Fed up with complaints from both Black and Hispanic unemployed workers who are demanding a piece of the contractual pie, Senate President Emil Jones Jr., and a multiracial coalition on Tuesday demanded that unions build a jobs skill center in Chicago.
Jones was joined at a press conference at the James R. Thompson Center by Cook County Board President John H. Stroger Jr.; Comms. Bobbie Steele and Deborah Sims; Senators Rickey Hendon (D-5th); Miguel del Valle (D-2nd), Mattie Hunter (D-3rd) and James C. Meeks (D-15th); Rep. Monique D. Davis (D-27th); Alds. Ed Smith (28th), Todd Stroger (8th), Walter Burnett (27th), Leslie Hairston (5th), Anthony Beale (9th); Rep. Arthur Turner (D-9th) and many others.
Jones vowed to "fix" this "obvious disconnect" between elected officials approving contracts and the lack of diversity in the construction and trade skills industry.
Agreeing was Stroger who said: "It is important for the unions to build a jobs training center in Chicago to make the school accessible to Hispanics and Blacks who live within the city.
"When the unions moved the jobs training center out of Chicago, it sent a message to young Blacks and Hispanics that there was no room for them" in this industry, Stroger said.
Like Jones, Hairston and Davis, Stroger said he too is opposed to Blacks getting contracts and then subletting to white firms that hire their own people.
"African Americans who are getting contracts should try to make jobs available to young African Americans" so they too can grow economically as apprentices in the trade, Stroger said.
Ironically, the demand for job and contract fairness comes on the eve of a City Hall protest by the Workship Coalition which is demanding an investigation into front firms and pass-through companies.
Davis said her coalition's purpose in uniting "is to improve the economic opportunities of African American people who have been totally shut out of the job market."
Referring to several major public works projects including the Dan Ryan, Davis said there is a paucity of Black workers. She too is opposed to Black contractors subletting to white firms that don't hire African Americans.
Jones laid out his argument for a Chicago-based jobs skills center saying there are about 20 unions that are a part of the Cook County Building Trades and explained that there are 9 million people who are employed in the overall construction industry in the U.S.
There are 6.1 million employed in the construction trades of whom 431,000, or 7 percent, are African Americans, and 1 million employees work as construction laborers in the nation.
Hispanics number 1 million in the construction trades, and they represent 16.4 percent of those in the construction trades. There are 480,418 Illinois workers in construction, extraction and maintenance occupations, and 80,245 who work in construction extraction and maintenance occupations in Chicago.
"Where is the disconnect? The Minority Business Enterprise contracts are not translating into training, job opportunities, and union membership for minority constituents in Illinois," said Jones.
Another key piece to solving this disparity is demanding diversity. Jones said: "We have to deal with the problem of our people getting into the skills union.
"We want to have a Washburne training facility with the union involvement so our young people can get into these unions...so they can become gainfully employed.
"We're demanding that the unions have a facility in Chicago so our young people can have access" to this skills program, said Jones.
"We've met with the unions from the Cook County Building Trades who don't want to come to" Chicago with such a program, Jones said. "We are demanding this."
Article copyright Sengstacke Enterprises, Inc.
Photograph (John Stroger and Emil Jones)
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