The St. Louis American’s reporting that BJC has set a 15 percent minority workforce goal on its $2.2 billion construction project, as well as a recent meeting of the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Commission, signal such a step backwards from attaining the proverbial level playing field that this trend must be met with resistance.
The American points out that BJC’s 15 percent, “marks the lowest goal for putting minorities and women to work on a St. Louis City Project of this scale in the last several years.”
Indeed, since 1990, when the city established through a consent decree its 25 percent minority and five percent women goals program, the custom in the local construction industry has been adherence to what is commonly called the “Twenty-five & Five.” The 25/5 percent goals have since the court decree been embodied in successive mayor’s executive orders, establishing for two decades the baseline standard for inclusion in this marketplace – both public and private.
The airport meeting tested the enforcement of the “Twenty-five & Five.” Over the objection of two black members, the commission voted to award a major contract to a bidder the airport’s internal documents showed had not made, in seeking minority inclusion, what the law terms “a good faith effort.” The good faith effort is a critical inclusion component because it is only by satisfying this requirement that a bidder can lawfully be awarded a contract when they have not achieved the minority and women goals, despite being the low bidder. Importantly, good faith effort is not an abstract or ambiguous term. Rather, it is a legally-defined checklist that objectively determines whether a bidder truly sought inclusion.
It was telling how the commission moved robotically forward in awarding the contract, simply and gently asking the white bidder to “try to increase” his minority numbers. The commission made it quite clear that minorities being genuinely included in the work was completely secondary to moving ahead with the contract, as they breezed past a request by a black Commissioner to table the issue as though he was invisible.
Both BJC’s notion that it can set the clock back on the city’s 25 percent minority community commitment, including the 25 percent minority and 5 percent workforce law enacted recently as the workforce component piece to the “Twenty-five and Five,” and the Airport’s downplaying – if not dissing – the issue, evince an attitude of inclusion being a consideration, not a cornerstone in the economic process. I thought about this attitude as I read a report of the Construction Preparatory Center (“CPC”) – the centerpiece outcome of the 1999 Interstate-70 Shutdown Protest:
“Effective July, 2012, the CPC has processed 2186 applicants, enrolled 1685 and graduated 1100 for a 65 percent graduation rate since the beginning of the program in 2000. Of the graduates, 576 placements have been confirmed as of June, 2012 for a 52 percent placement rate overall since inception.”
The CPC was borne out of an attitude by the black community that it would not accept the argument and refrain still heard today, namely, that there are “not enough” minority workers and contractors. It must be remembered that a minority goal is a statement of what a community – in overcoming its historical discrimination – should look like when the economic pie is equitably apportioned. Minority goals should not, therefore, simply be based on whatever might be the current crop of minority workers and businesses.
True economic equality is neither subject to reduction nor parceled out. BJC telling this city that minorities will only receive 15 percent of the $2 billion dollar construction project, and the Airport Commission blithely playing past a valid inclusion concern, reflect an institutional attitude that must be resisted and eradicated.
