Jones: Minorities must be part of rebuild funded by sugary-drink tax

EVEN THOUGH it comes with the $90 million promise of universal pre-kindergarten and refurbished parks and recreation centers, I'm highly skeptical of Philadelphia's proposed 3-cents-per-ounce sugary-drink tax.

Not only because researchers acknowledge that low-income blacks and Latinos are the highest consumers of sugary drinks, but also because, under the city's current work rules, those same low-income people would be barred from getting the jobs the new tax would help to create.

How could that be, you ask? It's all connected to a Nutter administration executive order that mandates the use of union labor on all large-scale, city-funded projects. With a price tag of $600 million, the parks and recs rehab known as "Rebuild" would fall under that order, and the jobs would be union-only.

The unions have customarily refused to release their membership demographics, but a 2013 analysis by journalist Tom Ferrick found that Philadelphia's building trades unions are 99 percent male, 76 percent white and 67 percent suburban residents. That means the low-income blacks and Latinos who consume the most sugary drinks would not only shoulder the bulk of the tax burden, but also would fund employment for the very unions that have frozen them out of job opportunities for generations.

That's wrong, and the members of City Council I've spoken with are keenly aware of that truth.

"There is a PLA - project labor agreement - that says all of the jobs relating to the construction of these facilities must come from the union halls," Council President Darrell Clarke told me in a radio interview on 900-AM WURD. "And you and I both know that the minority participation in the building trades is simply not there. So I don't know how that's consistent. How do you get demographically the appropriate representation on the workforce if you have to get them out of the existing unions? That's a problem for me."

It's a problem for me, too, but it's one that can be solved by Mayor Kenney. He could write a new executive order giving the city the flexibility to use nonunion workers on large-scale, city-funded projects, or he could negotiate a more inclusive project labor agreement under the current order.

Kenney has chosen to do the latter. According to spokeswoman Lauren Hitt, the mayor is considering a broad PLA for "Rebuild" with the Philadelphia Building Trades Council. As part of those negotiations, the administration would seek language that addresses submission of each building trades' membership demographics, development of apprentice-ready programs for residents in high unemployment areas, a tally of hours worked by minority and female workers, and sanctions for contractors and unions that fail to meet those goals.

Hitt says union representatives are meeting with Council members and the mayor on those issues.

Still, the diversity issue has not been solved. Until it is, the city should not be considering a sugary-drinks tax that could disproportionately impact low-income communities while freezing them out of jobs.

Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds-Brown, who has proposed an alternative to the sugary drinks tax, says the jobs issue must be resolved.

"In the rebuild of those centers, if there's not language in these amendments that we intend to put forth that guarantees - and I say this with my strongest conviction - that (minority- and women-owned businesses) are factored into the language of those bills, then compromise will be very, very difficult to get to," she told me in an interview. "Because it will be unacceptable for those rec centers (and) libraries to be rebuilt on the backs of those who have given up paying those tax dollars when their fathers and mothers can't even get jobs to rebuild those rec centers."

I agree. But even if we correct the unjust labor agreement that enables and codifies discrimination, there remains the problem of taxing a product that's disproportionately used by the poor.

That's why we must consider the alternative Reynolds-Brown has proposed. It's called a container tax, and it would spread the burden beyond the poor communities where the bulk of sugary drinks are sold.

"My container tax says that there will be a 15-cent flat rate on any non-reusable, sealed container, which includes soda, energy drinks, sweetened natural juices, teas and coffee," Brown told me. "And, like the 3-cent soda tax, the container tax excludes milk and milk-related products."

The Kenney administration has said Reynolds-Brown's proposal won't raise enough money. Councilman Curtis Jones, with whom I also spoke, says Reynolds-Brown's proposal is an interesting idea, but is in fact a grocery tax.

The semantics don't concern me, however. The final outcome does.

If we pass any tax to fund job creation in Philadelphia, we can't exclude people of color from the jobs.

City Council and the mayor must make sure of it.

Solomon Jones is the author of 10 books. Listen to him mornings from 7 to 10 on WURD (900-AM).

sj@solomonjones.com

@solomonjones1