Thomas Breen File Photo
Construction on the new Q House.
Reward construction firms with a history of hiring women and Black and Latinx workers. Hold companies that fail to meet those goals accountable. And create more of an apprenticeship “pipeline.”
Those and other ideas emerged Tuesday night at the latest task force session on improving city affirmative action laws for contractors and construction workers.
Consultants Frederick McKinney and Gerald Jaynes offered those ideas after months of research on how to ensure women and Black people have access to more opportunities on government-funded jobs.
Jaynes and McKinney, who run the consulting firm BJM Solutions, outlined those proposals and others at a city task force virtual meeting on Tuesday night. They were met with a chorus of politicians who supported their recommendations — and with calls for urgency and transparency from the contractors whom the law is meant to target.
Zoom
Task force reviews findings Tuesday night.
Tuesday’s meeting was part of a long-running conversation over how to bolster city ordinances 12¼ and 12 ½, which include hiring targets to promote Black, Hispanic, and female contractors and construction workers in city projects, and which serve as the basis for the city’s small contractor development program.
Despite the ordinances’ hiring goals, Black workers remain particularly underrepresented in the construction industry. McKinney and Jaynes presented that in most years from 2016 to 2019, Black and Hispanic small contractors have gotten 3 percent of all city contracts. Women-owned small businesses have gotten close to none.
Meanwhile, the 12¼ ordinance aims for at least 10 percent of contracts to be awarded to Black-owned businesses (large or small); 2.5 percent of contracts to Hispanic-owned businesses; and 11 percent of contracts to businesses run by women.
Notably, in 2019, the city more than doubled its spending on construction — yet the percentage of small minority-owned businesses it hired decreased by more than half (see below).
BJM Solutions
The share of the city’s construction dollars, by subgroup of contractors. (SCD = Small Contractor Development program graduates.)
The data on the extent to which the city has met its hiring targets is incomplete, according to Jaynes and McKinney. There is no demographic data on the subcontractors involved with city projects, for instance. And the city does not track information about the companies that are most likely to lose bids on city projects.
They called for the city to hire more staff to specifically track and analyze this data — without which, they argued, any meaningful enforcement of 12¼ and 12 ½ will be impossible.
The consultants drafted specific ways to support businesses in the bidding process that comply with hiring targets. A written pledge to meet diversity employment goals could bump up a contractor’s offer by 5 percent, they suggested. Contractors that have met those goals in their most recent contracts with the city could get a 10 percent boost.
The consultants also proposed that the city create a training program for high schoolers across New Haven County interested in construction work. They suggested that the city create trade fairs where contractors can network. In the construction industry, McKinney said, “If you don’t have relationships, you’re not going to get the work.”
They recommended training small contractors further in the processes of bidding and taking out loans. And they suggested working with construction unions to create a job training system for people of color and women — for example, mandating a certain number of apprenticeships allocated to underrepresented groups.
“We need a pipeline in New Haven,” McKinney said.
The consultants’ suggestions did not overlap with city Small Contractor Development program head Lil Snyder’s proposed tweaks to the ordinances that she shared to the Board of Alders Legislation Committee in June of 2020, including a requirement that more projects open their bidding processes to any interested contractor rather than a select few.
That meeting had also revealed that the ordinances’ benchmarks were rooted in a 1992 study on job inequities in New Haven. By law, the ordinances’ goals have to be tied to a disparity study. So alders had suggested that, nearly 30 years after the original data was collected, an updated study would be warranted.
Drywaller: Close Loophole
Paul Bass Pre-Pandemic Photo
Jayuan Carter: Suburban focus = systemic racism.
When the public had a chance to weigh in on Tuesday night, contractors gave their own input on possible improvements to the ordinances.
Darren Smith of HS Drywall pointed out a clause in 12 ¼ permits a “waiver” for projects that fail to reach hiring targets in “extraordinary circumstances” or if “a good faith effort was made.”
In his own experience, that phrase provided “a loophole for a lot of contractors,” Smith said. “They use that as a loophole to oust you out of the opportunity.”
Jayuan Carter of Executive Ecoscaping Inc. argued that New Haven should be working with surrounding towns to create more opportunities and resources for women and people of color who own construction businesses.
“The county is able to benefit [from the city’s training programs], but it’s not a two-way street,” Carter said. “That right there is systemic racism.”
Sadie Marshall of Sadie’s Professional Cleaning Services LLC spoke about feeling like “the little guy” as a small business owner interacting with the bidding system. Even the format of Tuesday’s meeting felt alienating, she said; she wished the dialogue had revolved around contractors’ voices and experiences.
“I don’t feel that the Bonfire portal is user friendly,” Marshall added, saying that the online bidding infrastructure is “like a headache to me.”
“I don’t have lots of money to get people to work for me, to sit there for hours and hours to get the bids,” she said. “I do all the administrative stuff myself.”
Task force member Shafiq Abdussabur, a contractor who runs Eco-Urban Pioneers, suggested establishing an oversight committee to monitor the ordinances’ success.
Rodney Williams.
Rodney Williams, who runs Green Elm Construction,has been among the most vocal advocates pressuring the city to hire more Black contractors. Tuesday night he critiqued the ordinances for promoting “New Haven County” businesses rather than specifically focusing on the city of New Haven.
The Small Contractor Development program has been “taking care of people in the suburbs while taking the tax dollars from the city of New Haven,” Williams said.
He expressed skepticism about the task force’s transparency. “There’s something that you guys are hiding,” he said. He called for fellow minority contractors to come together and forge their own efforts, independent of the city, to increase opportunities for one another.
“Let’s get our own consultant and find out what’s going on in the city of New Haven,” he said, adding that Green Elm would contribute $2,000 towards an independent inquiry.
Board of Alders President Pro Tempore Jeanette Morrison, who co-chaired the task force, urged attendees at the meeting to bring their concerns to the legislative body’s upcoming budget hearings.
“As we all know, our budget is not the happiest scene in the world,” she said.
The recommendations set forth by McKinney and Jaynes require funding. “My beg to the community is that you come up to our budget hearings and you make sure that the alders hear you in regards to prioritizing.”
Abdussabur spoke to a sense that amid a decades-long fight for opportunities, the need to improve the ordinances is urgent.
“If we do not fix this now, if we do not prioritize this now, this will remain an economic injustice to all citizens in New Haven,” he said. “People can no longer wait.”
This is a complete joke from the opinion of a minority contractor who has sought contracts with the city
Perfect examples of how this system eliminates opportunity for a small business.. You have to carry million dollar insurance with a commitment on your policy to the city so if you have any other jobs you have to pay for each commitment.. a million dollar policy isn't anything a SMALL business carries usually 250 to 500k, the policy is required just to bid so if you dont get the bid you have already spent money. Many bids also have so many loop wholes and outs on the city's behalf that its crazy. Then lets speak about the contracts that go out to bid in Nov DEC don't get approved till Feb but end June 30 because new physical year. These bids consume lots of time and are extremely detail oriented.
Now the back fill opportunities. This means the give large contractors a bid but with a clause that says they have to sub out X amount of work to small contractors..well there has to be a profit for the bigger fish so that means the little guy gets the crap big guy doesn't wasn't and at a low paying rate because he still needs to make his cut. To say the city isn't efficient is an understatement and they DARE not blame it on the pandemic because this circus has been in place for quite some time. I remember going to a meeting for small business organized by the city PRE COVAID etc two big fish and two regulars came in and they all said" nothing here is designed to help you or your business grow this is a front to say they did something . You will make less here then hustling contracts with smaller venues" I didnt want to buy into the negative so I have made numerous bids so far I have spent way more to get the one contract I did get than I have even made