Mayor Jim Kenney said this week his goal is to ensure
that 45 percent of workers on city-funded construction sites are minorities.
The new mayor made the promise during a radio interview
with Solomon Jones on WURD 900 AM. But Kenney also refused to get pinned down
on a timetable to hit the goal in a city construction trade that is estimated
to be 99 percent male and 74 percent white, according to government statistics.
“Sometimes, you say I’m going to do this by this date,
and then some things get slowed up for one reason or another,” Kenney told
Jones, according to a published report.
Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for the Kenney
administration, provided more details.
“The building trades, our deputy mayor for labor, the
chief diversity officer and the commerce director will work to complete an
action plan to increase the minority participation rate within the first six
months of the administration,” Hitt said. “The mayor is also committed to
expanding vocational training and apprenticeship programs as part of the
community schools expansion.”
Laborers’ District Council of Philadelphia Business
Manager Ryan Boyer said his organization is on board with Kenney’s goal of
raising minority participation.
“First, we need a baseline on where we are right now. I
don’t want the mayor to get stuck with that number, but he is dedicated to
making substantial improvement there,” said Boyer, who is also the chairman of the
Delaware River Port Authority. “Kenney has a robust plan, and has been meeting
behind closed doors to create a fair system.”
That system, Boyer said, would include a two–pronged
approach: to openly post when apprenticeships exams are coming up, and if
someone fails the exam, to follow up to offer tips on improvement. He said it
should allow for apprenticeship placement based on test grade and not based
solely on a pass/fail system.
For example, Boyer said individuals who score very high
on the exam could qualify for the more technical or mechanical apprenticeships,
while those that score between 80 and 90 could possibly qualify for a different
range of trades.
“It’s not a quick fix, and people may not like that,”
Boyer said. “But this is a commitment made not only at the level of union
leadership, but with the apprenticeship coordinators as well. The ultimate goal
is to have one common test, similar to the Army Career and Alumni Program test
in the military. Based on where you are, different unions open up to you.
“But the mayor is committed, and the building trades are
committed.”
In 2009, former mayor Michael Nutter convened a
commission to look at the issue, and that commission created a report outlining
the problems and the steps that should be taken. That led to City Council
passing resolutions requiring that 50 percent of the workers on the expansion
of the Pennsylvania Convention Center be non–whites and women.
Former councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr., now the senior
policy adviser for City Council, noted the administration is following through
on mandates to cause the city to take annual looks at how to erase the
disparity.
“This ordinance, co–introduced by Councilwoman Blondell
Reynolds Brown and myself, was signed into law less than three months ago,”
Goode said. “The Kenney Administration, by law, has to set a new goal annually
by on a disparity analysis.”
That ordinance also stipulated that 30 days before the
start of each fiscal year on June 30 the city will file a written report with
the finance director that includes an analysis of workforce diversity, and that
the director of finance is solely responsible for the annual disparity
assessment of workforce diversity.
“Look, people should be skeptical and people should say,
‘We’ve heard this before,’” Kenney told Jones. “The only thing we can do is
produce, and I think that I am in a position now because of the support I
received and the coalitions I received with the building trades.”
Source: Philadelphia
Tribune
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