EAST ST. LOUIS • A group that represents minority contractors and workers has sued the Illinois Department of Transportation, seeking $650 million in damages and an order halting the award of additional contracts for the new Mississippi River bridge.

In a complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis, the Metro East Black Contractors Organization alleged that IDOT hadn't done enough to ensure that black workers and contractors get a fair share of the $667 million bridge project and other Metro East transportation projects.

At a news conference Tuesday called to discuss the suit, MEBCO president William Mason said the organization was not satisfied with progress since meetings in September to discuss the employment issues.

"They made a lot of promises six weeks ago," Mason said. "We're going to make something happen here."

Josh Kauffman, an IDOT spokesman, said IDOT officials had not seen the suit and would not comment on it.

IDOT says minority workers accounted for 23.5 percent of worker-hours on the project through Sept. 30, and that "disadvantaged business enterprises" had been recipients of 19 percent of the nearly $175 million in contracts awarded to date.

Eric Vickers, the attorney for MEBCO, said the goal was to create a level playing field for black and minority workers who need jobs.

"The time has come for the law to intervene and to impose a remedy for this long-term discrimination," Vickers said. "These are public projects. You should not be using taxpayer dollars to discriminate."

Vickers said a six-page, Sept. 30 letter from IDOT Acting Secretary Ann Schneider to East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks did not live up to commitments made in discussions in mid-September that seemed to indicate progress and averted threats to shut down job sites.

Schneider's letter detailed various steps the department had taken or planned to take toward increased minority participation on the bridge and other Metro East projects.

Among them are a $10-per-hour incentive for contractors to hire graduates of IDOT-sponsored training programs, creation and expansion of training programs and ongoing discussions with contractors on improving minority participation.

IDOT recently launched a new website called "Diversity Matters!" at www.diversity.dot.illinois.gov

The suit alleges that a project labor agreement between IDOT and construction trade unions last year had made it more difficult to boost minority employment.

It says the agreement provides for a 100 percent union project but includes no goal for minority hiring.

"IDOT knows the unions have discriminated," Vickers said.