Coard: Jim Crow hiring in Philly’s top companies: Part two

jimcrow-image

In the September 10 edition of my Freedom’s Journal column in The Tribune, I wrote that I was beginning an ongoing and periodic “series called ‘Show & Shame’ in which I name the Philly companies and even local labor unions that refuse to adequately hire qualified Blacks.” Today is part two in that series.

https://www.phillytrib.com/commentary/coard-jim-crow-hiring-in-philly-s-top-companies/article_e6bc4169-cd06-5179-99b0-173c10177c2c.html

I also wrote that “In order to be fair, I’m going to contact the human services departments of each of the major employers in the city to find out if they’re doing the right thing or if I should ‘Show & Shame’ them into doing the right thing. The companies that will be contacted include Comcast Corporation/Comcast Spectacor, Aramark, Crown Holdings, Drexel University, University of Pennsylvania/University of Pennsylvania Healthcare, Einstein Healthcare Network, Jefferson Health System, Bayada Home Healthcare, Kennedy Healthcare System, United Parcel Service, The Vanguard Group, Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Acme Markets, Urban Outfitters, and several others.”
I initially excluded the City of Philadelphia among these companies or employers because I had planned to do a separate series on governmental employers. But I’m now including the City for two reasons. One is the relatively recent published news reports about something called the Rebuild Program (RP) and Project Labor Agreements (PLAs). The other reason is the City’s woeful past record along with its woeful present record of Jim Crow hirings, promotions, and wages.
Today’s column will focus on the RP and PLAs. Future columns will focus on the hirings, promotions, and wages.

When I say Jim Crow in Philly, I mean Jim Crow in Philly. What else would you call a city with a nearly 45 percent Black population having a Black unemployment rate of nearly 20 percent and more than 40-50 percent in some neighborhoods?
What exactly is the RP and what exactly are PLAs. Well, the RP is an ongoing $600 million City initiative to rehabilitate and refurbish parks and recreation centers. But because union labor, pursuant to former Mayor Michael Nutter’s Executive Order 15-11 which is still in effect, has a stranglehold on all major construction in Philly, it looks like- unless Mayor Jim Kenney rescinds Nutter’s order (which he can easily and legally do with the stroke of a pen) or demands a much more equitable deal with the unions- Black folks in the hood are gonna continue to be cut out of any opportunity to get a slice of that more than half a billion dollar pie. And that’s because Philly’s building unions are nearly 80 percent white and 70 percent suburbanite.
PLAs are contracts between unions and governments, in this case the City government. And like any contract, it should involve parties reaching a fair settlement based on a fair compromise by both sides. But what’s missing here is fairness in the unions, racial fairness to be exact. Labor union members certainly should get paid for their labor. But what do you do when those disproportionately white unions disproportionately exclude Black workers, thereby denying them employment on taxpayer-funded jobs? That ain’t right.
As reported on October 29 by Ryanne Persinger of The Tribune, “In 2009 under former Mayor Michael Nutter, the Advisory Commission on Construction Industry Diversity recommended a plan- that was adopted- to include 32 percent of minority participation…. In June (of 2016), eleven council members signed a letter addressed to Mayor Jim Kenney asking that the $10 billion he plans to spend for the Rebuild Program and the Project Labor Agreement have inclusion of community contractors… and ‘minority’… (and) disadvantaged… enterprises.” First of all, there are 17 council members. Who are the six who refused to sign that letter? Although I know who they are, I’m not gonna “Show & Shame” them right now. But tomorrow is another day. In the meantime, I’ll give them a chance to try to redeem themselves before I write part three of this column.
Big shout out to Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. who chairs the Committee on Commerce and Economic Development and who is one of the eleven who signed that letter. He publicly expressed his frustration regarding the failure of Nolan Atkinson, the City’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, to attend the important mid-October council committee meeting on this “minority” inclusion issue.
Anyone, including me, who knows Atkinson, knows him to be a good man who does good work. So no one’s blaming him. The blame, at least for the time being, lies with Mayor Kenney for not treating this issue as a priority by dispatching to that meeting the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer who was absolutely essential to this inclusion matter, instead of dispatching the City’s Chief Administrative Officer who was merely parenthetical to this inclusion matter.

Like Atkinson, Kenney’s a good man with good intentions. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

A big shout-out as well to Councilman Derek Green who also signed that letter and who, as reported by Persinger, expressed serious disappointment with the City’s failure to provide an “opportunity for businesses of color.”
So what’s the solution to the Jim Crow problem in City labor contracts? Mayor Kenney’s gotta do something. And that something is much more than his current well-intentioned but convoluted and ineffective idea involving abstract demographics, apprenticeships, and goals. It’s not that complicated. Just issue a legally permissible executive order mandating equal employment opportunities to Black folks via an immediate end to union Jim Crowism, dammit! What if Blacks in Philly had created practices and policies during the past 151 years to exclude Irish and Italian and Polish workers from City contracts? Wouldn’t Mayor Kenney immediately “do the right thing” to end the past and present exclusion of those Caucasian workers victimized by those racist Blacks who controlled federal, state, and local governments since slavery (purportedly) ended in 1865?
Speaking of local governments, we need a new “Philadelphia Order” but not like President Richard Nixon’s 1969 “Philadelphia Order” that was supposedly (but not really) designed to “guarantee fair hiring practices in construction jobs.” It was called the “Philadelphia Order” because in the City of Brotherly Love, as Nixon’s Assistant Secretary of Labor, Arthur Fletcher, stated, “The… unions and construction industry (in Philadelphia) are among the most egregious offenders against equal opportunity laws… openly hostile toward letting Blacks into their closed circle.” Four years earlier in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, widely known as the “Philadelphia Plan,” supposedly (but not really) to end racist hiring practices in construction jobs. It was called the “Philadelphia Plan” because of Philly’s national reputation for blatant racism in its labor unions. Maybe Mayor Kenney can fix that in 2016.
Stay tuned for part three. Especially the “Show & Shame” section.

 Michael Coard, Esquire can be followed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. His “Radio Courtroom” show can be heard on WURD900AM. And his “TV Courtroom” show can be seen on PhillyCam/Verizon/Comcast.

About Post Author

From the Web

X
Skip to content