Philadelphia’ mayor-elect Michael Nutter and a group of labor leaders and followers have boldly renounced “economic apartheid” in Philadelphia. (HatTip to reader and blogger Hube)
In the run-up to today’s City Council vote on the Convention Center expansion, some of the city’s high-profile African American leaders gathered at a union hall yesterday to serve notice to the construction trades:
Get diverse or get out.
“The City of Philadelphia will no longer accept an environment of economic apartheid,” Mayor-elect Michael Nutter told the gathering of politicians and union members at Laborers International Union of North America Local 332’s hall, just off North Broad Street
What, you may well ask, does that brave renouncing “economic apartheid” mean in policy terms? What, that is, does “Get[ing] diverse” mean in Philadelphia? Easy:
Today City Council is expected to approve an ordinance that will require unions to detail the racial and gender makeup of their membership and to develop a diversity plan to increase the number of women and minorities in their unions.
The unions and union contractors must also commit to giving women and minority union members 50 percent of the work hours on the site.
If City Council doesn’t like each union’s plan, that union will not be permitted to sign a project labor agreement that will govern the work on the $700 million expansion project.
In Philadelphia, apparently “economic apartheid” means the absence of a “diverse” quota.
And if you don’t like their quota numbers, you can prove that you’re not for segregation and apartheid. No professor in state employ, or perhaps some tiny fraction of them, will take your side if you say the burden of proof is on the (smear-job?) workers, not on you, to prove you’re not for apartheid. Is there a connection, or is it just a coincidence that the growth in public funding for scholars tracks the use of racial and similar divisions as political devices?
Will they be enforcing similar requirements on the professional sports teams?
Where are the courts? Are they so busy inventing rights they can’t be bothered to protect the rights that already exist?
I graduated from college in Philadelphia with a degree in journalism. This was right about the time when the largest daily newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, implemented a preference policy for new hires: 50% women and minorities. (I think it was referenced in the book “Coloring the News.”) I was never sure if that meant 50% women and 50% minorities, which means 100% Not Me. Anyway, after bumping into closed doors I altered my dream, said good-bye to family and hit the road to find work elsewhere.
The news media overall has a pretty aggressive affirmative action policy. And it does cause some friction. Everyone in the newsroom knows who the preferential hire was, even if it can’t be discussed openly. The reason for the hiring gap, in large part, is the same as the reason for the disparity in construction hires: a smaller pool of skilled workers from which to draw.
Philadelphia is wrapping up eight years under a black mayor. If the answer was as simple as demanding the unions to hire more minorities, it would have been done.