Over the past several months, MSD and Adolphus Pruitt, president of the City of St. Louis Branch of the NAACP, have exchanged correspondence about MSD’s diversity program. Pruitt has recently raised the level of his rhetoric and expanded his correspondence to include The St. Louis American.
In doing so, Mr. Pruitt – who was, until recently, a significant partner in developing and implementing MSD’s current diversity program – has chosen to present inflammatory and libelous statements as truth; which, when examined against the facts, show themselves to range from mischaracterizations to untruths.
Regarding job training, MSD has invested funds in two programs: the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment’s (SLATE) First Source Hiring Program; and the Building Union Diversity (BUD) Program, a partnership between SLATE and area unions. Both programs are focused on low-income residents, who are underemployed or unemployed. In general, these programs prepare individuals to work on St. Louis-area construction projects.
Pruitt says out of 100 African Americans in the First Source Program, no one has received MSD jobs through SLATE. How does Pruitt know this? The First Source Program did not start until this calendar year and reporting for 2015 to date is not yet complete. Thus, until the reporting is ready, no one knows who may or may not have received a job – on an MSD or non-MSD project.
Additionally, to state or infer that no one has received a job through SLATE is false. MSD participated in its first BUD class sponsorship in 2015. There were 13 participants in the class, six of whom MSD sponsored. Preliminary reporting shows that of the six, one dropped out, three have found employment, and SLATE is working with the other two on jobs.
Granted, MSD looks for the programs to grow further, but both just became active in 2015 – there has to be reasonable time for results to be realized and time for adjustments to be implemented.
More importantly, in working with community partners, MSD signed an agreement that stated MSD would work with these programs, give them time to adjust, and then evaluate MSD’s continued participation in 2017. This was an agreement several organizations agreed to, including the City NAACP – and Pruitt was its representative. Furthermore, Pruitt had a very, very strong voice in crafting details of the agreement.
Pruitt is quoted as stating that Brian Hoelscher, MSD’s executive director, has been allowing MSD crews that are “non-diverse,” or all white males, “to be basically grandfathered in and skirt around the new [workforce] goals.”
First, no one knew the racial or gender make-up of the crews. To contend MSD was making special exceptions for “white males” is contrived, false and inflammatory.
Second, no crew was given special treatment. When the new workforce goals were put in place, all existing construction contractor crews with full-time employees were allowed to temporarily retain their race and gender composition.
The reason was safety. A typical crew has five people. To immediately replace three crew members to meet the new workforce goal was not safe, let alone practical from a business perspective.
However, we did establish, as crews were expanded or replaced, that workforce diversity goals had to be met. MSD’s experience was that most contractors started to diversify crews. We determined by December 2014, the time was quickly approaching when all contractor crews – new or existing – should comply with workforce goals.
In January 2015, MSD management reported to its board that changes for the contractor crews would be made. The change went into effect on August 1, 2015. Again, our community partners – including Pruitt – have been kept up-to-date on these decisions, the logic informing these decisions and the timing of changes.
Pruitt’s statements could lead a reader to believe MSD is not serious about workforce diversity. On construction projects, workforce goals for projects over $500,000 are 30 percent minority and 7 percent female. To date, a growing number of projects have minority and female workforce participation that meets or exceeds goals. (In fact, one project has over 40 percent minority and female workers.)
Additionally, for professional service contracts that have current workforce goals, prime contractor diversity is 20.3 percent minority and 32.6 percent female. Compare this to professional service goals of 18 percent minority and 32 percent female. Are these the numbers of an organization giving special treatment to white males?
The last example to be examined – of several that remain – is Pruitt’s quote of Hoelscher from a June 16 letter, where Hoelscher supposedly wrote to Pruitt: “Everyone seemed to be on the same page, even the unions who were initially opposed to the NAACP’s inclusion efforts.” This quote does not exist in the June 16 letter or any other written communication we have on file.
Furthermore, as part of the stakeholder process we have been in engaged in for over four years now, we have not witnessed the unions acting as obstructionists. Rather, we have observed them to be supportive and collaborative in the development of MSD’s diversity program.
To paraphrase a popular quote, Pruitt is certainly entitled to his opinions. However, he is not entitled to his own set of facts – and the facts do not support Mr. Pruitt.
As MSD was briefly quoted as stating in The American: If Pruitt believes he needs to take his allegations to others for closer examination – including any federal, state, or local agencies – we invite him to do so. Why? Because we know his statements will not hold up to fact-based scrutiny by independent parties.
While MSD will always strive to improve on its commitment to diversity, we will not allow others to mischaracterize or make false statements about that commitment. Nor will we allow others to take away from the progress we have already achieved on behalf of our St. Louis community.
Lance LeComb is manager of Public Information and spokesperson for the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD).
