Policy provides incentive to hire women, minorities and youthful offenders who complete construction classes.
By Anya Litvak
Published Oct 13, 2006 14:13
And when they do, it will pay employers to hire them. Two dollars an hour, to be exact.
The carpenters-in-the-making will be the seventh graduating class of Construction 101, an eight-week program with the Workforce Investment Board, targeted at women and minorities, as well as young people in the criminal justice system.
To boost the graduates’ chances of success, the county commissioners on Wednesday said they will reimburse part of the new workers’ salaries if they are hired by any of county’s contractors. At $2 an hour for a maximum of 1,000 hours, the payments could total $2,000 per employee.
Amen to that, says Christina Lickmann, who runs a similar GED and construction skills program at the Spanish American Civic Association, called SACA YouthBuild.
Just one-month-old, the SACA class is peppered with inspiring stories.
Like the one about Zarina Lopez, a 17-year-old mother who dropped out of school to support her daughter on a Wendy’s restaurant salary.
She is the only female in her construction class and she will succeed, Lopez says. She must.
Or Felix Cartagena, 18, who’s bounced through the juvenile-justice system for years before his placement counselor recommended this gig.
Now Cartagena attends classes from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the week, and works at McDonald’s from 5 to 11 at night. He is still on probation.
“I do it so my mom can feel proud of me and brag to her friends,” he said.
As for paying employers $2 an hour just to hire him? “It actually makes me feel kind of good,” Cartagena said. “If someone’s going to pay for me then I must be worth something.”
With three years of graduates, WIB program instructor Charles Byers, of Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, has his own set of uplifting tales.
Piloted in 2004 with only a dozen students, Construction 101 teaches would-be carpenters the basics of their trade: construction math, tool safety and how to read a blueprint, among other skills.
More than 75 percent of the program’s graduates get jobs or go on to higher education, Byers said.
The spirit of construction, and reconstruction, is everywhere.
It’s right there, in the language.
The commissioners referred to it as building a foundation for minority involvement.
Lickmann talked about a supporting structure for troubled youth.
“Some of them have destroyed the community in the past,” she said, “and now they’re rebuilding it.” And themselves, she added.
Byers said: “We can’t fix everybody.” But it’s important to reinforce them every step of the way.
This latest financial incentive is part of a broader effort to revamp minority hiring policies in the county.
In 2003, the previous board of commissioners set a goal that five to 10 percent of a project contract amount go to minority and women businesses. Since then, all contractors bidding for county projects must submit a chronicle of their efforts to solicit minority subcontractors.
The board charged the county administrator with reviewing bidders’ compliance, and with tracking minority participation, in an annual report.
But no reports were completed, and no contractor has ever been found non-compliant, even if the “good-faith” effort to recruit was likely less than faithful, said Barry Garman, assistant county engineer.
That’s why several months ago, the commissioners convened an advisory panel to review the 2003 policy.
But as of today — the first day of advertisements for the estimated $26 million renovation at 150 N. Queen St. —the old, unenforced policy still reigns.
One of the problems, Garman says, is a shortage of minority firms certified to work in Pennsylvania.
A search on the state’s Department of General Services Web site shows only 45 minority contractors in Lancaster and six surrounding counties.
Wednesday’s motion will help, the commissioners said. While the policy helps to introduce underrepresented Lancastrians to the construction trade, it also widens the pool of potential minority business owners in the future.
As a member of the minority participation advisory panel and president of Lancaster’s Urban League, Phyllis Campbell is cautiously optimistic about the plan.
“The (county’s) record has been abysmal in terms of hiring minorities,” she said at the commissioners’ meeting.
Salary reimbursement is great, but the county must also step up its hiring of existing minority- and women-run firms as subcontractors, she suggested.
Because the Pennsylvania county code mandates that contracts be awarded to the lowest responsible bidder, minority businesses, often small and limited in funds, frequently lose out to bigger, more established firms that can do the work for less.
That’s just one of the issues facing the advisory board, which hopes to have an updated minority business policy by the next round of county bids, expected by early 2008.
The advisory board’s next meeting will be at the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce, 100 S. Queen St., at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 19.
