Dave Davies has an article in today's Daily News, with reference materials provided, which outlines the compromise reached on the 'diversity issue' facing the trade unions in Philadelphia. The big union bossess and political bossess got together and hacked together this 'great compromise'. The reality is any step in the right direction equals progress. Is it exactly what we need? No. But, it is movement in the right direction.
I thought it interesting to post the data printed in today's Daily News, regarding minority representation in the trades...
* Asbestos Workers: 6 percent minorities and women, 19 percent city residents. Among apprentices, 9 percent minorities and women, 35 percent city residents.
* Bricklayers: 20 percent minorities and women, 26 percent city residents. Among apprentices, 25 percent minorities and women, 59 percent city residents.
* Cement Masons: 27 percent minorities and women, 42 percent city residents. Among apprentices, 45 percent minorities and women, 64 percent city residents.
* Elevator Constructors: 5 percent minorities and women, 9 percent city residents. Apprentice data not provided.
Here's the link:
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20080205_A_breakdown_of_building-t...
What's even more interesting, to me, is what's not provided. If any organization receives significant public dollars, it should be required to keep excellent records regarding the participation rates of members of protected classes. If they do not, then how do we protect those classes? Maybe we need to have a conversation regarding whether the proctected classes still need to be 'protected'. I, for one, am more than willing to have that conversation. It appears that Philadelphia Councilman, Wilson Goode is not completely pleased with the outcomes of the negotiations between Mayor Nutter, Council and the trade bosses. Patience, grasshopper, patience...
Diversity, the unions, + the School District of Philadelphia
Here's an idea which needs to be implemented, especially given the unions' complaints that there aren't enough minority workers available to meet the requirements: connect the unions w/neighborhood high schools in apprentice programs. Give students the ability to work, for school credit, as apprentices with union workers: electricians, plumbers, carpenters, etc. Then, when the kids finish school, they walk right into a well-paying union job.
It's a winner all the way around. The unions get an infusion of new, minority talent, which they desperately need, as well as a big PR boost. The schools get an opportunity to graduate more kids with marketable skills. And the city gets more middle class wage earners.
What say ye?
-Z
A very important idea
Not only is this the kind of change that needs to take place in order for unions to become more diverse, it is also the kind of change that is needed to make our schools more effective.
A big part of the reason why dropout rates are so high is because students don't see the relevance of what they're studying to their lives. Learning a skill gives students a reason and context for developing their reading and math skills.
Where are we now?
What kind of co-op/work-training programs does the school district have now?
Not enough
In fact, as far as I can gather, the district is closing vo-tech schools at precisely the time when they should be opening more of them.
Is that right?
Are they really closing vo-tech schools? Under what rationale? If true, that's terrible.
Correction
They're not closing vo-tech schools, but they did transform one in the Northeast- Swenson Skill Center- into a comprehensive HS, rather than build a new comprehensive HS for that side of the Boulevard.
My wife disagrees with me on this, but I see a clear need for both more dedicated vo-tech schools in other parts of the city- right now, they're to Swenson (if you can still call it vo-tech) in the Northeast, and Mastbaum + Dobbins, each in North Philly- and the apprenticeship programs in the neighborhood comprehensive schools that I described above.
My wife, FWIW, feels that, if kids want to go to a vo-tech school, they can commute rather than create new apprenticeship programs in the neighborhood schools.
-Z
Diversity, the economy and fighting crime
I was going to start a blog on "the problem with labor", but decided to chime in here instead.
Connecting unions to our schools and putting them into ALL middle schools and high schools was the cornerstone of my education platform last year during the primary. An overwhelming majority of the 200,000 children who go to Philly public schools are minorities. A relatively low percentage of these kids go on to college. Where do the rest go for work? Service industry jobs. Fast food chains. Malls. Low wages. Few benefits. No future.
The one way we can break the cycle of functional poverty in this town is by offering students the opportunity to learn a trade. The trades will lead to family sustaining careers. And, as zorro pointed out, when these kids graduate, they will be well on their way to being an apprentice. I've spoken to some of the heads of local unions and they like this idea. In fact, they have started a small pilot program with the district doing just this.
But it's not enough and I believe it is council and the mayor's role to build the understanding with the unions so that this happens across the board in every middle and high school. The trades should be a permanent fixture int hese schools. It helps the kids. It helps our city. It helps the economy (because we have a trained workforce). It helps us achieve diversity in the trades. And it ensures the buildings, stadiums and roads in Philadelphia will be built BY Philadelphians.
Just as Council and previous adminsitrations have allowed the "unspoken understanding" of ensuring union workers work on most, if not all, major projects in Philadelphia, so must they now speak up and add a caveat to the decades old "accomodation" with our trades. If the trades want Philly to continue to be a union town, the trades must invest in the future of this city. Every midle school. Every high school. Teaching trade skills to anyone who wants to learn. Preparing students to work towards beings apprentices. No exceptions. No excuses. No delays. Otherwise, that unspoken understanding may have to come to an end.
I also believe another indirect benefit to this (on a long term basis) is the reduction in crime. The best anti-crime plan is a jobs plan.
Philadelphia has to start believing in itself. And we need to start believing in our kids, our communities and our labor unions. Lets give them all the benefit of the doubt (at least initially). Lets give them all a chance to do the right thing. And an opprotunity to change themselves and their city. Because everyone deserves a second chance.
****I support Joe Vignola, Independent Democrat for Pennsylvania State Senate in the first district and I am proud to work to make it happen. My opinion, however, is my own and does not reflect the opinion of Joe VIgnola or his campaign****
To belabor a point a bit
but I think it speaks to an important distinction: there are solid pedagogical reasons for these kinds of programs also. They are part of a good, progressive approach to education. When you have students who are largely unmotivated by the existing curriculum, you can point the finger at the students (or the parents) and say that it's their problem. Or, you can adapt your curriculum to make it more relevant to the students' lives. All students, in all situations, learn better when they're more motivated.
It's outrageous if during this time when there's so much focus on improving Philly's schools, vo-tech programs are being reduced, let alone not expanded. If the energy for developing these programs is only coming from outside the school system, it's an indication that there's something very wrong inside the school system - and may also be a reflection of the fact that the system's "CEO" in recent years was not an educator.
Skills to pay the bills
I'll also add an unexpected benefit to greater minority participation in building trades -- the dissemination and preservation of maintenance and repair skills. Communities with that knowledge, however modest in income, usually wind up in much better physical shape than those without it. People who want to do repairs or improvements (especially with an aging population) often wind up being taken advantage of or with inferior work.
Philadelphia is full of neighborhoods that are literally falling apart. Do you think the ethnic monopolization (and suburban expatriation) of those jobs and those skills has nothing to do with it?
After a respite from
After a respite from posting, I would like to point out one issue not often discussed in critiques of unions.
Union leaders, if they want to continue to be elected, need to make sure that their members have jobs. What's the best way to do that, reduce the labor pool. Fewer members means a greater likelihood of any individual member getting to work consistently. Most importantly, most unions reward older members with work rules that favor seniority. What that means is that unions have a vested interest in NOT bringing in a whole lot of new members. The whole point of the union is to reduce the supply of available workers, with certifications, labor rules, etc., to increase salaries and protect jobs. (Their response is that they maintain a highly educated available work force.)
Philadelphia is a labor town all around. While people focus on the building trades unions, truth is that the perception of many is that Philly is one of the strongest union towns in the country. As a result, for a politician in Philadelphia to critique any union is to run the risk of being considered anti-union and lose office. (Thatcher (sp) Longstreth is the last politician I can recall who was from the well off of Philadelphia society to hold local office.) The vast majority of office holders need union support for at least two reasons.
First, Philadelphians, particularly the Democratic voters that elect the City's leadership, are, generally speaking, are opposed to people who are perceived as union busters, even if they dislike a particular union or even their own. As a result, union affiliation is important to get elected.
Second, and most important in my mind, is that union members participate in the political process. If they live in the City (which for many can be a challenge, even Fire fighters and Police Officers), they vote. But more than that, they are great volunteers and will give money to campaigns, through their political action committees. It can be hard to raise money and get volunteers and unions can provide warm bodies to canvass, attend rallies and raise money. Unions are ready made. They come to the candidates with a clear agenda, but provide needed support.
So what's all this mean? It means that even though since time immemorial each of the building trades unions have had a certain white ethnic representation owing to their role in early immigrant communities, African American politicians have complained about the de facto requirement that large construction projects -- public or private -- require union work. (Use non-union labor and a large Rat will parade down Broad Street with your name on it while you eat dinner is the most non-violent anecdote I can come up with in recent memory.) But all of this complaining is at the margins, because to be anti union is to be unelected.
Every one has a pet union, those who complain about the building trades are in bed with the teachers or DC 33 or 47. Those who complain about both groups cater to Firefighters and Police Officers, others SEIU, and still others do a great job of catering/pandering to all unions. (Everyone else is a Republican -- a little hyperbole, but there is much truth in that concept.)
Most importantly, Unions cannot dramatically increase their membership without hurting the existing membership. And that will the union leadership unelected. That's why little progress will be made in diversifying the unions.
Sure there will be some reports to add to all of the other reports about how the Building Trades unions are not diverse, except for 332 which are the most unskilled of workers. (Term of art, not a critique.) The unions will come back with some academies and relationships with public schools. The data won't change, because fathers will continue to bring in sons, as with virtually every other business. So no room for new members outside of the fold, because more members means lower wages and fewer jobs for each member. Politicians will complain, unions will blame the strength of the public schools and the inability to find candidates with the requisite math background. Apparently differential calculus and linear algebra is required to be an electrician. (Not quite true, but you get the point.)
Of course, Philly could be Houston, where undocumented workers have destroyed unions in construction projects of any kind, or so the perception is. The downside is that in Philly those workers would have to get a new skillset to do something else in an economy that is much more service oriented, or move to the South and West. The upside is that Philly would be perceived as a much friendlier place to do business, and the cost of affordable housing would drop dramatically.
Its all about choices. But one thing is clear that any union leader worth their salt would need to make sure that the labor pool is smaller rather than larger, so that wages are high. So there is a very strong disincentive to increase minority participation.
(Union elections is a fascinating subject for the true political junkie, but that's for another time.)
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I do not work for/support any candidate for any office in Philadelphia
other than Barack Obama for President.
Contrasting unions
Happy to have you back, truthtold. As I've said before, I'm a big fan. I hope we can keep your political junkie skills honed and available in the post-election afterglow.
I would like to point out though, that your sketch of the logic of union leadership really only applies to certain kinds of unions -- that is, unions facing diminishing and/or irregular work. The strategy that you describe of limiting or reducing membership to guarantee work is a fair one for managing labor in a union in decline -- and in a shrinking industrial and union-labor age, there are plenty of declining unions to go around. But this is a tricky thing to balance, because in order to maintain the political clout that unions need (without which any politician or employer could easily tell them off), they need numbers, i.e., bodies and dues, to stay strong.
It's also worth noting then, too, that the other unions you mention -- teachers, police, firefighters, service and government employees, etc. -- aren't in the same position. They have regular, salaried work, and lose very little if anything from competition with other union members. Finally -- and this is the kicker -- their jobs have strict residency requirements, and they are much more integrated by race and gender.
Maybe there's a residual paternalism in the building trades that comes from their artisanal nature -- fathers and sons and all that. But there was a long time when jobs in police, fire, and even government were traded almost entirely by family, neighborhood, and ethnic ties. Collectively, we got over it. If a black woman can be a police officer, she certainly can be an electrician, brickmason, or carpenter. And if every police officer in Philadelphia needs to be a resident in the city before they're even hired (a policy I would like to see mitigated), it's nearly offensive that less than a quarter of a union that gets a city contract lives in the city. That, I think, is where a good deal of this is coming from.
I appreciate your comments;
I appreciate your comments; They have sharpened my thinking on a couple of points.
1. Union wages and the perception of union conflict make Philadelphia perceived as an unfriendly place to do any kind of business. The result is that it is a mitigating factor against starting or relocating a business to the City. As a result, at the margin, other places are perceived as friendlier, which means that more jobs will be created in those climates. Given the City's other challenges, perception of crime, lack of modern affordable housing stock, and relatively high taxes, it discourages business from coming here, even in the face of significant advantages, such as educational institutions, hospitals and transportation. (Those advantages are all also publicly subsidized, so the burden is twice as bad.)
Worse yet, because the City's real estate is owned by so many government and non-profit institutions, the City's tax base is skewed even more towards citizens and the existing businesses. Poorer citizens require more services which mean that the issue of the perception of union anti-competitiveness is a serious problem for the City. (Not up there with crime and education, but serious nonetheless.)
2. Public subsidy of building trades works really is what ticks of minorities whom have the qualifications and the union's membership does not look like the overall workforce. In that context, it would be bad enough to have good construction jobs controlled by unions, but to have the government implicitly subsidize them adds fuel to the fire.
3. While other public employees unions do not have the seasonality associated with construction related work, they still have a vested interest in high barriers to entry to protect existing members. People who complain about taxes -- of which there are many in the City -- logically must want to reduce services or find alternate sources of revenue. Reduction in services would mean layoffs of people. So those unions also have vested interest in keeping the numbers of union members low. (That's why they oppose privatization, its not more union members, but competition from non-union members.) That's the same with every other union. Sure you would want more dues paying members, but you get elected by making the existing members happy.
Even public unions, cops, firefighters, etc., have also had a very hard time getting beyond "residual paternalism", i.e., families who are police officers or fire fighters. While there are many more people of color in those professions, that is a recent movement, and is perceived as largely being the result of lowering the standards to admit candidates. So the barriers to entry are the issue.
But all said, even though the populace wants more diverse building trades, and would like for their members to live in the City, City government will not act.
There will be some more reports to add to the ones done every five years to show that the Building Trades Unions are getting only a little more diverse. They'll add that to the ones that show high turnover in young teachers and low turnover in old teachers -- senior members get the best jobs, junior ones the worst, a classic union structure. But government will not take the lead in changing that structure. Why? Because everyone in your government is a member of a union, including most of the elected officials.
The reason that the police force is so hard to regulate is virtually everyone, including the prior police commissioner, were members of the same union. Timoney complained about that all of the time. Superintendents complain frequently about the power of the PFT. Mayors complain about DC 33 and 47. Same issue, work rules designed to protect senior members.
As for the building trades, tax dollars will still be used to subsidize people who come into work sites with Jersey tags. People will complain, but government will not change, because it is beholden to unions.
Which if you are a union member, is a great thing, because collective action is working for you, better work rules, better pay and job protection. It is a significant protection if you are in a job that is not highly competitive or the position is fungible. (Even professional sports players are members of unions.)
Of course, if you are not, then the government is redistributing your dollars to someone else to get paid more than the free market would allow. Note in Houston, Las Vegas, and New Orleans the issue is that Latinos, primarily from Mexico and Central America dominate the construction industry. So construction does not require the same folks who have always done the job to do it in the future. That is a positive factor in construction booms in those cities, because it is much cheaper to get construction done. (Of course it is also warmer there and zoning laws are much more lenient.)
The trade off is those nice gleaming office towers with working class jobs versus former Philadelphia, now South Jersey residents guaranteed a high salary because of the public subsidy. Other than speeches and reports, government will not challenge that trade off.
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I do not work for/support any candidate for any office in Philadelphia.