[How the infrastructure bill could easily be engineered to also
build justice. ] [[link removed]]

BIDEN’S JOBS PLAN COULD BUILD RACIAL EQUITY WITH ONE SIMPLE FIX  
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Larry Buhl
April 28, 2021
Capital & Main
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_ How the infrastructure bill could easily be engineered to also
build justice. _

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the American Jobs Plan on
April 7 in Washington, DC., Alex Wong/Getty Images

 

The ambitious Biden-Harris infrastructure proposal, called the
American Jobs Plan, is not yet law — not even a bill — but
there’s already great enthusiasm about the millions of jobs it could
bring. But who will fill those jobs is far from clear, and could make
a difference in the success of the plan. If a coalition of advocates
have their way, workers will come from local areas, not only to boost
racial equity in hiring, but to feed money back into local economies.

One sentence casts a long shadow over the prospects of success for the
American Jobs Plan: a prohibition against geographic-based hiring
preferences in administering federal awards that is tucked away in the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulations. The document,
called the OMB uniform guidance
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covers regulations for all federal agencies that give grants to local
and state governments including the Department of Transportation
(DoT). In that document is a sentence prohibiting
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local hiring for projects receiving federal funding.

The ban was inserted by the Reagan Administration’s DoT, was never
voted on by Congress, and has barred cities and states from local
hiring mandates or incentives on projects using federal funds,
including water systems, broadband and power grid construction, and
public transit lines — all likely products resulting from the
infrastructure proposal.

The clause in the Federal Aid Highways Act
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says that government contracts must abide by “full and free
competition,” and not create an undue burden on companies bidding
for them. As interpreted by the Reagan-era Justice Department
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couldn’t limit the number of companies bidding on a federally funded
project, and that cities had to give the work to the lowest offer —
regardless of the company’s stances on labor issues or human rights.
This free market approach to competition, in force for more than 30
years, has prevented regions from imposing criteria that promote
social equity, and made it difficult for municipalities to include not
only local hire provisions, but to ensure LGBTQ protections
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when using federal dollars.
 

Racial justice is at the heart of a $2 billion project in Syracuse,
New York, says Mayor Ben Walsh. “We want to protect [and] lift up
those living there, in an inclusive way, not to create a different
type of gentrification.”

 
According to Madeline Janis, co-founder and executive director of Jobs
to Move America, a strategic policy center, removing the local hire
prohibition would allow more businesses to win federally funded
procurements. “Everything related to climate change, everything
related to infrastructure, as well as COVID-19 recovery,” Janis
said. “This could apply to millions, if not tens of millions, of
jobs across the country.”

Janis added that a new report
[[link removed]]
by Jobs to Move America refutes claims that hiring from the local
community would increase contractor bid prices. The report concludes
that local hiring impacts neither bid prices nor the number of bidders
on construction projects, and that removing the ban would have a
transformational impact on the U.S. economy.

The Obama administration tried to do an end run around the DoT
prohibition, through a pilot program
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allowing local hiring for 14 major projects across 10 states. This
pilot program was scrapped in 2017
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by President Trump.

Now, with so many construction projects and jobs in the balance —
with the possibility that the Biden/Harris $1 trillion-plus
infrastructure proposal becomes law — there’s a renewed push to
ensure that jobs generated from infrastructure investments stay in
local communities. Last month, a coalition of mayors, employment
advocates and academics sent a letter
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to President Biden and Vice President Harris urging the repeal of
language prohibiting local hiring preferences, saying that not only
would it help residents participate in the economic investments in
their cities and towns, but it “can also increase opportunities for
workers of color, women, veterans, returning community members, and
others facing barriers to employment.”

LOCAL HIRING CAN BUILD RACIAL EQUITY, ADVOCATES SAY

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics
[[link removed]], the U.S. construction industry
is overwhelmingly white and male. Advocates for local hiring say now
is the time for historically underrepresented groups to have a shot at
those jobs and careers.

Racial justice is at the heart of a $2 billion project in Syracuse
[[link removed]],
New York, according to Mayor Ben Walsh. The I-81 viaduct bisected a
neighborhood of predominantly Black and brown people, but now has come
to the end of its useful life and presents the city with a chance to
right some wrongs, including redlining and displacement brought by
“urban renewal” plans of the ’60s and ’70s.

“I and others advocated [a] community grid option for I-81, which
brings local traffic from the viaduct to create community, not only
reconnect communities living in the shadow of the viaduct,” Walsh
told Capital & Main. “We want to protect [and] lift up those living
there, in an inclusive way, not to create a different type of
gentrification.”
 

With so many construction projects and jobs in the balance there’s a
renewed push to ensure that jobs generated from infrastructure
investments stay in local communities.

 
But even though Syracuse is already partnering with trade unions to
train a local workforce for the project, putting those people to work
on a federal government project would currently be impossible, Walsh
said.

“[Local hire] is a multifaceted problem, even without the DoT
language. Many contractors hire workers who don’t live in
Syracuse.” Walsh fears that, without changing the DoT language,
large contractors from outside the community, typically with workers
from outside, will get the contracts and the local benefits will be
lost.

A recent study
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concluded that white adults between the ages of 20 and 59 in Onondaga
County, where Syracuse resides, were 21 times more likely to be
construction workers than were minority adults, although minorities
make up nearly a quarter of the county’s population.

Dekah Dancil, president of the Urban Jobs Task Force, the
Syracuse-based community advocacy coalition that compiled the report,
said the history of exclusion in the trades is compounded by other
barriers. “Beyond [the] local hiring [prohibition], people of color
are more likely to have other barriers to jobs in the trades,
including access to transportation and child care and getting
licenses,” Dancil said, though she added that area trade unions are
now part of the discussion to maximize local hiring.

Cities across the country trying to hire locally have been thwarted
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by political and regulatory challenges. State lawmakers in Ohio struck
down a Cleveland law to hire city residents for construction projects
and were backed up in 2019 by the state supreme court
[[link removed]].
New Orleans
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is one local hiring success story; hoping to stanch the city’s high
unemployment in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, local lawmakers
required at least 30% of work on construction contracts to be
conducted by local residents.

Advocates for local hiring say they expect the end of the prohibition
to be contested by state lawmakers concerned that contractors outside
a city’s limits might be put at a disadvantage. Still, advocates
will continue making their case to remove the federal ban and say they
don’t care how it’s done: either by executive order, by Congress,
or by having the DoT’s Office of Management and Budget delete the
wording.

_Copyright 2021 Capital & Main Reprinted with permission._

_Larry Buhl is a writer and radio producer based in Los Angeles. He's
a regular contributor to Art & Understanding, ATTN:, and DeSmogBlog.
He has produced for the BBC, Marketplace, Free Speech Radio News and
Pacifica radio._

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