Thank you so much for that background snippet on your family history.... However, seems to me that US History at large is not your forte, is it? Here's the US construction business' BIG PICTURE:
Can You Dig It?
Affirmative Action and African Americans in the Construction Industry
Paul King
Chicago, Illinois
Paul King is chairman and an original founder of UBM, Inc., the largest African-American-owned and operated construction service firm in the city of Chicago. This article was delivered as a speech to National Association for Minority Contractors 29th Annual Conference: Gateway to the 21st Century opening session, June25, 1998.
inmotionmagazine.com
On July 23, 1969, I was one of the leaders who shut down Chicago construction sites because of the absence of black workers and contractors in HUD-financed building projects. Hundreds of demonstrators were inspired by Presidential Executive Order 11246, which required contractors on federally assisted construction projects to not only cease discriminating against blacks, but take "affirmative action" to increase African American participation. Although employment, university admissions, and political districting rank high in the debate over affirmative action I would like to draw attention to the very distinct area in which I participated at the outset: Blacks in the Construction Industry.
My argument will take the form of the question: "Can you dig it?," or, DIG, an acronym for Deception; Ignorance; and Greed.
Deception
There is no question that Blacks have been discriminated against by unions and trade schools with respect to construction careers. Thirty years ago, blacks were 0.6 percent of the electrical unions, 1.6 percent of carpentry, and 0.2 percent in the sheet metal trade. These closed doors, combined with the restrictive practices of banks and performance bond companies, effectively prevented black contractors from developing successful enterprises. Affirmative action was intended to remedy racial exclusion and foster inclusion through the concept of correction and expanded opportunity, or (CEO).
Yet when the media, one of the chief agents of deception, discusses affirmative action, they substitute the word "quota" despite the fact that everyone knows that quotas are illegal unless imposed by court order. Quotas close doors and set limits. while affirmative action opens doors by expanding opportunities. Nevertheless, the print media continues to, purposefully I think, misapply the term.
Another deceptive device is the provocative use of the phrase "racial preferences," which suggests that one group (blacks) are unreasonably "promoted" over a more qualified group (whites) Affirmative action is not about preference, but the correction of past discrimination, such as increasing the 0.4 percent black elevator tradesmen in 1967 to a number visible on the radar screen!
Sociologist Michael Dyson states that the ingenuity of the conservatives and the far right is that they have deceitfully co-opted the rhetoric of the progressive and civil rights movements against the very principles of freedom, equality, and justice that the language originally stood for. Pollster Lou Harris essentially agreed, stating that "it is not only misleading, but deceitful to use 'affirmative action' and 'preferential treatment' interchangeably "
But the ultimate trick came with Proposition 209, audaciously known as, "the California Civil Rights Initiative," which banned the use of race or sex as a criterion for "either discrimination against or granting preferential treatment to" anyone doing business with the state. Prop 209 spokesperson, Ward Connerly, is as duplicitous as the language—having once served as a paid lobbyist for the construction and roofing industry -- the same group that provided a vocal rearguard in recent Supreme Court affirmative action cases.
When the Harris Poll surveyed Californians, 81 percent supported the referendum. But when asked if they would still support the measure if it would "outlaw all affirmative action programs for women and minorities"-- that support fizzled to 29 percent, and opposition climbed from 11 percent to 58 percent. Simply put when the voters understand these mean-spirited ideas, they reject them. The citizens of Houston did not buy this verbal sleight of hand either, and refused to accept a similar initiative, when worded properly, even though they’re Southerners, and like California, in a highly populated state.
Ignorance
What role does ignorance play in this equation? Most people do not understand the facts of black exclusion in construction.
Generally, the avenue to becoming a skilled craftsman is to be sponsored by a contractor, complete a recognized training program, perform on-the-job training, be admitted into a union as a journeyman, and then selected (highly subjective) to work by a contractor. Becoming a contractor, requires knowledge of a trade, and/or architectural/engineering training, or college business preparation. Prior to affirmative action. each of these doors had been slammed in the faces of blacks with the only open avenues being alongthe dead-end streets of unemployment and economic exclusion. If blacks are not exposed through education and are ignored by employment trainers, then you don't develop skilled black construction workers, and by extension- no black contractors. In 1998, there is still a paucity of African Americans in civil engineering curricula at the top schools -- the University of Illinois at Urbana and IIT had only three graduates, and MIT, one.
Let's examine the consequences by looking at three of the Chicago areas largest construction firms:
1.The Walsh Group, founded in 1898 by a carpenter, with great-grandchildren still involved with the firm had a sales volume of almost $1 billion last year.
2.Pepper Construction, founded in 1927 by a carpenter, three generations old, $473 million.
3.Kenny Construction Co, founded in 1927 by a pipefitter, multigenerational, $469 million.
4.Power Contracting and Engineering, founded in 1926 by an engineer, $320 million.
5.Bulley and Andrews, founded in 1891 by an architect and mason, $65 million.
These major firms were founded in the 1890s and mid-1920s. Historians have called the former decade the worst on record in American race relations -from disfranchisement (taxation without representation), convict labor camps, to lynchings and segregation a la Plessy v. Ferguson (1893). Meanwhile, a generation later, in 1927, the new black migrants of the Great Migration, could not even enter, let alone work in the major downtown department stores in the de facto segregated cities of the North, like Chicago, where some local white contractors got their start.
Can there be any honest comparison of black contractors and these firms? If each of these successful firms got their start through trade experience, architecture or engineering, and these fields have only been significantly open to blacks for less than 27 years, should not corrected and expanded opportunity (CEO = affirmative action) be extended until some form of parity is reached?
A huge advantage exists for a firm that is second generation, to say nothing of three generations or more—the assembly of resources and business relationships (banks, sureties, clients) give companies enjoying these benefits an inherent and inherited advantage over newly emerging black contractors. The $7 billion volume of the top three construction firms in Chicago is more than double the total revenues ($2.65 billion) of all African American construction firms in the entire United States.
Greed
This leads me to the final component of the DIG paradigm -- GREED). Why have the opponents been so relentless? In 1970, the Associated General Contractors (AGC) and many unions said that buildings built by blacks would fall dawn. It is no accident that the biggest Supreme Court affirmative action cases, Webber, Fullilove, Croson, and Adarand, have centered around construction, and in each instance, the majority contractor organizations have opposed progress. But whereas the earlier cases, Weber (1979) and Fullilove (1980), upheld affirmative action programs in hiring and promotions and supported minority contractor set-asides in order to correct gross past discrimination and achieve equity in the workplace, Croson(1983) and Adarand (1995)'s imposition of the "strict scrutiny' standard essentially ignored clear patterns of egregious discrimination and Inequity in the letting of public contracts.
But I will assume that these contractors are not all racists. The facts neither support the assertion that blacks have taken union jobs from white workers, nor that black contractors have deprived AGC members of a significant part of their business, which leads me to conclude that their continued assault is based on GREED.
Consider the volume of the top 25 contractors in Chicago, (none of whom are black), which for 1996, was $12.7 billion. All of the black contractors in the U.S. (UBM included) don’t amount to one quarter (21 percent) of Chicago’s top 25 construction companies. What do the affirmative action opponents want -- 100 percent of the work? The argument of reverse discrimination is patently false, whether advanced by unions or contractors.
Look at the case of the California electrical contractor who was upset because his firm lost a bid on a public contract because he did not meet minority business requirements. He wanted to perform all of the work himself. Let's examine the background to this situation.
In 1970, there were practically no blacks in the electrical union (thus no black electrical firms in his specialty). So how does this guy expect the cycle of exclusion to be broken? If 28 years ago, there were virtually no blacks in the electrical unions, and today it’s "immoral" to use a benign device like Affirmative Action to provide for some measure of inclusion, this guy seems to be saying that blacks should never be involved in electrical contracting. He doesn’t want the cycle to be broken because he doesn’t want to lose his power and privilege.
[snip]
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As you can see, if your dad was some black ringer looking to make it in the construction biz then it's likely that he'd still be waiting for his first contract....
Re: ANYONE can succeed in this world if they dedicate themselves to being the best at what they do, and work hard at it. I don't care what color or religion you are. And any minority who falls back on that kind of logic is self-limiting their opportunities.
That's a nice piece of hypocrisy of yours --"I don't care what color or religion you are..." Great! And I guess that you speak for all the human resources managers of America, don't you? If so, how come racism is such a sensitive issue out there? Or is it just a group hallucination of sorts? You tell me....
Re: There will ALWAYS be a requirement for dedicated and hard-working individuals who don't cop a negative attitude each time they don't get their way. Show me a person out there who hasn't have to fight and struggle to succeed and I'll show you either a crook, a lottery winner, or someone who inherited their wealth.
And I'd add, or someone who inherited his/her social capital.... Although this notion of "social immobility" is rather a European feature, I suspect that the US labor market, somehow, is confronted with that impediment as well. The problem with your opinion, Ron, is that you naively believe in the pseudo-rationality of Capitalism and, accordingly, you take at face value mottoes such as "The right man in the right place", or "Free markets allow the best allocation of resources --human, financial, whatever." Yours is an ideology of frictionless capitalism --no spoilage, no misfits, Corporate America is Your Color-blind Matchmaker! But then, tell me Ron, how come Dilbert cartoons are so popular?? Oh yeah, 'cause they don't feature black looney toons! LOL!
Gus. |
