Issues of workforce diversity continue to delay Rebuild

Council’s uncertainty about whether Rebuild could provide workforce diversity and employment for Black and brown workers in the union delayed the City Council Committee of the vote to approve $300 million in bonds necessary for the community-improvement initiative to begin.

Instead, Council offered an amendment to the bill, after a five-hour hearing on Wednesday, to further address diversity. The amended legislation will be voted on during a June 12 public meeting.

This represents the third time the vote to approve Rebuild, an initiative designed to renovate and repair city parks, recreation centers and libraries, has been delayed.

Representatives from Council have been negotiating with officials from Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration and members of the Building Trades to try to secure a working commitment to hire minority and women workers and firms by creating a memorandum of understanding (MOU).

Council President Darrell Clarke said there were some issues with the MOU that still had to be ironed out.

Meanwhile, Councilwoman Maria Quinones Sanchez said of diversity in hiring, “We can’t sign off to this MOU because it doesn’t have numbers. It has aspirational goals.”

Quinones Sanchez was among a few other council people who said they would not approve Rebuild legislation until certain parameters were met.

The audience at Wednesday’s hearing was packed, and cheered and clapped several times as councilmembers questioned Kenney administration officials.

Throughout the hearing, Rebuild Executive Director Nicole Westerman affirmed the administration’s commitment to diversity and inclusion through Rebuild, but the discrepancy came because that commitment wasn’t appropriately outlined in legislation, argued some councilmembers.

“The MOU is anticipated to help us on the workforce side,” Westerman said. “We have been working with the Building Trades, and the MOU is now an agreement between the city and the building trades and contractors to establish a more reliable pathway for people, most especially minorities and women, into the building trades.”

Rebuild officials said the program would use initiatives like an apprenticeship program designed to grant minority residents access to the trades, and an initiative in which skilled tradespeople can be hired by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority to gain entrance into the trades.

Rebuild’s diversity goals increased to match the availability revealed in the recently released disparity study. Rebuild seeks to have minority workers account for 45 percent of workforce hours for laborers and skilled workers.

But the lack of clarity about how to reach those goals, and what happens when those goals aren’t met, made councilmembers wary of moving forward with Rebuild.

“One of our challenges has been always around when folks don’t meet the numbers how do we disbar or take some of our contractors out,” Quinones Sanchez said. “And the language in the legislation is pretty vague around remedies—it’s called remedies and incentives—I’m looking for punitive and how to get people off list who don’t make the numbers that they agree to do. So can you walk me through what that process looks like since we’ve only disbarred three people in the last decade?”

Westerman, noting Rebuild protocol would make it difficult for contractors to say they can’t find diverse hires, said, “Our priority is to meet our participation goals. That’s the goal rather than getting rid of bad contractors.”

Quinones Sanchez replied “My goal is to get rid of bad contractors. So how are you going to do that quickly since we’re always scared to pull that trigger.”

Westerman also said the administration will meet workforce diversity goals in the first year, a departure from past commitments and a statement that surprised Councilwoman Cindy Bass.

“That’s new, what changed?” Bass asked.

Westerman pointed to Rebuild’s pre-apprenticeship programs and other opportunities, saying, “We’ve been working on it.”

Community members and leaders turned out for Wednesday’s hearing, seeking to ensure residents will be able to secure jobs at projects in their neighborhoods and gain employment with the union. Attendees include Philadelphia NAACP President Rodney Muhammad, members of the Sister Clara Mohammed School and Philadelphia Masjid and Rev. Gregory Holston of POWER.

 

Source: Philly Tribune