We are guardedly optimistic about the workforce inclusion commitments attached to two sets of vast, long-term development projects that are getting underway in the St. Louis region: $4.7 billion in reconstruction projects by the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) and $391 million in TIF-financed infrastructure projects by Paul McKee Jr.’s NorthSide redevelopment.
MSD has been a prime target of minority workforce and business advocates since August 2011, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a settlement agreement that calls for MSD to spend $4.7 billion over the next 23 years to eradicate over 350 sewer overflows in this region. One key result of more than two years of negotiation is a new “community benefits agreement” that outlines job training programs, minority participation goals, small business loan assistance and internships for public school students. As part of the agreement’s First Source Hiring program, MSD must require general contractors, suppliers and other project vendors to commit by contract to hire people from the “target community” (local, unemployed, low-income minorities and women).
Ward 21 Alderman Antonio French also attached a First Source Hiring commitment to McKee’s updated redevelopment agreement with the city that the Board of Aldermen is expected to pass tomorrow. This sets a goal for 100 percent of entry-level jobs on the project to be hired from a list of low-income city workers that the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE) maintains. This new contractual commitment for entry-level positions on the NorthSide project is in addition to McKee’s self-imposed workforce commitments for his overall project, which he previously worked out with SLATE and other workforce development partners. These goals call for 25 percent of the total workforce on NorthSide projects to be residents within the redevelopment area. McKee’s project aims to attract new businesses and residents to North St. Louis, so the people who currently live in North City who want to compete for these jobs should be registering with SLATE now, because eventually they will have additional competition from new North Siders.
Though these two sets of projects have in themselves the capacity to impact the region positively by employing and empowering low-income residents who do not, at present, contribute significantly to the regional economy, we agree with MSD Executive Director Brian Hoelscher that they will have a much larger impact if they set new standards in the entire local development community. “We can get jobs started that result in careers,” Hoelscher said. “Our hope is that other entities will see this as a model. This would have more success if this is a St. Louis-area initiative, rather than just MSD.”
It is tiresome that minority workforce and business advocates have to start veritably from scratch each time a development of scale is announced in this region. It is frustrating that we face the same fight, over and over, and only after rounds of heated meetings and legislative pressure do developers agree to concessions and suddenly say all the right things about inclusion. “We want this to be an open process,” Hoelscher said of the vetting process this new agreement still faces in the community. “This is not going to be a closed shop. It’s not a members-only club.” Those are words that everyone in the development arena – and this must include unions, which often oppose these community commitments – must stop resisting and embrace: “It’s not a members-only club.” To be clear, this is not an act of charity. Increasing the number of productive workers, particularly among groups who have long been excluded, bodes well for greater success for the entire region.
