Open Letter: Support the Right of African Americans to Work on City-funded Construction Projects

To Council Members, Mayor, City Staff, and Members of the Public:Three principles should prevail in upcoming discussions of public land: 1) Democracy and transparency; 2) Racial justice and 3) Housing the current residents of Oakland.What Should Not Happen:

• The City should not sell any more public land before discussion and adoption of a policy.
• The city’s land should not be used for housing affluent non-residents.  It should house current residents of Oakland who are mostly low- or middle-income, or it should be used to serve the needs of those communities.
• The City should not adopt a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) in a resolution on Public Lands Policy.

Many Oakland residents have never heard of a PLA.   Even the title of the item on the City Council committee agenda which proposes a PLA does not mention that it is being discussed “Subject: Receive A Report on the Public Lands Policy Process and Analysis
from Councilmembers Guillén And Kaplan”

Residents of the city have a right to a detailed, open, well-publicized discussion of proposals about how the expanding amounts of work that their taxes are paying for are being awarded.

African-Americans obtain only nine percent of the work on city-funded construction projects (City of Oakland statistics). African-Americans are 25 percent of the city’s population and the largest percentage of the unemployed and unhoused both nationally and locally.   A project labor agreement could contribute to maintaining that status quo.

What the City Council Should do Instead:

1.  Immediately enact the ordinance establishing a 180-day moratorium on the sale of public land or until the Council adopts a comprehensive “Public Lands” Policy.  A properly vetted public lands policy will take time.  Harmful sales of public land cannot be allowed in the meantime.
2. Separate the discussion of jobs policies and lands policy and organize a transparent, understandable, democratic discussion of each.   The Department of Race and Equity should be asked for an equity assessment of proposals

Among items that could be part of a thorough jobs policy discussion:

• Discuss the differences between a PLA and a public city-adopted jobs  policy;
• Remove discriminatory barriers that result in only 9 percent African-American employment in construction;
• Prioritize employment of disadvantaged workers;
• Protect the union rights of employees;
• Fund job-training and apprenticeship programs that are  geographically accessible to Oakland residents;
• Living wage requirements;
• Employ at least 50 percent local Oakland residents;
• Ban the box to assist the employment of formerly incarcerated;
• Require a twice-yearly report to Council including trade-by-trade demographic statistics;
• Increase funding for contract compliance to reflect the expanded work being required by new construction;
• Incentivize contracting with women and “minority” owned business and other provisions.

Respectfully submitted,

• OaklandWORKS Alliance (Founding organizations include the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP), Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA); Oakland Parents Together (OPT); John George Democratic Club; Oakland Branch NAACP; Oakland Native Give Back).
• Brian Beveridge, Co-Director, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project
• Gay Plair Cobb, Member, BWOPA State Board; Executive Board member, NAACP
  Henry Hitz, Oakland Parents Together
• Robyn Hodges, OaklandWORKS
• Pastor Anthony Jenkins, Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church
• Kimberly Mayfield Lynch, Dean of the School of Education, Holy Names University
• Kitty Kelly Epstein, Professor; Community Assembly of the Post Salon, Host of Education Today on KPFA
• James Vann, Co-Founder, Oakland Tenants Union and member of the Community Assembly of the Post Salon
  (Partial list. Titles for identification only)