Does the City Practice What the Mayor Signs Into Law?On Monday Mayor Slay signed into law the jobs bill sponsored by Alderman Terry Kennedy, which sets goals for minority and white women participation in public works construction projects with a base value of $1 million and above. This would apply to roughly 40% of all St. Louis City construction projects.
The bill sets a goal of 25 percent of labor hours to be completed by minorities, 5 percent by white women 15 percent by apprentices from recognized training programs.
One of the concerns that minority business contractors have had with construction projects is that there are minority businesses that want subcontracting opportunities and that providing those businesses with the opportunities would provide minority laborers with opportunity. "When we are provided the opportunity and the money, we can provide the jobs for ourselves," said Makal Ali, Director of the African/American Business Contractors Association. "We want our businesses to thrive, not to just see Black faces in the labor pool. While it makes for a nice idea in an infant state, the fight for the real money continues."
RiverCity Examiner wanted to look at percentages of minorities and women in other City pools. We contacted the St. Louis Police Department (which is still under state rule since the Civil War and does not actually count as a City labor force) and were provided with numbers that reflect very well in exceeding the goal set by Kennedy's bill. The force has 1395 budgeted and grant funded officers. 500 (36%) are minority, 127 (9%) are White women. Further, of the 294 officers ranking Sergeant or above, 91 (31%) are minority and 23 (8%) are White women. This part of state rule, continues to be the only aspect that is viewed favorably. We asked the police department on Monday morning for this information and it was provided by Monday evening.
However, our inquiries into the labor pool of the Department of Public Safety were not handled quite as expediently. This department, under the Direction of Charles Bryson (who many Whites consider as the least qualified person to hold such a position and most Blacks believe was put in the position by the Mayor to pit Black man against Black man in the demotion of St. Louis' first Black Fire Chief, Sherman George), oversees the Fire Department, Bureau of Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Division of Corrections, Building Division, Neighborhood Stabilization Office, Excise Division and City Emergency Management Agency (CEMA). We were told by Cathy Smentkowski, Public Information Specialist, "A request of those numbers for a department of this size should be submitted with a couple of weeks notice." When asked how many employees are under the purview of the Public Safety Department, she couldn't provide that immediately either. We informed her that we would go to press and await the information for follow up.
We should expect that the labor practices of City Agencies to be in line with the goals set by Terry Kennedy's bill. Stay tuned.