Open Letter: Oakland Mayor Should Reject Job Policies That Increase Discrimination Against Black Workers

Posted in Affordable Housing, Against White Supremacy, Economic Development, Equal Rights/Equity, Gentrification, Housing/Foreclosures, Labor, Libby Schaaf

Black Americans have twice as much unemployment as white workers.

You can see one of the causes if you walk by any construction site and count up the number of Black workers you can find.

In Oakland, Black workers get only nine percent of the work on city-funded construction projects even though they are 25 percent of the population.

Nationally, 90 percent or more of electricians, painters, construction supervisors, tool and die makers, cement masons and others are white.

Yet Mayor Libby Schaaf is considering a policy that will increase that discrimination by giving all the work on city-funded projects to members of organizations that have few African-American members.

In order to inform herself about the consequences of the policy she is considering, the Mayor should:

• Ask the Oakland construction unions to release statistics on their membership by trade and ethnicity, so that the public knows exactly what it would mean in terms of ethnic representation to award almost all the construction work in the city to members of their organizations;
• Wait for completion of the disparity study, which is being paid for by the city should be completed, so that we can see the extent to which there is current discrimination against minority and women-owned businesses.
• The Department of Race and Equity should do an assessment of the impact of Project Labor Agreements on various segments of the population.
• There should be public discussion in neighborhoods on both jobs policy and public lands policy.

Otherwise, the displacement of African-Amerians and the gentrification of the city will be increased.

In Oakland we need to do what is fair and just.

Signed,

Kitty Kelly Epstein, PhD, Professor of Education and Urban Affairs; member of OaklandWORKS, author of “Organizing to Change a City” (2012);

Paul Cobb, Publisher, Post News Group;

Margaret Gordon, Co-Director, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP), former Port Commissioner

Brian Beveridge, co-director, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP), OaklandWORKS Alliance;

Robyn Hodges, OaklandWORKS Alliance;

Pastor Anthony L. Jenkins Sr., Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church;

Kimberly Mayfield Lynch, EdD, dean of the School of Education, Holy Names University, member of Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA).