The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) professes to being the leading association for the construction industry. Headquartered in our nation’s capital and operating in partnership with its nationwide network of chapters, the AGC has become a dominant force in protecting the interest of its members – prime contractors.
AGC was established in 1918, and its members play a powerful role influencing national and local policy with respect to the construction and related industries; the same is true for the local St. Louis AGC chapter. In St. Louis, the AGC has a diversity agenda that lately is full of contradictions. Its contradictory agenda has a direct impact on efforts to diversify this region’s construction industry.
In a recent message to its members, the St. Louis AGC’s president stated, “Many conversations and activities we engage in every day at AGC are not things we can print in an annual report or post to our web site.”
One thing he may be referencing is the AGC’s March 14 letter supporting the Hispanic and Asian American chambers of commerce in challenging parts of MSD’s disparity study. The AGC president appears to be supporting one segment of the minority community, while its vice president was meeting with city officials asking them not to enforce the Mayor’s Executive Order setting forth inclusion goals for contracting and the workforce inclusion legislation (Board Bill 297) championed by the aldermanic black caucus.
“Give them a break,” we are told, has become the standard quote of the AGC vice president when meeting with city officials on behalf of AGC members who are coming up short on trying to comply with the Mayor’s Executive Order and BB 297.
In one particular instance, we are told, in an attempt to meet the minority business enterprise (MBE) goals established for the Cortex TIF, a prime subcontractor solicited a minority vendor to act as a pass-through in defiance of both the Mayor’s Executive Order and BB 297. In a meeting between the AGC vice president, the AGC prime contractor and subcontractor, and city officials, the minority vendor admitted to the scheme and the city’s disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) office subsequently rejected the contract.
The DBE office has rejected now for a third time the efforts of this minority vendor to game the system, yet the companies’ conspiracy continues to go unpunished.
The DBE office has the latitude to reject such attempts to defraud the minority participation program – and the option to report DBE fraud to the Mayor’s Office or the city attorney. As I have previously reported, they have never referred any attempts to defraud the program to the Mayor’s Office nor to the city attorney, thus the contradictions continue.
While some members of the AGC are playing tricks with the MBE program, the region continues to suffer from the lack of inclusion and MBE capacity in the construction industry. Diversification in the region is an imperative for our growth and success. In building a great city, any efforts to impede our collective pursuit of inclusion should be punished.
Adolphus Pruitt is president of the St. Louis city chapter of the NAACP.
