Tag: CityBuild

The San Francisco School Board is considering a strong local hiring and contracting policy that will give Blacks and all San Franciscans a chance to compete for a share of the $531 million in school construction funded by Proposition A – and give our children the economic security they need to succeed in school and in life.

As a union carpenter and general contractor with over 30 years of experience, I can safely say that the first year under San Francisco’s landmark new local hiring law exceeded even my hopeful expectations. The next step is to identify and support local community contractors. The City can partner with local contractors who actively recruit and employ local residents.

These are clear signs that we can use the City’s local hiring policy to get more local workers onto public projects and break cycles of poverty in our most disadvantaged communities while continuing to save taxpayer money on construction. Our local hiring law is a new model for how community groups and labor can work together to rebuild cities.

A crowd of over 200 community advocates, elected officials, labor leaders, community contractors and City department heads came together on Feb. 23 to celebrate the passage of the historic local hiring ordinance.

A city ordinance authored by Supervisor John Avalos and passed by a super-majority of the Board of Supervisors on Dec. 14 requiring work for local residents on San Francisco-funded public works and new opportunities for workers in disadvantaged communities went into effect Christmas morning.

James Bryant, president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute's San Francisco chapter and chairperson of SEIU Local 1021's political action committee, is the subject of a Los Angeles Times investigation into corruption, largely for taking funds from PG&E and Lennar.