate 70 at Goodfellow Avenue.
Now another shutdown has been threatened, for today, on the eve of Major League Baseball’s All-Star game. Such a move might be seriously counterproductive.
The issue is the same today as it was 10 years ago: state contracting practices on transportation projects, which long had discriminated against minority contractors and women-owned businesses. The 1999 shutdown was planned carefully and choreographed closely. Police were at the ready and made 125 arrests.
There was some grandstanding. The Rev. Al Sharpton blew into town and did what he does. But there was no resistance or angry words. The highway was back to normal within about an hour.
Over the next several weeks, talks began on how to improve the public contracting system to provide more opportunity for qualified contractors — and how to hold government agencies accountable to make progress. Then-Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan participated.
As talks dragged on, a second shutdown was threatened. Some protesters abandoned the moral high ground to angle, unsuccessfully, for a $1.8 million contract to do minority “outreach.”
But serious political, community and labor leaders stayed at the table and reached a settlement. Among its fruits was creation of the Construction Prep Center, which provides training to adults interested in working in construction trades, and the Construction Career Center, a charter high school that helps to prepare students for a full range of careers in building arts and professions.
Last week, a small but vocal group of African-American contractors and activists made vague threats to commemorate the 1999 shutdown just in time to embarrass the city before the All-Star game.
Their grievance is drawn from data recently released by Missouri’s and Illinois’ departments of transportation. The reports show significant disparity in the number of contracts awarded to white-owned businesses and those given to women and minority contractors.
Both minority-owned and women-owned businesses are classified under federal law as “disadvantaged business enterprises.” Recent reports from both departments of transportation clearly show that disparity remains, particularly in the number of contracts awarded to minority contractors.
The issue is serious, especially given that more than $600 million in contracts will be let for the pending Mississippi River bridge project. The numbers make it clear: Minority contractors still haven’t achieved a full measure of fairness.
But it’s important to note the current disparities were revealed by the transportation departments themselves, as part of their efforts at accountability. They held public hearings last week announcing that they would ask the Federal Highway Administration to allow them to focus on minority contractors separately, while continuing efforts to involve more women-owned firms.
The Illinois Department of Transportation has an impressive record in promoting disadvantaged business enterprises, having vigorously and successfully defended its ambitious program in a lengthy federal court action. The Missouri Department of Transportation has a respected manager overseeing its civil rights division. Now would be a good time for top department leaders and the governors of both states to reaffirm their commitments.
Ten years is a long time to be patient, but another highway shutdown would be a foolish stunt that could set back sincere efforts to do the right thing.
It’s 2009, not the 1960’s. If minority firms are not getting the work I doubt it’s due to race or gender. It probably has more to do with prices, quality, and performance.
The Deal as atated in this article:
“Among its fruits was creation of the Construction Prep Center, which provides training to adults interested in working in construction trades, and the Construction Career Center, a charter high school that helps to prepare students for a full range of careers in building arts and professions.”
******Why can’t the union train Blacks to enter the construction industry? Here we go again “separate and inferior” all over again?
There are many Blacks in the construction trade who are already trained and who do their job very well but for some strange reason, most ALL these Blacks in the construction industry are never called for jobs. This is the biggest problem, what the heck are these Black supposedly Leaders doing? What about some entity going through these union records and reviewing their records for the number of Blacks in these unions and how much work they have gotten over these many years? Everyone is pretending to be stupid, and surprisingly Blacks are just as much as Whites are here.
This little pathetic agreement is accomplishing nothing but income in the pocket of the ones who will be overseeing these construction training programs and the Blacks who complete these programs successfully will still not get called up for jobs with any of the unions. This is crap!
The article also states:
The issue is the same today as it was 10 years ago: state contracting practices on transportation projects, which long had discriminated against minority contractors and women-owned businesses. The 1999 shutdown was planned carefully and choreographed closely. Police were at the ready and made 125 arrests.
****Strange how Americans think that it is okay for Iranian citizens to cause havoc upon traffic and every other city function with their protests then have the nerve to think that the Iranian leadership is in the wrong for their attempts and arrests to get all the chaos under control.
America, in general that is, once again showing their pathetic hypocrisy. Heck, by the time these programs finish training one, these bridge projects will be complete and again White men and women will reap all the benefits and the present already Black union workers are not being given any attention and they will not see and hours coming their way neither. SO JOB ACCOMPLISHED ONCE AGAIN by the White man, as is an old saying, with Blacks being sold out once again settling for what amounts to nothing.
Correction above last para:
“Black union workers are not being given any attention and they will not see [any] hours coming their way neither…
What about the minority contractors who admitted there were no qualified minority contractors for this sort of work other than a few dump truck owners? Were they lying? Since then, have any new ones showed up with qualifications for bridge work? If you’re going to comment on this sort of thing, it might behoove you to get your facts from someone besides Sharpton’s crowd. Those last demonstrators had no construction contractors nor any history of even working in that field. As for the training, unions were forced to take in minorities a long time ago and did so. There are many minorities in the field and some of them will be working on that bridge. Hopefully, they’ll be the ones that know what they’re doing instead of Al Sharpton’s crowd of ne’er-do-wells standing on the corner, sipping booze out of paperbags and griping about prejudice. The only significant prejudice is against working with or employing tradesmen that can’t or won’t pull their weight.
It should also be pointed out that those same groups that accuse the state of not having enough minority contractors on the bridge building project would be the first ones to cry foul if it had cost overuns due to incompetent or below standard building practicses. They better make up their minds if they want this bridge to be built on time, correctly and within budget and or built by unqualfied contractors.
The All-Star game is coming to town and a million media outlest are here, so the race hucksters see a golden opportunity to get concessions from local authorities.
The Balkanization of the country continues as political deals are cut to parcel contracts out based on race, sex, or “minority” status. Whether public safety and “fairness” ensue as a result is highly questionable.
On a positive note, media events like the Michael Jackson memorial extravaganza and the All Star game festivities give clowns like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Eric Vickers a chance to get in front of a TV camera.
Here is the key phrase: “small but vocal.”
When Fred Phelps brandishes a “GOD HATES FAGS” placard, does he speak for ALL Baptists? Or is Westboro Baptist Church a “small but vocal” group?
Wow, I actually agree with D. Walker about something. Amazing. You’d have to be truly color blind to miss the fact that, on a union job site, you are going to see white males, and that’s pretty much it.
D. Walker, you need to ask yourself why you don’t see any push for affirmative action in unions - not from the NLRB, not from the EEOC, not from the Obama administration, not from the courts. Could it be because the unions are the top contributor to the Democratic party? Could it be that the money is so important that even our first African-American President would rather talk about windmills and solar panels than young black men being unable to get construction jobs?
Unfortunately, the difficulty with giving work to minority contractors is that there truly are very few of them. But this problem isn’t unrelated to the other. Most people who start a business, whether in construction or computer consulting, do so after obtaining skills by working in the field. If you can’t even get a job, you are not going to obtain the qualifications to start the business - and no amount of affirmative action in contracting can fix that.
According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of working Americans who are African American is 11.4%. The percentage of working union members who are African American is 14.1%
More than 2.1 million African Americans, 1.6 million American Lantinos, and over 600,000 Asian Pacific Americans, represents 29% of the total union membership of 15 million in the U.S.
Union membership is important to groups who are subject to continuing discrimination in non-union environments. Collective bargaining demands equal pay and fair treatment in the workplace. One of the first unions in America was the Porter’s Union comprised mostly of African Americans employed by Westinghouse Brake Company…They were represented by the newly formed AFL.
The vast majority of new union members who are organized through NLRB elections are women and people of color. The union pay advantage for these new members is 36%. If people [like Nick Kassoff] truely believe in these principles, they will support the Employee Free Choice Act which will help minorities gain union representation.
Nearly 80% of the union apprenticeship programs require a “letter of intent” from an employer who is willing to hire.
Apprentices are selected for apprenticeship through the employer. It’s ridiculous to blame union apprenticeship programs of racial bias because employers are unwilling to hire minorities. The union apprenticeship programs who select apprentices based on education and experience have a much greater track record than programs based on employer “intent to hire”.
Now, ask yourself about non-union apprenticeship programs and the hiring of minorities. The numbers don’t even come close. The Office of Apprenticeship DOL must keep records of all registered apprentices under Article 29 of the CFR. The numbers are available for all to see.
PS…The Construction Career Center HS was built and financed by the St. Louis Area Building Trades Council…The Construction Prep Center in Wellston currently has 3 union representatives on their Advisory Board, including the Apprenticeship Training Director from the IBEW…
Unions in this currently currently represent 7.5% of the private workforce.
In 1956, unions represented 38% of the workforce.
Want to guess how minorities were eventually liberated in the workplace? Want to guess who demanded and support the 1964 Civil Rights Act?
The AFL-CIO. The same Fedration who now ask for your understanding and support of the EFCA.
> According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of
> working Americans who are African American is 11.4%. The percentage
> of working union members who are African American is 14.1%
Garrison - Nice, but misleading statistic. We aren’t talking about union membership in general, but a very specific type of union. I’m sure the membership in AFSCME and SEIU is majority African-American. If you exclude these, I’ll bet the union world looks just as white as a country club.