Pittsburgh sets minority employment goal for city construction projects (PA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

AARON AUPPERLEE
Tuesday, May 29, 2018, 2:06 p.m.

Pittsburgh will require contractors working on the city’s biggest projects to ensure at least 12 percent of on-site employees are minorities.

An executive order Mayor Bill Peduto signed Tuesday set the 12-percent goal.
Peduto said the city expects to spend $1.1 billion on construction projects in the next 10 years.

“We realize that we are at the cusp of a boom that is going to happen in the city,” Peduto said at a news conference. “We want to open up that opportunity to everyone because here’s the secret: We’re going to need a heck of a lot more workers.”

The executive order creates what’s known as a project labor agreement for city construction projects totaling more than $500,000.

Contractors must guarantee against strikes, lockouts or other job disruptions. The city’s minority- and women-owned business requirements still apply in addition to the new 12 percent on-site minority employment stipulation. The executive order allows the city to select the lowest responsible bidder on a project, regardless of whether it is union or non-union.

Project labor agreements used to be negotiated on a project-by-project basis, said Grant Gittlen, community and public affairs officer for the mayor. The goals for on-site minority employment varied for each project. Gittlen said the goals have been low in the past.

Peduto’s office worked on the agreement with labor leaders for a year and a half.

Peduto said city Councilmen Corey O’Connor of Squirrel Hill and Dan Lavelle of the Hill District will work to push legislation that will make his executive order part of the city code.

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World Trade Center contractor convicted in $1B minority-owned business fraud scheme

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Kim Slowey
August 12, 2016

Dive Brief:

  • A Manhattan federal jury has convicted Canadian contractor DCM Erectors and its owner Larry Davis for minority- and woman-owned business fraud during the execution of almost $1 billion of steel work at the Freedom Tower and World Trade Center Transportation Hub projects, according to Reuters.
  • Prosecutors alleged that DCM and Davis enlisted two minority firms to be administrative fronts on the projects while DCM, trying to avoid paying tens of millions of dollars to minority firms, did all the work itself.
  • Davis’ lawyer said the company and Davis will appeal the verdict and that the minority firms did the work they were supposed to do on the two projects. One of the contractors, however, testified that DCM and Davis paid him $2 million to do “basically nothing,” according to The Real Deal. Davis’ sentencing is expected in November.
Dive Insight:

When Davis was first arrested in 2014, he told prosecutors that he would plead guilty but changed his mind and said he did not intentionally break the law while under contract with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, according to Reuters. However, prosecutors claimed that Davis falsified records to make it appear that minority contractors were performing work.