State-Of-Black-Oregon-2015

Building to offer real apprenticeships leadingto journeyman positions. But Maurice—chair ofthe Metro Alliance for Workforce Equity andpresident of the National Association of MinorityContractors—wants to see more Black and otherminority businesses. He reckons if minoritycontracts are really receiving the money claimedby Portland and its agencies, such as thePortland Development Commission, then thereshould be at least 10 contractors the size of O’NeillElectric in the city. In the state, there should be 50.The city, counties and state are playing a numbersgame, a “shell game” he calls it.The result is fewer job opportunities and realapprenticeships for minorities. It also leaveslittle incentive for majority contractors to stopseeing diversity programs as just stereotypicalbureaucratic hoops.Most minority jobs in construction are intrucking, flagging, moving dirt and cleaningup. The high-paid, skilled jobs in mechanics,electrical and plumbing mostly go to themajority workforce. Current diversity programsdo little more than encourage contractors toboost menial jobs to meet quotas. But the realproblem is “fee brokering,” where a majority-runcontractor offers a small minority contractor asignificant percentage to front a bid that meetsdiversity hiring requirements. Although theminority contractor may be no more than a onemanoffice and do little or no actual work on thecontract, the percentage is reported as city orstate investment in minority jobs. There may bealmost no substantial minority jobs as a result.There are excellent programs to copy: Portland’sTriMet, for instance, or projects under a CBA(Community Benefit Agreement).Instead of just tracking dollars and ignoringthe scam, the city, counties and state shouldtrack skill levels—journeymen, foremen,superintendents and real apprenticeships—andcontractors’ ability to “self-perform,” to actuallydo the job. Maurice says, “If a contractor saysthey can wire a ten-story building, and when yougo to their office, that’s it—just a small office,no gang boxes, no coils—then it’s a front. TriMetand CBA projects do that kind of checking.”Real-world monitoring would lead to morepeople like Maurice: Black apprentices,journeymen and business owners.99