Commentary

Commentary: Local Unions Proposal Will Shut Out Black, Contractors, Workers in Oakland Construction Projects

Published

7 years ago

August 2, 2019

The City of Oakland tried to sell an audience of primarily Black residents and a handful of Black contractors on establishing a Project Labor Agreement on all construction projects over $1 million at a meeting hosted by the Office of the Administrator Office of Contract Compliance on July 25, 2019.

The proposed PLA is being sponsored by the Alameda County Building Trades Council (ACBTC), which is the umbrella organization for all unions operating in the county.

ACBTC’s actions will result in insuring work for their membership while it effectively locks out Black contractors who are not dues-paying members of a local. Since Black contractors won’t get contracts on projects funded and subsidized by the city, whether by design or not, neither will Black men and women get opportunities to work.

Of the approximately 120 people in attendance, 80 were Black people seeking employment in the construction industry. There were three Black developers and eight Black construction sub- contractors. The City staff told the Black unemployed residents if they joined the union the chances they would get a good-paying job would be greatly increased. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In the real world people cannot just join a local. You have to have a sponsor (a firm that recommends you). You must be employed by the sponsor, that means you must have a job first before you are eligible to join a union local. In order to be in the construction industry you must go through an apprenticeship program and there are NO apprenticeship programs in Oakland, I repeat there are no apprenticeship program in Oakland. The last apprenticeship program in Oakland was the Skill Center on San Pablo avenue in the ’80s. It closed in the ’90s.

Elaine Brown, developer of affordable housing in West Oakland asked the staff if the PLA would apply to all Oakland projects and staff replied that the proposed PLA would only apply to projects that had a City of Oakland subsidy of some form, either land or money.

Another participant asked if all the projects using large building cranes in downtown Oakland would be subject to the PLA and staff replied that because the projects are privately financed the City has no control over who the hire. No local business participation requirement and no local hire requirements on these projects.

Robert Browning, a member of the East Bay Small Business Council and small black contractor, stated that ACBTC has been asked for 10 years to provide a breakdown by its 37 locals of the number of Oakland residents who are ethnic minorities. According to Browning, 20 locals have no Black members and the remaining 17 locals have less than 10 percent Black Oakland workers.

Browning also said that unions have abandoned training Oakland Blacks in construction and moved their training facilities to Sacramento, Concord, Benicia, Pleasanton and San Jose, well out of reach for Oakland residents. Until the unions start recruiting, training, and placing Oakland Black residents in jobs the unions don’t deserve special privileges, Browning said.

The reality of the proposed PLA is further complicated by the ill-conceived Surplus Public Lands policy that staff is circulating around the City and due for consideration by the City Council in September. This effort by City Councilmember Dan Kalb is a concept of designing a program to sell public land for the highest and best use.

The City should delay consideration of a city wide PLA until the City Disparity Study currently being conducted is released and shape the Surplus Land Policy based on the finding of the study.

There were no council members present at the July 25 meeting, and, to date, very few of the Council members have been actively engaged in the community outreach efforts.

Deborah Flynn, director of the Department of Equity and Race said that the “the Council is looking for (public) input before they decide whether to mandate a PLA and what elements should be included.”

The City will host another PLA outreach meeting at the West Oakland Senior Center in August. Some City Council members should be present. The Oakland Black Contractors should have their voices heard.

Eddie Dillard

Posts by Eddie Dillard

Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

22 hours ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.