'Historic' accord on unions, minorities

City Council cleared the way yesterday for the $700 million expansion of the Convention Center by a "historic" compromise with the building trades unions over increasing the number of minorities in their ranks.

Under the agreement, reached after a day of negotiations, the unions for the first time disclosed their demographics and pledged to pursue Council's goals for the makeup of the workers who will build the two-year construction project: 50 percent of the workers have to live in the city, and 25 percent must be African American, 10 percent Hispanic American, 5 percent Asian American, and 10 percent women.

The unions also agreed to work on long-term diversity plans with a commission Mayor Nutter established yesterday. Critics wanted the unions to have those plans ready now, but Council agreed to allow the unions to report quarterly to the Mayor's Advisory Commission on Construction Industry Diversity, and to subject them to "remedial actions" approved by Council if they failed to meet goals. The mayor will appoint the 15-member board.

The resolutions passed yesterday cleared the way for the city to sign a joint operating agreement with the state and the Convention Center Authority, and allows the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council to sign a labor agreement with the authority and contractors to guarantee labor peace on the project.

"All the obstacles are out of the way," Convention Center Authority Chairman Thomas "Buck" Riley said last night. "This was the last big piece."

Bids could go out within the next few weeks, Riley said. The center is supposed to be completed by late 2010.

Council and Nutter, who chose the state's largest-ever public-works project to take a stand on minority hiring in the city construction industry, declared victory with the agreement, although four of the 15 building trades unions did not sign on.

"This is a historic moment in the city," Nutter said, citing the unions' actions. "Nothing like this has ever happened."

Councilman Darrell L. Clarke acknowledged that he and his colleagues were not totally satisfied with the long-term goals outlined, to greater or lesser degrees, by each union.

But the unions' show of good faith in issuing their minority statistics and committing to report to the mayor's committee "demonstrates to me that they are willing to address the problem," Clarke said.

Council has long sparred with the unions on access to jobs for city residents, particularly minorities.

Numbers provided by 12 unions yesterday bore out what was reported in an Inquirer analysis - that about 80 percent of the regional construction union workforce is white, and about 70 percent lives outside the city.

According to figures compiled from Council, the total percentage of African American building trades workers was 13.8 percent; Hispanic, 4.9 percent; Asian, 0.2 percent; and women, 1.5 percent.

Removing Laborers International Union of North America Local 332 - which has by far the highest minority population at 83 percent - puts those figures at 89 percent white, 5.7 percent African-American, 3.3 percent Hispanic, and 0.5 percent women, with the figure for Asians remaining unchanged.

Patrick Gillespie, business manager of the building trades, said some unions have members who live as far away as the Eastern Shore and Northeastern Pennsylvania. Gillespie said he expected the mayor's commission to come up with a more realistic picture of the city's minority workforce with a demographic study, and to establish what improvements in the numbers need to be made.

Unclear last night was whether Council's action would satisfy Gov. Rendell, whose approval is critical, and what would happen to the four unions - the roofers, operating engineers, carpenters and electricians - that did not comply with Council's demands.

Rendell, who warned earlier in the day that the state would have to "blow the whistle" on the project if continued delays put it over budget, issued a measure of approval last night.

"We appreciate the step Council has taken to ensure diversity on the project, and we look forward to reviewing Council's action more thoroughly to ensure that it complies with our long-held position," Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said.

John J. Dougherty, business manager of the electricians union, said yesterday that he would cooperate with the commission but that he was "not about to be bullied by people who are not concerned about this issue."

Whether Dougherty will suffer any consequences is unclear.

Convention Center executive director Albert Mezzaroba said unions not in compliance would be notified that they would be barred from signing the Project Labor Agreement for the construction until they met Council's requirements.

But that does not necessarily mean they cannot work on the project.

"I don't know what happens after that," Riley said. Mezzaroba said he didn't know, either. Dougherty said he was "fine" with that sanction.