Two cabinet-level heads are better than one at funneling a higher percentage of lucrative infrastructure jobs to women and minority contractors. The objective of the memo is to create good-paying jobs, with the choice to join a union, for workers in traditionally underserved communities, according to a joint statement<\/a> from DOL and DOT released this week. But it also said it would favor union partnerships and project labor agreements in grant decisions. <\/p>\n PLAs are similar to collective bargaining agreements but apply to a single project and are agreed upon by all parties: general contractors, subcontractors and labor groups.\u00a0Last month, President Joe Biden issued an executive order mandating PLAs<\/a> on federal contracts of $35 million or more. <\/p>\n While PLAs don’t specifically cut non-union contractors out<\/a> of federal projects, they’re often perceived by construction employers’ groups as doing so. For example, the Associated Builders and Contractors trade group, which has been waging a concerted campaign against PLAs since Biden took office, railed against their inclusion in the joint memo. It claimed PLAs actually promote exclusionary practices for underrepresented workers, since 87.4% of the construction workforce doesn’t belong to unions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a>. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n “If the Biden administration is serious about creating opportunities for a diverse and local construction workforce, it should abandon PLA schemes, which disproportionately exclude nonunion local, minority-, veteran- and women-owned businesses and their employees from bidding on and building public works projects,\u201d said Ben Brubeck, vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs at ABC, in a statement<\/a>. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, the National Association of Minority Contractors, the oldest minority construction trade group in the country, said the memo lacked teeth, because it didn’t include a specific mechanism for measuring minority participation. <\/p>\n “They can use all the wonderful terms and buzzwords they want, but we track compliance,” said Wendell Stemley, NAMC emeritus national director.\u00a0“Our experience tells us that 50% of the time, states don’t comply with the federal participation contracting guidelines that they use to get the money from the federal government in the first place.”<\/p>\n Stemley was referring to disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) goals which are used in federal contracting. Those goals call for a minimum of 10% participation by women and minority-owned firms, as well as small businesses, in federal contracts. <\/p>\n But minority contractors assert DBE targets are really just window dressing, since they are only goals, not requirements, and noncompliance rarely has material consequences. <\/p>\n “The states will say they’ll shoot for 11% DBE participation if the feds give them $30 million for a freeway,” Stemley says. “Once they get the $30 million and they don’t achieve the 11% participation, they just write to the government and ask for a waiver. But they keep the $30 million.”<\/p>\n For example, according to the United States Code<\/a>, the 10% goals of DBE participation within the Department of Transportation are “aspirational” and based on good faith efforts. The law says the goal doesn’t actually require recipients to set a goal at 10%, or take any special administrative steps if they fail.<\/p>\n The results within the industry are hiring practices that neglect to include<\/a>\u00a0underrepresented contractors, and a macho and racist image<\/a> in the field. Another common outcome is\u00a0billions of dollars in contracts, with only small percentages going to women and minority firms. <\/p>\n “When you have a $2 billion contract, and only $100,000 goes to African American contractors, that’s like being in a rainstorm and you can’t get wet,” Stemley said. “That means you are systematically excluded, forgot about, or they never really planned on including you in the first place.” \u00a0<\/p>\n Representatives from DOL did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment on contractors’ reaction to the joint memo.\u00a0<\/p>\n This item was originally posted here: Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nThat’s the concept behind a memo of understanding<\/a> between Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to award more of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) to underrepresented workers.
\nBut the framework drew fire from a powerful construction trade group for emphasizing project labor agreements. And it elicited skepticism from a minority contractors’ organization for lacking tracking and enforcement details. <\/p>\n