The Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) implemented a “racist policy” that decreased minority and women workers’ opportunity for employment on some contracts, said individuals who signed a community agreement with the public agency.
“Racism in St. Louis is alive and well, as evidenced by what MSD is doing and not doing,” said Jim Sahaida, president of Metropolitan Congregations United, at a press conference on September 29. “We have a history of excuses of not hiring minorities on construction projects. The excuse used to be there aren’t enough qualified people. Now the excuse is safety.”
For about 18 months, MSD implemented a policy that allowed some contractors to forego the agency’s goals for workforce inclusion – saying that it would be a safety concern to replace their workers. In a June 16, 2015 letter to the St. Louis City NAACP, MSD’s executive director Brian Hoelscher said it was true that the agency did not “require its contractors to replace full-time, non-diverse work crews.”
“Safety is a legitimate consideration when staffing a construction project with new, less experienced workers,” Hoelscher wrote.
Hoelscher told The St. Louis American in a meeting last week that it was an unwritten policy discussed among few staff members – not with MSD’s board of trustees or the signatories. The policy was tossed out completely, also verbally, on August 1, 2015, he said.
Now all contractors have to abide by the district’s workforce inclusion goals, which are 30 percent minority and seven percent women workers for contracts over $500,000. The goals are backed by a disparity study that was completed in February 2013.
MSD said the verbal policy did not affect many contracts.
“A lot of the contractors had already started changing,” said Vicky Taylor Edwards, director of human resources for MSD. “There were very few that did not make that leap over. Not everyone sat back and said, ‘We were not going to do this.’”
The American is in the process of analyzing how many contracts the policy did affect and examining Hoelscher’s claim regarding safety.
Hoelscher’s explanation of safety concerns offended some of the signatories, according to those who spoke at the press conference. The fact that Hoelscher seemed to assume that minority or women workers would be “less experienced” is discriminatory and false, said Yaphett El-Amin, executive director of MOKAN, an advocacy organization for minority contractors.
At the Sept. 29 press conference, El-Amin presented a list of 80 minority journeyman and apprentices who applied to work on MSD projects through the St. Louis Agency for Labor Training (SLATE). According to their research, none have been employed on any MSD jobs.
“These are experienced journeymen and women who are ready, willing and able to participate on projects,” El-Amin said. “They deserve the opportunity to work in their communities. We will no longer stand idly and allow them to use safety as a reason for not using skilled labor force to work on their projects.”
Edwards said that MSD is waiting for a report from SLATE based on payroll records to show how many people landed jobs. As per the Community Benefit Agreement, the district is paying SLATE to serve as a hiring resource to ensure that some of the workers on MSD jobs are local residents and minorities. The contract is for $150,000.
Edwards would not comment on the signatories’ accusation that Hoelscher’s comment was offensive, but she said that 85 percent of their contracts are meeting their inclusion goals. However, not all of the goals on the contracts are MSD’s. Some are tied to federal goals, which call for only 14.7 percent minority and 6.9 percent women workforce.
Since MSD signed the community benefits agreement, Hoelscher said, the district has dedicated a staff of seven people, under Shonnah Paredes’ leadership, to enforce and monitor participation goals – which are outlined in the disparity study’s recommendations.
MSD commissioned a disparity study in 2011 because it was undertaking one of the largest construction projects in the region. Over the next 23 years, MSD will spend approximately $4.7 billion to improve its wastewater collection and treatment system. Pruitt said that if minorities don’t get in on the beginning of this work, they could be left behind.
Pruitt said the signatories filed complaints with the Missouri Human Rights Commission, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance and the Civil Rights Center with the Department of Labor concerning MSD’s compliance with the agreement. At a meeting with The American and MSD officials, he also hinted that legal action is forthcoming.
Follow this reporter on Twitter @rebeccarivas.
