Minority inclusion? – business as usual
By David L. Jackson, Jr.
Guest columnist
On behalf of the many minority- and women-owned businesses I support and work with in the St. Louis construction community, thank you for your story about minority business inclusion. It was way overdue.
The story was right on, but the same song is still being played. The best thing in the story were the comments from Comptroller Darlene Green that reviving the mayor’s Executive Order 28 is the first and only real answer for inclusion.
Everything else from those interviewed has been said before many times over. What amazes and disturbs me is how folks who are in the position to effect change with inclusion only give it lip service.
Many minority-owned enterprises have been plagued by misperceptions regarding their size, profile of entrepreneurs/executives and business ambitions. These misperceptions have created a host of challenges to minority business owners, such as poor access to equity capital, human resource talents and corporate customers.
Are blacks really getting an equal share of the construction work, contract dollars, jobs and training?
While driving the streets of St. Louis, you can see where black churches are allowing Caucasian general contracting firms to build their sanctuaries and senior citizen apartment buildings. You will see black entrepreneurs allowing Caucasian general contracting firms to build their strip stores and rehabilitate their properties. You can see where black alderpersons are allowing Caucasian developers to build new housing in their wards.
If our own black clergy, black business owners and black politicians aren’t taking the necessary steps to insure inclusion, how and why do we expect anyone else to?
No, minority- and women-owned businesses are not sharing in this building boom – not sharing in contract dollars, not sharing in opportunities for employment and not being afforded opportunities for training.
I truly believe the current city administration is doing its best to ensure there is minority inclusion on every city development project, but the concern is: to what extent?
It’s kind of hard to police yourself. This can be best displayed by the city’s unwillingness to make public the disparity study that was commissioned under Mayor Harmon through the Board of Public Service under General Ernest Harrell. It also should be noted the city agency that monitors compliance of the owners, developers and projects is located at the airport. It is way understaff and barely able to keep up with the airport expansion.
The city administration cannot be the lone ranger on inclusion, but they should take the lead and set the standards. This could be done with a regional approach by creating a regional non-profit organization responsible for regulation and compliance of inclusion.
This non-profit entity should be comprised of the public and private agencies responsible for inclusion within their own operations, i.e. the State of Missouri Economic Council, the City of St. Louis, St. Louis Development Corporation, St. Louis County Economical Council, the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council, Metro, the Metropolitan Sewer District, AmerenUE, the St. Louis City and County Housing Authorities, Washington University, Saint Louis University, the University of Missouri, Harris-Stowe State University, the Minority Business Council, the Associated General Contractors of St. Louis, MOKAN and the National Minority Contractors Association.
John Steffen of Pyramid Construction made it clear and simple: “It’s a challenge to everyone to build and increase capacity of minority firms, to find ways to encourage growth of minority-owned firms.” This could be the prime strategic plan of the regional non-profit entity. For general contractors to say there are not enough minority firms out there is just not true. There are many, many minority- and women-owned firms within the St. Louis construction community.
Unfortunately, many are not certified as minority businesses, for one reason or another. Many are not union-affiliated as the general contractors are, and the general contractors refuse to allow them to bid or work on their projects.
Unless minority- and women-owned firms are afforded opportunities to bid on projects and are successful with their bid proposals, workplace diversity will be at a bare minimum. Minority- and women-owned firms are more receptive and successful with hiring a minority workforce.
The opportunities for growth for minority- and women-owned businesses could never be better with the current construction boom, but enough with the lip service. The city of St. Louis could take a historic, substantive step in the right direction by Mayor Francis Slay appointing Comptroller Green to create this non-for-profit entity to move forward with diversity and inclusion, not just for St. Louis but for the state of Missouri as a whole.
David L. Jackson, Jr. is president of D.L.J. Construction Services, LLC.