Dear Rev. Lawrence Biondi, S.J.
President, Saint Louis University
I and five other individuals representing the organizations constituting the Minority Inclusion Alliance met with your subordinate, Ms. Kathleen Brady, to discuss Saint Louis University’s efforts towards minority inclusion. This was per my October 12, 2005 letter to you, which pointed out that no blacks or minorities had been observed working on SLU’s Research Building Project on the corner of Grand and Choteau.
We were all quite shocked by the hostility displayed by Ms. Brady, particularly since the previous week we had had such an upbeat and productive meeting with Bob Clark of Clayco Construction. We came to the meeting expecting to have a cooperative dialogue. Instead, Ms. Brady refused to even provide us copies of the records she claimed showed SLU’s minority inclusion success.
With respect to whether SLU is meeting the 25 percent minority and 5 percent women business goals established for the project, we have discussed this with Mr. Jack Thomas and we will look to his review of the minority contractor information provided to him by SLU. We insist on the industry standard for counting minority inclusion being applied to projects because this assures construction dollars are flowing to legitimate black contractors.
We think much credit is due SLU for adopting the 25/5 percent minority/women goals, involving Mr. Thomas’s office in the process, and having a contractor with the commitment to minority inclusion expressed by Clayco. We think SLU is on the road to exemplary success with respect to minority and women business participation on the Research Building project. However, both Clayco and Ms. Brady acknowledge that there are no blacks currently working on the job – and both point, with some justification, to the unions as the problem.
Consequently, we find it unacceptable that SLU would enter into a Project Labor Agreement (PLA), which Ms. Brady said SLU was in the process of negotiating with the trade unions, unless that PLA contains specific language establishing a minority workforce goal. Without a measurable goal, there is simply no leverage on the trade unions to put minorities to work. We demand that SLU establish a 35 percent minority workforce goal and that this be included in any PLA negotiated with the unions.
We are hopeful and trusting that this can be resolved amicably, and we have set Dr. Mr. Luther King Jr.’s birthday as the target date for action if we have not achieved a resolution by then.
Eric E. Vickers
Minority Inclusion Alliance