City Council - Labor, Workforce, & Economic Development Committee Hearing on Docket #0473

Thank you.

Thank you for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Thank you for watching!

and many more.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, great. For the record, my name is Ben Weber, City Councillor for District 6, and I'm the Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Labour, Workforce and Economic Development. Today is October 21st, 2025. The exact time is 10.07. And I'm joined today by my colleague on the City Council, Ed Flynn, sitting with me up here. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov slash city dash council dash tv and broadcast on Xfinity channel 8, RCN channel 82, Fios channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.labor.boston.gov and will be made a part of the record and available to all Councillors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of the hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they have signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. If you're looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison Megan at meagan.corugedo at boston.gov for the link. and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 0473, order for a hearing regarding biannual review of the Boston Employment Commission and the Boston Residence Jobs Policy. The matter is sponsored by myself, Councillor Julie Mejia, and Council President Roussi Louis-Jean, and was referred to the committee on February 12th, 2025. I'm not sure that is correct, but we have these twice a year. This is our second hearing of the year. This is the second hearing on the Boston Residence Jobs Policy, or BRJP, and the Boston Employment Commission of this year. It's my fourth hearing as the chair of this committee. on this because we have two a year. I think I speak for all my colleagues when I say this is a policy we all support and want to strengthen. I think that over the two years I've been looking at this issue and I'm sure Flynn has more experience with this than me, that we are concerned by the struggle in the city we have in hiring Boston residents. and women on construction jobs. We are meeting the goals, I think statistically, on hiring people of color, how we can continue to have that strong performance in that category. and we want to make sure we have a city that is providing opportunities for everyone here. It seems like we have work to do on that. Today, I'm joined by my colleague, Councilor Ed Flynn. I also have a letter of absence from Council President Flynn, Russi, Louijeune. I'm just going to introduce the panelists and then Councilor Flynn if you have an opening statement. We're joined today by Deputy Chief of Worker Empowerment, Jody Sugarman Brazen, who has a presentation. and we're joined by BRJP manager Chris Brown also. So I'm gonna, you know, Councilor Flynn, if you have an opening statement, have at it and then we'll hear from the panel.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for chairing this important discussion today. Thank you to the panel, to Jody and to Chris for being here for the important work that you are doing and your team is doing on this important issue as well. Respect both of you and respect the work your team is doing. had an opportunity to get here earlier before the start of the meeting, had an opportunity to speak to some of the union members that are in the audience, want to recognize them, and to say thank you to them for the important work they are doing I'm also looking forward to hearing from you the testimony that you're going to provide. I was saying to a couple people earlier, I think this is the most important hearing of the year. I love coming to this hearing. and I love listening to the public testimony, love listening to the panel and any type of testimony as well. But I learned a lot from this discussion, especially from our union members on how we can ensure that more women, more people of color get into the building trades through apprenticeship programs. and other apprenticeship programs as well. So I just want to say thank you to everyone for being here. It's critical we work together. The Boston Employment Commission, Boston Residents Job Policy, I support not 100%, 1,000%, The Boston Employment Commission is really the enforcement tool for the Boston residency jobs policy, but the Boston Employment Commission was enacted under Mayor Flynn and the residence jobs policy is a very good policy. However, the enforcement is the critical part of it. And that's what we're here today to do is work together not to, Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay. Thank you, Councillor Flynn. We've also been joined by Councillor Liz Breadon. I was going to go to the panel. Do you have an opening?

No, that's fine. I apologize for my tardiness. I'm here to hear how we're making progress. Hopefully, we are.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you very much. So yeah, before I throw it to the panel, I mean, I do feel like, you know, we're... You know, we're at an inflection point in our country. You know, as somebody pointed out, I think it's, there's Justin Drivers, a Yale law professor, wrote, has a book out about the rise and fall of affirmative action. He made an interesting point. where it was 2023, the Supreme Court sort of ruled that we can't have affirmative action anymore as a legal matter. and Chief Justice John Roberts wrote something pithy like, the only way to get rid of discrimination is to get rid of all discrimination. While at the same time, the Supreme Court just recently ruled that That ice can pick up people just based on the color of their skin and the accent they speak English with or if they even work at a car wash. So only, yeah, obviously some kinds of discrimination are okay with the Supreme Court, unfortunately. But how we can push for a more equitable city and do that. Again, I agree with Councillor Flynn. This is an incredibly important hearing and I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you. Jody, it's all yours.

Thank you. Can you guys hear me? There we go. Got it. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilors Weber, Councilor Flynn, Councilor Breadon. We are always happy to come here twice per year to give you an update. We have done a lot of work over the past year to try to improve our efficiency in systems to better identify and take action where we see There are violations of the Boston Resident Jobs Policy. So I'm going to give a brief presentation on some of that, some of the work we've done, before I hand it to my colleague, senior manager for The Boston Resident Jobs Policy, Chris Brown, who will review the updated data for the last six months so you can see progress in terms of the actual impact of the from the different departments in which we monitor. And then we'll talk a little bit about what the Boston Employment Commission has done over the last six months as well. So if you can go to the next slide. I know this is not new to the counselors, but I always like to just give an overview for members of the public who may be watching. We are from the Office of Labor Compliance and Worker Protections. Part of the Worker Empowerment Cabinet and we enforce several of the cities, all of the cities, labor standards. And you can see here, Boston resident jobs policy at the front. We also enforce the Boston jobs, living wage, Prevailing Wage Ordinance, the Boston Wage Theft Executive Order. We support the Construction and Demolition Safety Ordinance, which is enforced by ISD with workers' rights and safety. will be pleased to see the new ordinance to protect workers from heat-related illness and injury now on this list. We're looking forward to working on that. And if you could go to the next slide. And again, our office is part of the larger worker empowerment cabinet, which sets the city's future policy and vision for workers, oversees workplace conditions, and expands of Economic Opportunities and Worker Empowerment. In addition to our department also includes the Office of Workforce Development and the Office of Youth Opportunity Youth Employment and Opportunity, which as most folks may have heard, this summer broke records putting 10,511 young people in summer jobs. So they are doing great work across, we are doing great work across the entire cabinet. And next slide. So the BRJP ordinance was originally established in 1983 and then updated in 2017. And the goals are that the, any, Public Development Project and any project over 50,000 square feet. At least 51% of the total work hours of journey people and apprentices should be going to 51% Boston residents. At least 40% of the total work hours of journey people and apprentices should be going to people of color and at least 12% to women. These are the goals defined in the ordinance, but if you can go to the next slide. Unfortunately, however, we cannot enforce based on those goals for a variety of reasons. So the way that we ensure compliance with the BRJP ordinance is through these seven administrative requirements. We make sure that all contractors and developers and subcontractors attend pre-construction meetings. provide copies of all communications related to workforce projections and workforce Development provide referrals to the BRJP jobs bank. Most importantly, provide weekly payroll with documentation of employer demographics. That's what allows us to monitor projects is by seeing those weekly payrolls and demographics. provide documentation of Boston residency, so verify those residency requirements, attend corrective action meetings when requested, and appear before the Boston Employment Commission when requested. I also have a little asterisk here because it's really important to understand that the BRJP is also the keeper of records for prevailing wage law. So when we collect the certified payroll records, we're collecting them so that we can monitor for BRJP compliance, but also to ensure that our public construction work is all complying with state prevailing wage law as well. and we've made some improvements there which I'll talk about in just a minute. If you can go to the next slide. We are able to fine up to a maximum of $300 for each violation, and we are allowed to create a record of noncompliance with city policies that can be considered when awarding future construction. So we have tried to make some progress in both these areas. We have done a lot of work to create a new We are also working on a new report which will each twice per year Coinciding with these hearings go back to all of the City of Boston departments with a list of all the projects that have been completed over the last six months including all of their BRJP data. We're working on that now. So if you can go to the next slide, this just goes over some of the improvements that we've made over the past couple of years to really try to improve our efficiency and impact. Most importantly, we now not only have a Salesforce database but we have support staff that allow us to really utilize the database in a way to create the systems that we need for compliance and identifying violations. We set up a system to correct certified payroll records. I am very pleased to announce that starting as early as January, but we are piloting using the Salesforce system for collection of certified payroll records as well as the BRJP payroll records so that contractors will only have to Enter information once and that we will have certified payroll record and wage data in our Salesforce database. We've created a new transparent system for finding and working to identify and recommend sanctions. I'll share that in a minute. We created a new dashboard, which we've shared with the council several times, which allows procurement staff, developers, contractors to quickly look up projects. You can find the data on our dashboard globally, the data for BRJP, but also by project, by contractor, by subcontractor, so you can really understand the history of a contractor or subcontractor with the ordinance. We've done biannual economic impact analyses in April. We brought that analysis to you all. And finally, we are launching this new biannual report for that will go to all of the departments so that they can get a good overview of all of the projects that they've sent to us for monitoring over the last six months that have been completed. We're essentially trying to close that loop and get the data back to the procurement staff so they can better utilize it when making decisions. Finally, I do have to say we are working very hard to reduce barriers for workers. On public construction, you must have an OSHA 10. Our team has a schedule of multilingual nine OSHA 10 trainings in English, Spanish, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. Between now and June, we'd love the counselor's help in getting this out to your constituents. We will make sure you have this information. And then the next slide is a little bit more about our system around warnings and sanctions. Now using our Salesforce database, We're able to identify very quickly, I won't say quickly, we're able to identify efficiently all of the payrolls that are 10 days late. That launches or prompts our construction monitors to have that corrective action meeting. If after 15 days after that meeting, if contractors still have not complied with getting their payrolls, or other violations, they get a written warning. And if there's still noncompliance in 30 days, they get a recommendation for sanctions to the Boston Employment Commission. Since this has been going on since July 1, by my count, our construction monitors have had 81 corrective act room meetings. and issued six written warnings. So the process is working to identify more clearly. And then finally, I have to bring this up. I'm pretty sure most of you have seen this, but we did. The city of Boston also has just signed a historic project labor agreement. which not only ensures consistent supply of skilled union labor for our long-term facilities plan for BPS, but also guarantees that the top performing half of each graduating class from each of the six programs at Madison Park, up to 50 students per year, have a guaranteed pathway into building pathways. and I think Director Nancy Luke is on the panel, the second panel, but we are extremely excited about this and the, The opportunities it provides to get more Boston residents into the construction trade. So we're very excited about that. With that, I will hand it to my colleague, Senior Manager Christopher Brown.

Perfect. Thanks, Jody, and good morning, Council. All right, so I'm here to talk about the data for the last six months. First, I'm going to start by talking about the construction monitors and the amount of projects that we We have seven construction monitors and we monitor public projects. Those are the projects that are city funded entirely or and some part. And we also monitor private projects. Those are the projects that are 50,000 square feet or over. For the public projects, there's the mass. Office of Housing, formerly D&D, Public Facilities Department. It also includes the Boston Public Schools, Parks and Recreation, and Public Works. And so what we did was we assigned to make You know, the procedure is cohesive and consistent. We assign certain monitors to certain departments so when projects are let out, Within those departments, those project managers know who to contact in our office. for Compliance. So for the Mayor's Office of Housing is Robert Woodson and Celso Ribeiro. Public Facilities is Manuel Barboza. The Parks Recreation is Patricia and Public Works is Nelson Cunha. And for the private projects, mainly two of our monitors within the office are assigned to those projects. and that would be Ms. Pamela Rufo and Takara Hamilton. Next slide, please. All right, so what you're looking at now is really a step-by-step in the monitoring process that we have You know, we try to go through this with all of the projects. Some projects are smaller, so it's hard to go through every step. But, you know, especially for the large projects, we assure that we meet every step within this process. Next slide, please. So what you're looking at now is projects breakdown. This includes all projects. And so the last six months, which was from April 1st, September 2025, September 30th, We managed approximately 155 total projects. Of those 155, 49 were private projects. Those are projects that are over 50,000 square feet. 106 of those public, 106 of those 155 projects were public projects. And the breakdown is as follows. So that would be 26 public facilities, Projects, 15 Parks, 28 Public Works, and 37 Mayor's Office of Housing Projects. So in terms of the work hours, overall, the last six months, we had approximately 5 million total work hours. So that would include private and public projects. And the overall percentages For all projects, 20% Boston resident, 42% people of color, which is exceeding the 40% mark, and 7% women. And so when you look at the private projects and the private projects are larger, even though there's less projects, they're larger and they have more work hours. And so we had about 4 million, almost 4 million work hours and 19% Boston resident, 40% people of color and 7% women. In the public projects, we had a little over a million hours, and 24% Boston resident, 48% people of color and 7% women. Next slide please. So what you're looking at now is a breakdown by neighborhood. The last, so it's in alphabetical order. We're seeing more projects in the Austin, Brighton area right now. It's a lot of open space. and so I'm not going to go through every neighborhood but you know Dorchester is the largest neighborhood so and they usually have the most projects in this case approximately 25 and so the last you know it says various locations So we have projects that meet this standard are usually public works projects. So you might have a contract that includes different neighborhoods, like different streets. You might be in Roxbury and Dorchester. and it would be under the same contract. So that's why it says various locations. Next slide, please. All right, so what you're looking at now is public projects breakdown by city department. The mayor's office of housing, it's always in first place when it comes to the work hours, in this case, 600,000, a little over 600,000, 23% Boston resident, 56% people of color, and 7% women, public facilities, 326,000 hours, 24% Boston resident, 35% people of color, and 7% women. Public Works, almost 90,000 hours. 29% Boston resident, 44% people of color and 7% women. And then we have Parks and Recreation. This is always the smaller department. And it's 21% Boston resident, 27% people of color, and 1% women. So I'm going to turn it over to you again, Jody.

Thanks, Chris. If you could go to the next slide. This is just a list of our current Boston Employment Commission members. This is also available on our website. And if you could go to the next slide. I just go through agendas. As you can imagine, at monthly meetings the Boston Employment Commission only has so much capacity. They were able to, over the last six months, have 11 special presentations. These are presentations that are made by contractors and developers that give an opportunity for Commissioners to ask questions about their plans to ensure compliance with the Boston Resident Jobs Policy. and then project reviews, 11 of these at various stages of development, 25%, 50%, 75%. So even with monthly meetings of two hours apiece, BECC really can only get to about 7% of active projects. So we make it a point of providing information at every Boston Employment Committee meeting of the projects that were completed over the last month with their BRJP data. and that's what we're using to compile into a six-month project as well. So just to give a sense of as much as the BEC can work on projects during their meetings, it's just a handful of the 165 projects a year that are monitored. And that concludes our presentation.

Okay, thank you very much. We've been joined by the Vice Chair, Julia Mejia. But before I go to my colleagues, and I apologize if I'm stepping on some of their questions. I don't think I will. I think you mentioned the Boston Employment Commission and fines. The Boston Employment Commission can issue fines. Before I get to this point, which I just make sure everyone's aware of this, has the Employment Commission issued fines in the past? Do you know what the...

Yes, we have once, two years ago at this point. It was for a project that, and it was, For two subcontractors, I don't remember the names of the two contractors. Fines are issued to the general contractor for the work of their subcontractors, and it was about $11,000 that were issued in fines.

And that was for failure to meet the standards or for failure to produce the records? Failure, it was late payroll records. Okay, it's not the crime is the cover-up kind of thing?

Yes, we cannot issue fines or sanctions for meeting or not meeting the hiring standards.

Okay, and then just to flag this, I mean, usually we have people from the Boston Employment Commission on the panel. We do not, and we were told by a couple of them that they are looking based on I think I highlighted the Supreme Court rulings that they're worried that what they're doing is not Thank you. Thank you. Tell me what's been going on.

Sure. They reached out. I shared it with our assistant corporate counsel, who did provide some guidance and said that they All Boston employment commissioners are acting as special employees and if they were in their capacity as a Boston employment commissioner, something they were accused or something happened with relation to that role, then our Office, the Corporate Council would represent them and support them. I think the issues were related to the False Claims Act and that would require that commissioners are specifically signing off on or making a claim that then is not We didn't think that was likely to happen in this case, but we have said that as special employees those Those Boston employment commissioners will get the support of our law department.

Okay. Yeah, I may have more questions. I just wanted to make sure my colleagues were aware of what's going on. And they can ask questions about that as they see fit. So I guess six minutes. Councillor Flynn, you're up first.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And maybe I'll just ask a brief question on that issue. I have great respect for the commissioners that are in the commission and the work they do. So were they advised not to be here? They were advised to come and there'd be no issues. Could you just clarify that?

Sure, the only thing that we've said is that they will receive legal support and protection from the law department as special employees. So we didn't advise them to come or not come.

Oh, they were able to decide on their own what they thought was best? Yes. Okay, because I do know that they have exceptional experience on this issue and well-respected in the community, well-respected in the construction field. Do we know if there are any testimony that they provide, whether it's written testimony or anything that they wanted to share that could help this conversation?

I'm not aware that they submitted anything, but we just had our Boston Employment Commission meeting last week, and I made sure commissioners knew that this hearing was happening.

Okay. So, Jody, why isn't there more companies being fined financially if they're in violation? I know, again, I'm not blaming anybody, but why is it only two Two companies that are fined, is that common or do you just try to settle it without giving people a fine and maybe like a written warning?

Yeah, I think, honestly, and, you know, Crystal, I'm curious, but I think this system is working in terms of us holding corrective action meetings, issuing written warnings, giving the contractors the guidance and support they need to come into compliance. Again, compliance means submitting their payroll on time, showing up at meetings. It doesn't mean meeting the 51% Boston residents, 40% people of color, 12% women. Our hands are tied with regards to that, but I think the processes that we've put in place to identify violations Hold corrective action meetings, issued warnings and written warnings has brought contractors more into compliance. Chris, would you?

I would like to echo what you just said. So we the reason that we put this warning process in place is to you know for a couple of reasons I think first off we wanted to Give the contractors a chance to get it right, to meet their obligations with submitting that paperwork. We offer help. We have Salesforce as a database that the contractors are using now. And so we have office hours. and because we think that contract the late payrolls are not because they're trying to skip out on their obligations but we think in most cases is because of you know especially for the smaller companies They might be a man with a truck. And so on the weekends, they're putting together their payroll. And they also might have a problem with using the system. We've seen that before, Salesforce. And so that's why we have the office hours But I think overall, since we put this system in place, we've seen a lot more compliance in terms of payroll submission. We're very happy with that. Kudos to the contractors and also to the BRJP construction monitors. We've had a lot of corrective action meetings and we've provided a lot of help. We want to make sure that this is not like a got you situation. We're not out to get We just want to make sure that we get the information that we need in order to perform the compliance that's very important and also, you know, for prevalent wage purposes.

Is there a difference, a distinction between union contractors and non-union contractors as it relates to compliance with the Boston Jobs Policy?

in terms of submittal of payroll. And I don't think there's a difference. We see a big difference between union or non-union in getting their paperwork and submittal and things like that.

So a non-union contractor is in compliance just like a union contract would be in compliance.

For the seven compliance administrative measures, yes, I believe that to be true. We haven't done the analysis, but anecdotally, I don't think we see a big difference there.

Do we have any issues with, one of the issues I'm focused on is wage theft. Many unions have reached out to me and I've worked with over the years. Wage theft, especially exploiting people. and many immigrants as well. But what are your thoughts on, what are you seeing, I should say, on wage theft in the city or throughout Greater Boston as it relates to contractors not paying people Not only talking about prevailing wage, but just not paying people, providing lousy working conditions, safety conditions. What are we seeing on those issues throughout Greater Boston?

Yeah, it's a really important issue and wage theft continues to be a major issue in Boston, particularly in the construction and restaurant industries. Where it relates to the Boston resident jobs policy, the primary control that we have over that is the role that we play as the keeper of records for certified payroll records. It's something that we are taking very seriously. We now have a construction monitor dedicated specifically to reviewing those certified payroll records as they compare to the rate sheets that are provided at the time of bidding to make sure that we as the City of Boston and a public contractor are doing everything we can to identify and report if we see wage theft happening on projects that are publicly funded. And in this case, projects that are also covered by BRJP. Unfortunately, a lot of the wage theft happens in the residential Non-union construction industry, where we don't have any or as much oversight. But we have really increased our Well, thank you. My time is up out of

Respect for my colleagues. I want to stop there, but I would ask more questions on wage theft, but I am going to stop there.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Are you ready?

I'm ready, yes. I'm jotting down questions. Six minutes. Thanks. Thank you. So the living wage is $17.55. Is that according to this? And then how does it says it increases annually? How much does it increase?

The living wage right now is $18.78. Okay. I have not updated my slide. That is old. Apologies. All right.

No worries. And we all know that that's not really what's required to make it in Boston. Any conversations around raising the living wage?

Just your thoughts on that. Sure. The ordinance defines how we have to calculate the living wage. It's calculated annually by the Boston Planning Department's research team. And we utilize that as our basis for all of our living wage compliance. There were recommendations from the Living Wage Advisory Committee at one point on changing the way we do those calculations to get We have a new advisory committee that we will be convening thanks to the ordinance that created the Office of Labor Compliance. Clients, which will look specifically at wage issues, living wage as well as wage theft, to look at those recommendations and revisit those. But at the moment, we have to follow what the ordinance requires.

So it might be time for a revision, review and update. Thank you. And then I had a question about wage theft really in terms of the current climate with regard to Have you seen an increase in wage theft reports because people are able to... exert duress on their workers that say, if I report you, if you report me for wage theft, I will report you, I call ICE.

So obviously this current political climate has put a lot of fear into the hearts of our immigrant workforce. However, here in Massachusetts, wage theft laws cover you regardless of your immigration status. We do a lot of work in our office through our workers' rights efforts to go out and ensure that immigrant workers know about these rights and have a safe way to report Wage Theft. We are partnering with four worker centers this year, like we have in past years, to do multilingual outreach to help workers know their rights. The situation you describe as retaliation, which is blatantly illegal, doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but it is illegal. So we are doing our best to partner with the Attorney General's Office, to ensure that workers, immigrant workers, know their rights and still reach out. And last year, our workers' rights, on FY25, our workers' rights Trainings and work led to quite a few referrals and opening of 177 cases. So we know the work we're doing is reaching people, and we'll continue to invest resources in doing that outreach and doing those trainings and Know Your Rights trainings, multilingual Know Your Rights trainings. That's another reason that our OSHA 10 construction is multilingual. to make sure that workers know their rights around health and safety on the job as well. Excellent.

So you mentioned the OSHA 10 trainings, and you would like us to spread the word? Yes, please. We'd be happy to put it out in our newsletter or whatever way we communicate with folks. So what's involved with the OSHA 10 and why is it so important?

So OSHA 10 is important because it provides workers with an overview of the OSHA protections they are supposed to have on site. So not only do you learn health and safety mechanisms and how to keep yourself safe, but you learn what your rights are so that you can stand up and ask for those protections on the job should they not be We are providing it in Spanish, English, Haitian, Creole, and Brazilian Portuguese because we want to make sure immigrant workers know their rights on the job. As it pertains to the Boston resident jobs policy, you also must have OSHA 10 We see this one as having big bang for your buck because it's not only helping people know their rights, know how to protect themselves on the jobs, but it is breaking down a barrier that can keep people from accessing those public construction jobs as well.

Yes, and I know we've had, you know, in my time Council, we've had multiple fatalities because of falling. People, especially in the road work, like digging in pits and flooding and someone Incredibly traumatic incidents where people ended up dead.

OSHA 10 is the 10-hour training. We also are about to release our schedule for OSHA 30, which is a 30-hour training. and the incidences that you talk about led to our construction safety ordinance which requires that on any site in Boston that receives an ISD permit that someone that's over 50,000 square feet that there be a person dedicated a safety coordinator dedicated on the job at all times and that person must have 30 hours of OSHA training so we will be releasing in addition to our OSHA 10 Schedule for multilingual OSHA 30, 30 hours of training as well.

The other question I had was with private projects over 50,000 square feet. I always think of the ordinances really applying more to our publicly funded, but in terms of how does that relate to the private projects? Project across the city. That's good to know. Do the same requirements for residency and union wages and all that still apply?

The private projects have the same requirements for Boston resident jobs policy, but they don't have prevailing wage compliance. The prevailing wage law only covers public works. OK. Thank you. My time's up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much. We have been joined by Councillor Bryan Worrell, but Councillor Mejia, you are our next six minutes. Thanks.

Thank you, Chair. Good to see you guys. We keep showing up, which is part of the ordinance, and I'm happy that we get the opportunity to always check in because when we know better, we do better, right? So I have a few questions, but before I start, I just want to give a shout out to Local 103. In terms of what I have learned in my partnership with them is when you are intentional about increasing diversity and having more women and more people of color, In union jobs, you have to really be intentional about what that looks like. And I would have to say, and I know other unions probably get jealous for me to say this, but just watching them work Everyone should take a page from their book and replicate their diversity recruitment efforts because I have not seen anyone go that hard in making sure that they reach their goals and so want to just like and all of them and y'all should take a few pages from their book too and maybe you can learn a thing or two from them too. Now I have some hard-hitting questions for you, Jodi. There's always going to be spice with me here. So I'm curious if you could, it's great and I'm happy to hear the recruitment numbers and how well we're doing, but can you just talk to me about the retention? Like once you get us in, What does it look like to keep us in these jobs?

That's a, you know, I think we don't really track retention, which is probably a problem. We get data over the course of the project and we could track how long each worker stays on a project, but I'm not sure that I could answer whether or not we could What retention looks like right now without doing a deeper analysis. Chris, do you have any?

Right. I would agree. So we do have one good thing. We do have a new database called Salesforce. That would probably be something that we could probably put some type of report together and to try to track retention. We do have the ability to now track apprentices. We have that report available. And so we are tracking that. So it would take just reaching out to the self-force IT person and kind of putting some tracking mechanism in place.

Thank you. Just because they're going to give me the minute time Warner and I'm going to do a second round just for the record because I have a lot of questions. But let's just stay on that a little bit longer because I believe that when you have information, then you're able to make informed decisions about what you need to do And so I'm the dashboard queen. Y'all know every single hearing that I've been at, I've asked for a dashboard. So thank you very much for finally giving me one after, you know, but now I'm going to ask for more. because getting that data is not difficult, right? From the moment that they start working and you could see that when their project ends, why did it end? Because what I hear from a lot of folks is that They get on board when it's time to get the project off the ground. Once the project is off the ground and they do their little inspection and then they're all good, then we lose some people. So I don't think it's a good practice to not hold ourselves accountable to getting that data. So I would recommend, it's every six months that we do this, so the next time we check in, if you don't have it, I'd like to know it. because it's every six months. So in April, if I am still here, I'd like to see that data. or at least any information regarding retention. And then I also would like to know the pay rates for our Folks who we're bringing in to work in these construction sites. Like what is the pay rate? Where are they in the totem pole?

So the only pay data or data on wages we collect is related to the certified payroll records. Hopefully, every single person working on a public works project is paid prevailing wage, and that's something that we look at very closely. The rates are different depending on your job classification. For those private 50,000 square foot jobs, we do not collect because that wage data, it's not Part of what's required by the BRJP, so that data is only collected as part of our compliance with prevailing wage law. Thank you, Jody.

And then one more question is that I'm curious, this is really more about kind of our process, and I think I've asked this question multiple times too, and I just would love to hear an update. When someone is not offered a job, what type of feedback, if any, is given to them so that the next go-round they might be better suited or positioned to actually get into

It's actually a source of extreme frustration that we do not hear back from people when we send them Boston resident jobs policy, jobs, banks, candidates. and those candidates are hired or not hired, we hound them for information and feedback and rarely hear back from contractors.

Okay, so I'm going to say one more thing, Chair, if that's okay. Please. Thank you. So that is also another problem, right? Because we're doing these sanctions for $300 when they're in violation, but then we're not... also holding them accountable to giving us information that helps us do our jobs better, right? So I would just recommend, again, because back in the day I used to be the one that filed this hearing, so I'm no longer in that position of power. but I still have a little bit left, so now I'm just gonna ask and advocate that we look at how we can update this so that we can start holding those folks accountable for that information so that you're not hounding them, so that they are legally You know, bind it to deliver. So I'll come back for my second round with more questions.

Okay, thank you very much. Councilor Worrell, six minutes.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the panel for being here and the work that you have done over my four years. We've gotten the dashboard, more information, and I just want to thank you for all the work that has been done in the last four years that I've been on the council. I feel that when you do good, more is asked of you. And I am very interested in just diving deeper into the numbers and getting kind of more information around The pay disparities when it comes to the different levels of work and different trades, we know that Electricians probably are the highest paid individuals on the construction site. But kind of wondering, like, what are the demographic breakdowns of our electricians? And do you have that information? And if not, is that something that you could start reporting at these hearings?

Yeah, twice per year we ask the Boston Planning Development Agency to do an economic impact analysis in which they basically look at what the economic impact is of not complying with the resident portion of the Boston resident jobs policy. As part of that analysis, they look at the demographics of the work hours in each of the various major trades. to see where the demographics of people who are in those higher paying versus those less higher paying Wage Rates. And we can provide that. I think we sent that with the information that was sent previous to today's council hearing, but I am more than happy to send it again. So we do it Once per year where we do that deep dive.

Awesome, awesome. And when it comes to like the journeyman and apprentice, are you able to do that as well through... Demographics.

I don't think that the I do not think that that demographic currently has a breakdown by a journey person or apprentice. I have to I have to look back at that. I will say that our office, the Office of the Worker Empowerment Cabinet has just done a pretty deep dive as part of an analysis of jobs created from the climate action Plan on the demographics of apprenticeships in Boston, which we'll be releasing soon. So we will look forward to sharing that with you.

And I just want to shout out one of my team members, Stasi, who's been diving deep into this information and has seen the disparities. When it comes to either gender pay gaps and also when it comes to race as well. And one of the prizes that she has highlighted for me was the Walsh Playground. where it seemed like it was 80% of the electricians were white. And we know that electricians have some of the highest paid jobs on a construction site. Some of the other questions I have is around memorializing the BRJP analysis and making sure that that's part of when they go through BPDA. You know, that process that, you know, their analysis is part of, the BRJP's analysis is a part of their document or their project plans. Where are we on that? I know that last meeting, or last hearing, we talked about looking into that to see if that could be done.

Meaning the breakdown of people of color percentages by different demographics?

Right, basically what's kind of like on your dashboard.

Yep.

Yep, for project.

You know, we had a staff change, apologies. We had the data person who helped with our dashboard Whirl, left to go to law school, and we've just hired the new person, started literally on Monday. So I will regroup with our team on adding that to the dashboard and report back before the next six months, Councilor Whirl.

Okay, awesome. And it's more of adding it to the BPDA, that proponent's documents. So, you know, every proponent that, you know, wants to build something in the city of Boston, they go to the BPDA and it's memorialized on file.

So one thing we are starting this month, and we hope to have it by the end of the month, is we are doing an analysis of all the projects that are completed every six months. with a breakdown of the BRJP data demographics as well as the demographics you talked about which is being shared back out to all of the line departments in the BPDA planning department. We're starting that this month. Buddy, who sends projects to us for monitoring, will get a biannual report of all the projects that were completed over the last six months with those demographics. So we are working on that and should be ready by the end of the month.

And then is it possible to show union versus non-union work on the dashboard?

I will check into that, but yes, I think we can do that.

All right. Is there any correlation that when you're looking at the data that you find between residency Women on the construction site or, you know, women on the construction site and people of color on the construction site, any correlation between any of those categories.

Well, what I've seen over the years is I've seen an increase in both of those categories. When I first started here a while back, I think department-wide, maybe we were at 4%. We had a lot less projects then, a lot less work hours, and the women percentages were coming in around 4%. We have seen an increase. It's about 7% with more work hours now. Still not enough, but we have seen an increase in the women percentage. The people of color percentage. That has increased. The goalpost got moved on us in 2017. The goal was 25%. We were meeting that goal. and it was raised to 40% and we are now meeting that goal. So the real issue now is, well, that's two issues. Obviously the women, you know, that needs to increase. But, you know, people, the Boston resident, you know, That always has been a challenge.

One last question, Chair. And I'm looking at one company, I won't name them, but They have 19% Boston resident, but they have 62% people of color. Is that something that's common? If you're having high people of color hours, you're looking at less Boston residents.

You know, we haven't done that analysis, and it certainly would be interesting to do to compare those projects with the higher number of people of color. I'm not sure necessarily. I think we've mostly been tracking and seeing that we've been doing better and better with people of color And as that has happened, Boston residents has shifted downwards. So it does appear anecdotally from the global data that that seems to be the case. But I think it would be interesting to do that project by project.

Yeah, I think it would be helpful for us as, you know, counselors as well to kind of just understand like the landscape, right? To know what, you know, if we are looking You know, to achieve residency, then it will look this way. If we're looking to achieve, you know, more people of color on the construction site, then we're probably looking at, you know, less residency. So we'll be happy to hear that. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. I guess I get a chance to ask a couple questions. To follow up on that, And so I think Nancy from Building Pathways is not going to be here for the second panel, unfortunately. So I was hoping you could talk a little bit about what we're doing. There's a project labor agreement we have in place. What impact that's going to have on getting Boston residents into these trades?

Folks may remember that there was a project labor agreement in 2014 that actually created Building Pathways. That was when we were doing work to make the Boston affordable housing more energy efficient. And that project labor agreement led to the creation of Building Pathways, which has been an extremely powerful way to bring Boston residents and people of color and women into the trades. They have a 90% placement rate in the trades. And I think since their first founding, 415 people have completed and got into the trades. This project labor agreement takes it one step closer. Now Building Pathways literally is going to have an office at Madison Park Vocational High School. They just this week did a number of information sessions because There's a commitment now to as many as 50 people in the six programs at Madison Park High School who want to join the trades will have a guaranteed pathway into and many more. and many more. 2014 project labor agreement to the next level and is it going to be a real important pathway for Madison Park students to be able to access the jobs we're creating through making our public schools more energy efficient and upgrading our public schools and everything else.

Yeah, I think in terms of just the impact, getting even just the hours to the level that we're looking for for Boston residents, correct me if I'm wrong, It would add about $170 million a year in wages to Boston residents.

I haven't done the analysis, but it'll be 50 more Boston residents per year who are accessing building pathways and then good quality apprenticeship union building trades apprenticeship jobs.

Okay, and then, so I, does, In light of recent events, and we have a federal government that is targeting programs like this, does the Boston Employment Commission, do they have a quorum to meet? What's your, how is this gonna work?

We've had quorum for the past two, well at least this past meeting, we had quorum and were able to pass minutes. There is concern across the board and fear across the board for programs like this. I know that our law department is taking a very close look and keeping an eye on the work that we do. Again, because our enforcement and monitoring is focused on those seven compliance measures and not specifically on the goals that we are trying to meet, and so on. So, yeah, it's a source of frustration, but also allows us to continue the work that we're doing.

in terms of submitting records on time and complete records, that's what we're going to issue fines for.

There are seven compliance measures. The most important that we follow closely is submittal of those weekly payroll records. Those weekly payroll records are what allows us to gather the data that we're able to share with you. It allows us to step in and Ask that contractors make best-faith efforts, but we only fine if there is late payroll. We have a better system for identifying that so that we can stay on top of that through Salesforce. But yes, we only We can only find based on those seven compliance measures.

Maybe you know the answer to this. Do we need the Boston Employment Commission to do this? Can your office enforce this?

We recommend sanctions to the Boston Employment Commission who issue the fines. So we prepare, we do all the monitoring, we do all the corrective action meetings, but if we Believe that someone has not met the seven compliance measures despite being warned both verbally and through written warnings, we prepare a recommendation to the Boston Employment Commission It is the Boston Employment Commission that has the power to issue those sanctions and fines.

Under the ordinance as written, I'm just saying like if we could we, I think Councilor Mejia mentioned like things to work on in the future. I mean, could we revise the ordinance? Would you even advise that? So if people are worried that they're not gonna be protected from liability, it's not an issue if it's

It could. It would definitely put more power within the construction monitors and the team at the Boston Resident Jobs Policy Office who are doing the monitoring. But as it stands, this creates, the way it's set up now, it creates Thank you. Thank you. It's a process to go through.

Well, thank you very much. My time is up. Because we do have another panel. I was going to do a short second round. I'm going to do two minutes a person. If for some reason it doesn't work, maybe we do a quick third round. But Councillor Flynn, two minutes.

Thank you. I'll ask one brief question. Sorry. Despite the long time and leadership on the ordinance, developers and contractors are still falling short. What is the short term plan and long term plan to improve the numbers?

Right now, the short-term plan is to utilize the powers we have around sanctions and fines and working really hard to identify those so that we can hold them accountable at least to the seven The other is really closing the feedback loop at procurement because the other thing that we have the ability to do is share the information and create a record of noncompliance. and that's what our biannual report to all of the departments, the dashboard really is meant to allow procurement staff and contracting staff to see the record of former or current contractors and subcontractors at the time of bid and utilize that information while making decisions.

Do contractors realize that only two companies have been fined and the fine is only what, 200 bucks and 300 bucks, is that?

It was $11,000 for two, so it does add up because it's $300 per violation per day.

But do they see that in... and figure, well, I might as well continue to not be in compliance because maybe I might get a fine for $300. Yeah, sorry, go ahead, Chris.

So I think it's both. I think no one wants to be fined, and I think it's not so much the fine as the public scrutiny, right? The company... The name gets out there as not complying with the City of Boston's policies and other general contractors and developers find out. I think that type of scrutiny and kind of That's something contractors don't want. They don't want to see us not cooperating with, you know, being on the right side of BRJP office, and it could affect, you know, future work.

Okay, one final question. and I know it'll be a quick answer. Who were the two companies that were fined?

I can only remember the Bridge Line and I will look it up for you. Bridge Line was the one that, but there were two subcontractors, and I'll find that and the general contractor for you.

Thank you, Jody. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, Councillor Flynn, thank you. Councillor Breadon, two minutes.

The only question I had left was really about The Building Pathways Programme, is that the location at Madison Park, is that the only Conduit into that program, or how else does it work?

Oh no, and I feel like some of my colleagues behind me might have a better answer to that, but Building Pathways, they have twice per year cohorts, People apply to be part of those cohorts so Madison Park's new pathway is just one way that people will have access to Building Pathways, excellent programs.

And you know I've been to their graduation program a couple of years ago and it's really really impressive and I hope it goes from strength to strength. Thank you, thank you Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you very much, Councillor Mejia. Two minutes.

Is this the last round? It's probably the last round. Okay. All right, so here we go. Since the new sanctions process went into effect in July, the office has held 81 corrective action and many more. and Proving Compliance. Does the BRJP maintain communication with any employee or trade groups so that when developers cite challenges in meeting Boston's resident hiring goals, The office can help connect them with the available local workers. While the BRJP's primary role is compliance, Can you speak to how the office is supporting worker advancement and retention within Boston's construction workforce? What tools, resources, or legislative updates would help strengthen the BRJP enforcement workforce development funding or the capacity of the Boston Employment Commission? Those are my questions for now.

Do you want to take the sanctions and I'll try to do it?

Okay. All right. We do have a warning system for administrative, the payrolls, and the meetings. Again, we want it to be fair. The objective is to make sure that we get the paperwork. and so that I think that's working out so we are we haven't seen so we've had those so there's a couple two warnings and The third is the recommendation to the BEC. The warning number one, we've issued a lot of corrective action meetings, and a lot of those contractors have corrected their process. So the goal is to have them correct their process. and to submit the paperwork on time. And then if they don't, they would get a second warning. And we track all that through Salesforce. So if payrolls continue to come in late, Salesforce would flag us and that contractor would proceed to the second warning. We're not seeing many companies that were issued the first warning end up receiving a second warning. So we think it's working. We think that contractors are, and that's because of the staff, and that's also because of the fact that we have this new process in place. So that part, I think, is working. We do have one Company that's in the second warning stage and so we're waiting to see whether you know they're gonna commit the same offense and end up being a recommendation to the BECC.

I'm sorry, Chair, but just I need a clarification.

No, feel free. Fire away.

Thank you. So when you say that there's communication going back and forth with Are we relying on hopes and prayers for people to do right by us? What does that mean?

They've received a written warning that says if you don't comply, you'll be recommended for sanctions. So if in 15 days after that written warning, they haven't complied, we write a recommendation to sanctions to the Boston Employment Commission.

but we still continue to contract them regardless.

The contract, we have, we can give feedback to the awarding authority, but our, us, as the Boston resident job policy, we cannot end a contract.

We can sanction them.

We can sanction them for late payroll.

Thank you for that clarification. I have three other questions.

Go ahead, sorry.

No, I just want to make, so I'm okay with the compliance until the next six months. I'll come back for more follow-ups, but for right now, I've still got three more questions.

With regards to, we do a pre-construction meeting with all of the developers and contractors on a job where we define the goals, the hiring goals, as well as the process around payroll and submittal payroll, and at that time, We discuss their plan to bring workers on, work with business agents or otherwise make sure that they have the resources and understand what they need to be doing to hit the goals that we are trying to achieve with the Boston Resident Jobs Policy. So Chris, is there anything, those pre-construction meetings are really critical to setting out for contractors what the goals are and hearing from them what their plans are to meet those goals.

Absolutely. There's a process. We have the initial meeting with projects. We ask for a list of contractors that's on site. We have history reports that we can, you know, a contractor that's coming on, we can look at their history going back and so on, you know, once the project starts, we have those pre-construction meetings, we also have corrective action meetings, So there's a constant communication between the monitors, the compliance officer, and the GC and the subs throughout the project in terms of their expectations, what their numbers look like at certain points, and whether they're gonna be increasing or decreasing their workforce, We asked for paperwork. If they're a union contractor, that they have been reaching out to the union, requesting the proper individuals. If they're non-union contractors, we're asking that You know, they put ads in the paper, contact their nonprofits, or whatever they need to do in order to meet compliance. So we are constantly engaging with contractors to make, to ensure that, you know, for them to make their best effort to try to meet the goals.

All right, so I appreciate all of the effort that your team is making to reach goals. And I think it's still going back to how difficult it is for some folks to hear All of that effort being made. And when it still comes to women and people of color, we're still having a hard time retaining that workforce. And so I think something has to give and I understand that there might not be an appetite to amend the existing ordinance but there is an opportunity for us to strengthen it because then you have more tools to work with like I'm curious about how many inspection Inspectors, you have compliance, which is my second to last question, which is the primary role is more compliance. But I'm curious, how many inspectors do you have on site? and kind of like what type of engagement and constant training and feedback they're receiving. Just because I feel like not being here for five years, this is a reoccurring conversation, and I think that if I go back to the tape, I ask these same questions every time, and every time I hear The same. And just trying to figure out what's going to help dislodge the problem here.

Yeah, I think we are limited in what we can do. We have seven construction monitors, construction monitors do go on site and collect information, make sure that there are contractors, that there are no contractors working on that site that are not submitting information that happens to, We are limited in what we can do in the scope of the ordinance, for sure. and we are only able to work on those seven compliance measures and collect the information and have the meetings but and then issue fines if they submit payroll late, but we are unable, our hands are tied in terms of holding them accountable for meeting those other goals.

Jodi and I just want you to know how much I appreciate you being so forthcoming and honest about those limitations. Because I think the reason why we keep having this same conversation is because of the limitations that you have. And I think it's important for us to be honest about what we need to do differently if we want different results. And that's why getting things on the record allows us to better work in partnership with you and our union partners so that we can get this right. You know, ultimately, I think what we all want is to make sure that we have a diverse workforce and if your hands are tied then we need to untie them right so that you can do your your work you can do your job and so that's what I'm committed to and so I don't want to put you in the hot seat just for the sake of it I just think it's really important for people to understand how difficult it is for you to do your job, right? And how difficult it is for other people to do also to comply. So I just want to note for the record, it's not an interrogation. I'm a problem solver. I want to understand what the problem is and then I want to work with you all to fix it. Otherwise, it's just another six months going back and forth and nothing changes. So I'm not going to hold you all any more hostage than what I have to before they turn off my mic, but I do appreciate the chair allowing me to ramble on a little bit longer.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Mejia. Councilor Worrell?

Thank you, Chair. And I just have one question around the biennial report. I know that's something new. In terms of The format and what we will be highlighting, will we be highlighting what companies or developers or subcontractors Have the lowest when it comes to people of color, women hours, or residency. Can you talk to me what the report will be highlighting?

It will largely match the reports that we provide to the Boston Employment Commission. So it will be by project. It'll be a list of all the projects that were completed in the last six months. And it will be information. and many more. By trade, by contractor, and those demographics for people of color also will be broken down as well. So it'll be for every completed project every six months.

Awesome. I mean, I would advocate to highlight the contractors or developers that can be doing better, and hopefully them being highlighted will encourage them to work more closely with the support that's there to establish those metrics that we're looking to get inside those goals. So I would definitely encourage highlighting those hours. That's all, Chair. Thank you. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you. I guess in the ordinance for our Boston City Council review, it ends with the Boston employee, we're supposed to get all this data which we've been provided with and the reports on percentage of hours. Compliance and sanctions and all that stuff and then the the Employment Commission is supposed to provide data and information that enables the City Council to make a recommendation as to whether the goals for people of color or female worker hours should be raised and I guess in terms of in their absence, do you have any recommendations? We don't meet the goal for women. In terms of the demographics of the city, do you have any thoughts, Jody or Chris, on the numbers and whether we should be raising those goals?

You want to go first, Chris?

Thanks for the question. I think it's a good question. I think the goals have been raised. In 2017, the goals were raised, as I highlighted earlier, People of Color went from 25 to 40. We met it then. We're meeting it now. The Women Goal went from 10% to 12%. Right now, We're still below. We're at 7%. It's not enough. In terms of the Boston resident goal, it's a hard case to make, given that the goal is 51%. What we've seen, what I've seen over the last, I would say 10 years, is a decrease in that category. So, you know, we used to be high 20s, up around 30%, and over the last 10, 12 years, it's really The Boston resident percentage have really been declining like, you know, a couple of points like each year. So it's kind of tough to make the case that, you know, the Boston resident goal would benefit on having it be raised.

I think it's worth looking at raising the bar when we're not meeting the existing bar is definitely challenging, looking at what we can be doing to help I do think certain departments do, if you look at the Mayor's Office of Housing in this particular report, They have probably the best numbers in terms of all of the different City of Boston departments, and they spend a lot of time and energy focusing on this with dedicated staff. and there's impact, there's results there. And I think they're at 56% people of color. So it is worth looking at when you put the time and energy and effort in the results you can get. on the procurement and awarding authority side. And I think Mayor's Office of Housing is a really good model there.

Yeah, I think in terms of the thing to raise would be people of color. I mean, if we can meet it and exceed it. We're meeting that now, and city departments can exceed it. Maybe we can raise that. I just don't know how that... I just want to thank both of you for being here. We're going to go to our second panel. Before we start, I guess if there's anyone who's, has anyone signed up for public testimony? Okay, I was gonna, if anyone has public testimony, they could give it now, but thanks a lot, Chris and Jody. I hope you'll stick around for our second panel. But thanks for producing the data and speaking to us today. Okay, second panel. I think it's Liz Skidmore, Dan Daly, and Kenetra Porch. Okay. If you don't mind, second panel, we have two people in the audience who've signed up for a public testimony. I think it'd be good to hear from them and maybe might inform yours. for public testimony, Rachel Jackson. Oh, and Ms. Porch signed up for public testimony, but you're on the panel. So we're just going to, Ms. Jackson, you get two minutes. You come up here and yeah. Tell us what you want us to hear, and there's no questions or anything.

Oh, no questions?

You get two minutes, and then that'll be it.

But no questions?

No. Not to you.

We'll direct our questions to them. OK. I guess I just come up. My name is Rachel Jackson. I'm a journeyman, Local 7 Ironworkers, Boston. I just... Basically want to speak my part. I'm a woman, clearly. I've been living in Boston my entire life. I've been recently forced to have to leave the state pretty far to make ends meet. I'm not the only one. A bunch of women behind me, the people that are here today, along with most of the people I know that are Boston residents. We are out of work. I don't know what's going on. There's a lot of New Hampshire and Vermont and Maine and other people from other parts of Local 7 that are able to work out here. The people that have lived here their whole life are not on jobs. People of color are not on jobs. Women of color like myself are not on jobs. I just wanted to throw that out there. There's still nothing here for me. I'll have to leave again. I have a 14-year-old kid I leave behind. I manage a sober home. I have to also leave that behind to be able to make ends meet. I just wanted to put my story out there. I'm not the only one, like I said, that's dealing with this.

Okay, well, thank you very much for that. I really appreciate it. And I think it's definitely an issue we could talk about in terms of hiring but not being sent out on jobs is something that we're concerned with. Thanks for making the time today and coming in.

Yes, thank you.

Uh, so, uh, yeah, I, I, today we're, we're, we're joined by, uh, Liz, uh, Canitra, is that, do I have that right?

Okay.

And Dan, um, I guess, uh, I know Liz, has a presentation, but maybe if Dan and Kenetra, if you want to say anything, and then Liz, you can give your presentation.

Would you like to go first? Ladies first? All right, I guess I'll go first. Well, good morning, counselors. Thank you for all you do for the residents in the city. My name is Kenitra. I'm a fifth year apprentice out of the IBW and a lifelong resident of the city of Boston. I got into the trades through the Building Pathways Program, as you guys were mentioning earlier, which does help open doors for women and people of color who want to get in the construction industry. Before joining the local, I worked in administrative roles, but I wanted a career that provided stability, growth, and a real future for my children and my family. Being part of the union has given me something deeper, a sense of pride, a purpose. I've been mentored by people that look like me and others who believed in me even before I believed in myself. I've seen it firsthand that when people are given a chance, they really do thrive. Now, when it comes to what I'm seeing on the job site, on some of the larger projects currently, for example, like MGH, the job site I was just on, out of 500 workers on the site, only 50 of them were women. And that's across all the trades combined. The number alone tells you how far we still have to go. And when I talked to many of those women, I noticed that many of them are not Boston residents. That's concerning because these are Boston projects and they should reflect the people who live here. The Boston resident job policy was created to make opportunities reach city residents, women, and people of color, but we still see too many out-of-town crews who take those seats. From my experience, there are a few major barriers that's keeping us from meeting the goals and I think first is accountability. Some of the contractors aren't meeting their requirements or their hiring targets. and enforcement varies from like site to site. Second, I guess the access of awareness. Many residents don't know about pre-apprenticeship programs or like how to even get into the trades Yeah, you can send out mailings, but there's so many updated ways to reach the public now that I feel like mailings are very outdated. The third is retention like we talked about. I feel like it's not enough that we're doing to bring people in. We want to make sure they stay. I know that coming into the local and then just like seeing certain people on job sites that I did the pre-apprenticeship program with, they're no longer in the trades anymore. and that's disappointing. As part of a local 103 Women's Committee, I'm a delegate and a member, I work to help I've seen the difference it makes when workers feel heard and supported. Retention improves confidence and grows and more people begin to see this as a lifelong career, not just as a temporary job. Another concern is being able to live in the city that we work in. I heard us talking about wages. Currently, electrician being in the union is a very great wage and I still struggle to afford to live in this city. Even with my wage, like the cost of living, it just keeps rising. and many tradespeople are being priced out of the neighborhoods that we helped build. We shouldn't have to move out of Boston just to make a living. If we want to keep Boston's workers, I feel like we need affordable housing, continued local hiring enforcement, and investment and mentorship programs that help people grow and advance their trades. I think to help strengthen Boston resident jobs policy, I believe we need accountability, as I said before, and contractors should be required to meet the participation goals. Like Ms. Mejia said, transparency is key. We also need continued partnerships with organizations and unions that have proven success developing Boston's talents like we spoke about building pathways. So in closing, I'm just here proud to be a black woman in the trades, proud to be a local 103 apprentice, and proud to be from Boston, I feel like my story shows that when opportunity, support, and accountability come together, people really can change their lives. And I just want to see more Boston residents and more women and more people of color given the same opportunity that I was given not just to get in, but to stay in and fully succeed. So thank you for continue to fighting for us and working with Family for Fairness in a stronger, more equitable Boston.

Thank you very much. Thank you for that. Dan, do you have anything? You're also from 103.

Yes, I am. My name is Dan Daly. Thank you, Councilor. All the Councilors here and Chair for having us. I'm honored to be here to speak with you today. I'm a lifelong Boston resident. I live in Alston, Brighton. Thank you for my council for being here. I'm also a 37-year member of Local 103, and I personally have benefited greatly from the Boston residency job program. The BIJB elevates all the neighborhoods in Boston to incredible opportunities, providing wages, benefits, and a straight shot to the middle class. Some of the cons, it's a good intended program, it's wonderful, but there's not enough accountability that I've seen over almost my four decades working in Boston. I'm very active in my neighborhood and I've called out developers blatant disregard for this program only to see additional approvals given every time. I take these numbers off the job records that come through City Hall. And if somebody comes back around, I'll ask them why they only had 6% job wide. And oh, we wanted to put some posters on some telephone poles to recruit workers. and an ad in the paper quite frankly doesn't do that today either. I do understand the limited action available to hold these developers and contractors accountable. But one particular idea I have could be directly tied to the new partnerships on city-owned parcels and the office to residential conversions. If a developer is receiving any type of direct tax credits from the city, They should be hiring responsible living wage contractors. The price point between responsible and carefree contractors are minimal, with giant profit margin one way, or an investment in real career opportunities with fair wages and real benefits the other way. I'm a big proponent for local jobs for local residents, and it has a great impact on all our communities in Boston. One point I want to make with all my sisters in the trades here, as far as licensed electricians in Massachusetts, 95% of women licensed electricians in Massachusetts belong to a trade union. So these other developers that are hiring irresponsible contractors, I'll leave it at that. I'm not reaching out to the right paths to find People that could man and woman these jobs. But my fellow residents that work in our city, we spend our hard-earned money in the city supporting local businesses, restaurants, bakeries, Dance lessons for our kids. And every dollar that's spent in our community, 60 cents gets recirculated into our individual communities all throughout Boston. So I'd like to try to make this program as good as it can be. For Boston and its residents and everybody that deserves a fair chance at a crack at the middle class. At 103, we recognize that union contract is not perfect, but there's always room to improve with this. 103 is actively doing its part. You've heard Councilor Mejia. She spoke at our graduation two years ago and did a wonderful job. Raring up our new journeyman class, which was wonderful. But we are at the base of trying to meet all the BRJB goals. Training residents, creating opportunities for women, people of color, building a workforce that is skilled, diverse, and proud. Unfortunately, going back to the non-union contractors working on city projects, they still fail to meet these goals. They take work without hiring Boston residents or reflecting on the diversity in our neighborhoods. And Councilors, it's crucial that all our contractors are held to the same standards with consequences for non-compliance and recognition for those who follow the policy. Finally, I'd like to invite you all to Local 103 next Tuesday. We're swearing on a whole new batch of apprentices, and there's a ceremony with that. And this is a moment where all my counselors can see real action in place, hiring a diverse Boston Workforce, and you'd really be impressed, as Councilor Mejia can speak of, and she already has, so thank you for that. And thank you for your time. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak this morning.

Thank you. Okay, thank you very much, Liz Skidmore. Does everyone have a presentation? Should we distribute copies of that? No? Maybe? Okay, well, it'll be up on the board, but if anyone needs a copy, I don't know. It'll be up on there. If you want a paper copy, I have one.

All right, thank you. Thank you, Councilors Flynn, Breadon, Mejia, Worrell, and in particular, my counselor, Ben Weber, for inviting me to speak today. My name is Liz Skidmore. I am a Boston resident. I've been in Roxbury for 32 years. I'm also a 38-year carpenter. So I started my apprenticeship 38 years ago, worked in the field about 10 years, did a lot of concrete heavy form work, so I have a certain appreciation for this building. And I'm a proud graduate of my apprenticeship program. I was a business agent for the Carpenters Union for 27 years and called myself not retired but redeployed and continuing to get more jobs for women and people of color. From then The minute I got into the Carpenters, I loved the work so much and I've really devoted my career to opening more doors behind me for more women and people of color. And I've been part of lots of local grassroots organizations including co-convening the policy group on tradeswomen's issues which has been meeting every other month for 17 years and I think it's had a big impact in some of the improvements. for opportunities. So today I want to do three things. I want to look at how the city of Boston numbers compare In the context of federally and some state agencies, I want to offer some solutions or next steps, continued evolutions of this program. including ideas from some other parts of the country and then I came here with two hot takes but after a conversation in the hall I now have three hot takes of things that can be done immediately. So first the numbers. That chart, which I recognize is way too small, so I blew up the top five states. This is a new study just released by the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Weber. I sent this document to Councilor Weber which I think he could share with you all if you want to actually be able to read it. But I blew up the top five states. Massachusetts is number one. This is a really big deal. When we started PGTI, we were well below the national average. and there's a bunch of things we've been doing that have moved that. This is a number only for apprentices. Some of the other numbers that we'll look at include both apprentice and journey level. But this is important for at least two reasons. Well, three, it shows success of some of what we're doing here. It's really important that apprenticeship numbers be high because that's the on-ramp. and not every person who comes into construction finds it fits their liking, so those people do leave. So it's really important that folks coming in the door numbers be high. And thirdly, it means you have access, the city of Boston has access to the highest percentage of women in apprenticeships in the whole country. and it's well above the numbers that are currently being achieved right now by the city of Boston. So how do we think we got from below the national average? to the highest. We probably need social scientists to research that more than I know how to do. But I will mention a couple of things. One, we didn't rely on federal goals. The BRJP has been an important piece of this. We also established state goals and state-funded projects. And then other cities, including Worcester, Springfield, and I think Northampton also established goals. So we have multiple places where this is happening. At the state level, the UMass Building Authority, the Mass Gaming Commission, and now As of this year, the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance have adopted PGTI's best practices, which include a monthly public access and opportunity committee, and this is a scale that the city of Boston has not been able to achieve yet for the staffing and sort of resources reasons that were discussed earlier but it absolutely has been critical to the success on these other projects, corrective action meetings, what the city also does, and then a couple of key points that we push. One is that court crew is no longer an excuse. You don't get to show up with an all-white male court crew and say, oh, yeah, if we hire someone, we'll hire a diverse person. No, you got to show up from day one. Each of these companies need to be working to diversify their core crew so that those diverse workers have access to the steady work that really builds a career, as my sister mentioned. And we also do something called a HIP analysis, High Impact Poor Performers. So this is not to let the smaller subs off the hook, but the contractors with the largest number of hours If they perform badly, the math will never catch up. So prioritizing those contractors. And we've shared this. We've written up our learnings over the last 17 years and have a manual called Finishing the Job, which is on the PGTI website. and that continues to be a resource that is used regularly and I hope is still being distributed by the City of Boston. And then the last of the four things that I think are responsible for our increase in numbers that I want to mention is the use of project labor agreements. I think the one the city of Boston just entered recently that has been mentioned is really exciting and critical. And this work all started with the 2008 Project Labor Agreement on UMass Boston. And so when, at that time, Governor Deval Patrick put an access and opportunity Committee into the PLA and some stronger language around enforcement. That is an enabler that I hope the City of Boston would look at doing more. So next slide, please. The state projects of those agencies that I mentioned, what have those best practices accomplished? So they've accomplished 7.3% women, 26.02% people of color. The goals at the state level are 6.9% women, 15.3% people of color. The value of the targeted projects that are using these best practices, it's only 38 projects, it's gone up a little, but it's $7.4 billion worth of work, so it's a lot of work. and the hours worked by women is 16 million. And just a little back of the envelope math there, if we're at 7.3% on these targeted projects, and the national average is 4.4%. If you do the math for the delta of the hours, which I won't try to do out loud here, it means roughly like the hours above the national average on these state projects that have been and so on. And so, as we've accomplished, roughly $46.5 million have gone into the pockets of women. And of those women, a little over half are women of color. Roughly $23.2 million have gone in the pockets of women of color. So this is really significant money that we're talking about because of the high wages of these jobs. And then I just want to mention, you know, I can hear people in Boston saying, well, they're only at 7.3%. Our goal is 12. What the heck? On the UMass Boston campuses where there has been particularly ferocious and effective compliance, there are four projects that are over 12%. So the Biomed Engineering Building at UMass Amherst, which has way less resource in terms of pre-apprenticeship and stuff, closed out at 13.55% women. Currently right now, also UMass Amherst, there's two projects, one at 11% and one at 12.3% that are underway. And then up in Lowell, the UMass Lowell Olsen Hall Infrastructure Project achieved 12% women. So it can be done. And if we did a chart of these numbers on these state-funded projects, the number would be going up. Also at the federal level, The percentage of women in apprenticeship at the state level, the number's going up. Excuse me. I also want to mention that the growth at the state level is happening under the exact same legal situation that the city is operating under. Also, the state has no fines. So they've been steadily growing their numbers with zero fines and really by focusing on helping people be successful up front and really the use of focused access and opportunity committee meetings. Commission is a version of that. But as was mentioned earlier, it's not hitting enough jobs. And so I think to really move the numbers in Boston, you need More meetings, more compliance, more of that public compliance work because it is that public scrutiny that seems to be making a difference at the state level. All right, so next slide, please. So this is the BRJP dashboard, which if anybody isn't familiar, if you Google BRJP, you'll find it. I'd love to see it raised on the website, because this is actually a great resource. But it's disappointing to see from your website that the numbers have gone down since 2002. They went up a little bit since last year, but they were at a high of 7.2 from the data that's up there. So our state apprenticeship numbers are going up. The state agencies that are using best practices are going up. The city of Boston is going down. and you know with great appreciation for the individuals that are working within the BRJP and understanding the constraints that are you know Hammer or Hinder, what you might want to be able to do. I do think the city could be doing more. So next slide, please. So here are some of the solutions. And sorry, I didn't quite realize the slides would be so hard to see. Y'all need bigger TVs in here. So just a couple of points, and I could talk at great length about this, and I'm happy to do offline. So use the best practices. The PGTI wrote Finishing the Job. It's free. It's on our website. It's available. We'll give it to you in Word if you want to. Folded into regulations or contract documents or anything. Also, the Mass Gaming Commission wrote a report called Built to Last and how they exceeded their goals. So that's the best practices that are available. Number two, use legislative and policy tools. So the BRJP itself obviously is a great tool. Late last year, Governor Healey issued executive order 638, which establishes a bunch of recommendations for doing better on hiring women on state funded projects that include the use of access and opportunity committees. And because of that, and a lot of work behind the scenes. DCAM now has an IOC as of about seven months ago and their numbers are going up. Again, I mentioned use project labor agreements. I think they're an underutilized resource here because they can add a lot more detail about how to get this work done. And just can't say it enough, access and opportunity committees seem to be really critical. Then I want to mention I got the chance, there's an annual National Tradeswoman's Conference hosted by the North American Building Trades Unions, and I and some of my sisters got to go to Chicago, be with 5,500 tradeswomen. So you can imagine the energy in the room with 5,500 of us. It's really fun. But we also get the chance to learn about some policy stuff. And I want to mention some things that some other cities are doing. In Chicago, just this summer, they passed this Chicago Construction Workforce Equity Ordinance, which I would argue is perhaps modeled after Boston's with one additional thing. So they have robust enforcement, they have community oversight, they have data transparency and accountability. Unlike the BRJP, they are providing funding for supportive services for pre-apprentices. So I think that's a concrete thing that could be considered. In Oregon, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry established workforce goals and best practices. Of interest to me, they partnered with a state university to evaluate their process. So they did a baseline study and then every two years they do an update. We could partner with UMass Boston to do something like that to really get the numbers and figure out what are we missing, where can we do better. They also, Oregon Bully is providing childcare subsidies to workers. And based on the evaluation process, they started at a 5,000 per worker limit. It was working so well to improve retention, they raised it to 7,000. Two years later, it was working so well to improve retention that they got rid of the cap or changed the cap to 7% of people's income. So I think that is a concrete thing that could be considered. And then really, really interesting to me, the State of Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity joined the Illinois Tollway Association in establishing a bid credit program. So that allows, if I am a contractor and I meet or exceed my goals on this project, the next project I bid, I get a credit. For exceeding the goals last time, so my low bid number is lower, gets dropped by that credit amount, although I still get paid the full amount when I get paid. Hopefully that makes sense. But it's called the Illinois Works Bid Credit Program. And I think this form of rewarding success is less likely to create lawsuits and is from everything we've seen over the last 17 years is more effective. And I think it's something I'd love to see the city of Boston look into. All right, my hot takes, which started with two and now have three. I want to mention, we don't know if we're heading into a recession. I see conflicting numbers. The architectural billable hours are down significantly, which tells me probably we are for the Northeast. The recession actually offers a great opportunity to you. If work is slowing down, there will be more people of color and women who are out of work. Now, in our experience over the last 17 years of these access and opportunity committees, contractors, the minute there's some additional stressor on a job, Whether it's schedule or timing or deliveries or supply chain or COVID or anything, they want to abandon the workforce goals. And so we were able at the state level to keep pushing and our participation rate for women and people of color actually went up during COVID. And so I think the city of Boston is a real opportunity here if we are in fact heading into a recession to double down and not allow the contractors to ignore the hiring goals just because there's a recession. Because you have the available workforce, which as we have seen, these women behind me are all unemployed, Tradeswomen from multiple different trades. Second, I've been hearing from all across the country that There's been an increase in sexual harassment and discrimination on job sites. I heard some stories just in the hall coming in today since January 20th. So people have felt emboldened to act out their worst behavior on job sites. And yet, it is still illegal. All of the anti-discrimination laws in the state of Massachusetts are still in place. Almost all the federal anti-discrimination laws are still in place. And so something the city could do is to really push the contractors to say that you're hearing a rise in incidents on the job that the contractors are still legally responsible for providing a safe and harassment free job site. Most contractors have toolbox talks they use on lots of different topics. Most of them have them on sexual harassment in all forms of harassment and discrimination. I think the city of Boston tomorrow could send a letter to every single contractor and say, we're hearing about a rise in this. Please double down and push your contractors to remember that harassment and discrimination is still illegal. All right, the third take also from the hall is I learned something I didn't know and I think shared something that they didn't know, that apparently the jobs bank in the city of Boston is only serving non-union workers. That is a huge problem. And I don't think anybody intended for it to be that way, but the thing that the BRJP folks didn't know is some unions have, and I I'm not sure the exact legal term, but there is a legal distinction. I'm going to call it a closed hiring hall. So you cannot, as a worker, you cannot solicit work. So the electricians is one of those. You get out of work, you get a number, you work your way up the list. You get a job when you get to the top of the list, period, end of conversation. More unions are not closed. So the carpenters, the plumbers, I believe the laborers, a bunch of us, we are allowed to solicit our own work. And so we've agreed to have a meeting to sort of hash that out. But the BRJP staff should know which trades are allowed to solicit their own work. The jobs bank should serve union workers, not just non-union workers. and so I think that's something that y'all could turn around immediately with a little bit more information. So happy to answer any questions and thank you so much for your attention.

Okay, well thank you very much Liz for that. Very powerful and informative presentation. Thank you to our other panelists. I guess before I go to my colleagues, honestly, I don't know if Jody, if you wanted to, In the project labor agreement, I believe there is some language about childcare and setting up a trust fund. I don't know if you had anything you wanted to add. Okay, so maybe we can clear that in the conversation and maybe get a follow-up or we can talk about it later. The other is, you know, Ms. Porch, we heard about childcare subsidies. You're related to that child out there?

Yes, that's my daughter Serenity. She wasn't feeling good so she's here with me today.

I don't know if you just wanted to comment just what challenges having date Daycare, Childcare, and doing this apprenticeship, what you faced.

Yes, so now the Care of the Works program is something that recently later developed in my apprenticeship. But childcare in the morning was one of my greatest obstacles. I was lucky enough for my younger sister, she worked for the state house and she worked from home. Lucky enough, she woke up with me every morning and made sure that her niece got to school because daycares are not open. They weren't open at the hours that I needed to be at work. and there are so many different people that I know that want to join the trade but they won't because child care in the morning is difficult. Currently I do pay a transportation company to pick her up in the morning at 5 and they would transport her to school for me. And my arrival time at work is between 6 and 6.30 depending on the job site. Yeah, childcare in the morning is a big issue for single moms, I would say.

Okay, thank you for just addressing that briefly. I don't want to steal the thunder at any of my colleagues. So, Councilor Flynn, you're up first, six minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, I want to stay on child care. on the topic we've been discussing. But first, I want to say thank you to the panel, Liz, Kenesha, and Dan, for your testimony, for your leadership. So on childcare, when a, When a union worker, many times they have to be in work at 7 o'clock, meaning they probably have to get up at 5.30. They have a child. So you're paying for... Getting your child to school and for breakfast or supporting someone that can help you. And then maybe you don't get home till three o'clock in the afternoon. Is that a major reason why the numbers are so low compared to workers of color, the number of female workers? Is that child care one of the main reasons?

I would say that it is because you have to pay before child care, before school child care, and after school child care. So that takes away from the amount that you're getting paid. So it feels, you know, it creates the hardship.

Can I add to that? Of course. I would say yes and no. Yes, it is a critical problem. And I guess New Mexico just established paid child care for everybody. So I think there's some really big scale solutions that are needed for childcare. I don't agree that it's the problem in the city of Boston anymore. If Amherst can get over 13% women on a project where they have less childcare, probably less construction hour childcare, but they're still doing it, It is a huge problem. It is not actually the limiting factor in the city of Boston for meeting the BRJP numbers for women. The limiting factor for the city of Boston, I believe, is the things I mentioned, but in particular, There's not enough capacity. Somebody mentioned 100 and some odd jobs that are happening. This is the Access and Opportunity Committee report for UMass Amherst that has eight jobs. and we meet once a month and review these and yell at contractors or congratulate them and problem solve. and the back just can't begin to do that without additional capacity.

Okay. Can I make a comment?

Of course.

I would say that a lot to do with the retention. I wouldn't say that it's an issue for the city, as my sister said, but I think that that specifically has a lot to do with the retention rate, retaining and keeping women of color and women in the trade.

Thank you, Kenisha, and thank you, Liz. During the White Stadium debate, I was the first elected official to call for a project labor agreement at White Stadium, as you probably know. But then I do want to get back to the percentage of workers of color. A lot of it is above 50%, some higher. But the female workers is very low. And again, getting back to female workers. So are we not recruiting or retaining female workers? Is it any certain issue with the exception of childcare? If you put anyone into an apprenticeship program, can they actually afford to live in Boston on that salary maybe? I don't know if that's an issue, but can you talk about why the numbers are pretty reasonable for people of color, but the numbers are terrible for female workers?

I'd really like to address this. Speaking to some of my colleagues in unlicensed trades in particular, I'll give an example of the Local 17 Tin Knockers Union. Their organizer would drive out past Worcester and meet with these workers that spoke no English. Mostly they came from New York City and they'd drive into Boston in vans and sleep in one hotel room with eight or 10 people and work for an irresponsible contractor. That drives their minority people of color numbers way up. What I'd like to see the commission investigate is how many women and how many women live in Boston, how many women of color live in Boston, how many minorities live in Boston and have those numbers justified because I'm hearing it over and over that people are coming in from out of town Again, they're not spending their dollars in Boston. They're not buying coffees here or anything. They're funneling these dollars that should be spent in Boston. So the numbers of people of color are really skewed because they're taking advantage of and so on.

for people of color is inflated, but what we should do is check the number of people of color that are living in the city. Absolutely. And get those numbers, they might be more important, and even more important than that is getting the number of people of color living in the city, but are they union members? Can we get that data, Dan?

I think from job to job on picking on responsible and I'll say it again irresponsible contractors that you know they're praised for certain categories that there are no Very low Boston residents. I deal with it in Austin and Brighton all the time. So I think if we can hold the contractors responsible for that, yes.

Well, I'm out of time. I want to stop there and be respectful to my colleagues. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you very much. Councillor Brayden.

Thank you. There's a lot to unpack here. I'm curious, Liz, about, you know, These other places like Oregon and Illinois, what's the secret sauce? What did they do that moved the needle on some of these issues that we're talking about?

I mean, I think there's much longer conversations. We had days of presentations on this stuff in Chicago, and there's experts we could bring in to speak at some point if that was of interest. I will say... One of the key game, I kind of think in systems, I don't do well one at a time. And one of the first game changers that PGTI realized is that in Boston we had spent 40 years recruiting women and training them recruiting them and sort of throwing them at an industry and hoping they'd stick and that that was a supply strategy we didn't have a demand strategy and that what's needed is integrated supply and demand. And the BRJP is a demand strategy. It's creating demand on the job. What the UMass Building Authority is doing is demand. Like when the end users insist on, either privately like establishing goals on privately funded projects which we've had some like the YWCA was a 25 million dollar bill-ish project in Worcester they set hiring goals I think they got 25 percent women So that was a private developer who just made the choice and really insisted and worked closely with labor in Worcester to make it happen. So I think one thing is understanding that framework, that the pre-apprenticeships, like building pathways. We also have a program called Build a Life that is A monthly live in-person career session, as my sister mentioned, like more creative. It's online and it's in person where current tradeswomen talk about how they got into the trades, who's a good fit, who's not a good fit. How the heck does apprenticeship work? Most people don't learn about that. How do I apply? When do I apply? And the Build a Life That Works program I think we put 3,000 women through that info session with barely any funding. And I forget the numbers exactly. The pre-apprenticeship programs of which Building Pathways is sort of the gold standard in Massachusetts are really important. They're also expensive to run. They run three classes a year of 18 to 20 people. So you're not going to meet the needs of Boston with only that. It's a really important piece of it. I went through a different pre-apprenticeship program called Women in the Building Trades that died because of lack of support. But so pre-apprenticeship, deep connection, limited numbers. Build a life, broad reach, very small connection. Like one of our young adults said, it's GPS, not Uber. which I love, yeah. But it's together that we are reaching more women female career seekers and sharing that information about how do I actually do this? Where's the door? because almost every other job you apply to, you go to Walmart, you apply to Walmart, you get a job at Walmart or you don't. For a union apprenticeship program, you want a job with Liberty Construction, You go over here and apply to the Carpenter's Apprenticeship Program, and they may not get in, may take months, then eventually you get a job, you get into the, like, it's just different. So we need these creative ways.

We need to coordinate it a bit better.

That's a good question. I think we've done a lot. We have a program called Masked Girls and Trades. We do a lot of work at the vocational high schools throughout the state. It's one of my dreams that all the trades would either move to A regular multiple times a year application process or coordinate if they were going to do it once a year. so that seniors in high school could do it while they're still in school. I don't know if that's gonna happen, but that would be dreamy. But so there's the supply side, but not enough work has been done on the demand side. which the BRJP in the back is trying to do but like it's just I feel like it hasn't gotten its stride yet because state agencies are getting better numbers at the moment.

Yeah and and you've mentioned in your hot takes at a recession Thank you very much. an opportunity to increase our numbers.

If we're at 100% employment, so pretty much everyone in the industry is working And this job over here is not meeting its goals for women or people of color. They're really depending on new workers coming into the system. But if a recession hits and only 70% of the workers are working or less, Then that 30% is available to come over to this job. And it is still true, unfortunately, that women, and particularly I think women of color, get laid off quicker than other folks do. So that 70%, The workers the city of Boston is trying to hire, those workers are going to be overrepresented in the unemployed workers. but only if you push the contractors, because the contractors will be like, oh, it's so hard, we can't possibly, and you just can't allow for that.

I had a quick question for Dan about the, Disreputable contractors, like are there subcontractors a lot of the time? In terms of like how do we, you folks know who they are. And I know we've had conversations about projects in Alston Brighton about how to make the numbers work without having general contractors ending up with hiring these disreputable organizations. What's your thoughts on any of that or any solutions?

Well, it's a free country, which is tough, you know. There's a job on Emory Road that an electrical subcontractor from Connecticut got the project in... They are based out of Connecticut. How many Boston residents will this contractor hire? Very minimal. With the license trade, you just can't put a poster up. Our apprentices are all in an indentured apprenticeship program. Pretty much from the first year you start in Local 103, you're registered with the federal government to be in a process where some of the unlicensed trades, you know, today I was doing something, tomorrow I might be A laborer or an apprentice still. All our trades have apprentice programs. So I've been frustrated over the years about the Boston residency policy because there's not a lot of teeth to it. I don't have a solution how it can get better, but Councilor, you'll see it in our areas. In particular, there are some developers that come back and they want to invest in our community and the money that should be invested back in the city is just getting sucked right out of the state even time and time again. As far as numbers go, I got on Local 103 in 1988, so it was a long time ago. When I got into the trades, I'll start with I have six older brothers. Four old assistants, one of 12, and nobody in my family went to college as I was entering high school. My youngest sister is a nurse and she went to college and did great and she's a Boston Latin graduate. So I was kind of faced with Joining a trade with a hammer in one hand and a wrench what feels better in eighth grade, you know in ninth grade I was I was wasn't destined for college. So I I was so lucky to join 103. At the time, in the late 80s, as far as trade schools or trades workers went, A lot of the times it was keep it up, kid. If you mess up again, I'm going to get you in the union. If you messed up at a regular school, I'm going to send you to the trade school. And my heads have changed. In 40 years, here we are. There's a testing program to get into any of the trade schools throughout Massachusetts that we offer scholarships to every trade school in our jurisdiction, which is fantastic. Over 2,000 people applied for apprenticeship opportunities and every year in 103, it's incredible. Some of our own members' children, they don't get into 103. We definitely take all the scholarship candidates that we have through building pathways and through high school career days that I've been involved in many of. It's a wonderful thing. So it's amazing the opportunities that are available. and for the the desire to be part of this and it's it's really it hurts me to hear about you know work opportunities that just drift away and that I can see every day trying to get our apprentices and our laid-off journeymen to work so If we could hold Some general contractors, a lot of subcontractors that are repeat offenders and they get the job for bare minimum because they're paying their workers bare minimum. And they're making that big profit margin in between instead of and many more. Bring 20 people in from New York and give them $25 an hour cash. None of our contractors can compete with that. And their hours may be good because the people of color or something, but There's a real disconnect between what's actually going on a job for fair numbers for Boston residents and it's hard to track down. That's why I was really excited to be here today to explain my experience with it over almost 40 years.

Very good. Thank you, Daniel. Can I add one other thing? Sure. So... This is a question. At the state level, the Attorney General has said, and it's now on their FAQ website for state procurement, that When considering lowest responsible bidder, that responsible can include past performance on meeting hiring goals. So I think it would be a really interesting question to see if that could be done at the city procurement level.

That's a good suggestion. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you for that. Councilor Mejia.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for being here. So just a few things. I'm a Boston snob. I believe that Boston jobs should be for Boston residents, full stop, period, end of story. I don't believe that it is just that folks who live here can no longer afford to stay here but then have to commute here from Brockton and other spaces and places to be able to still work here because they've been displaced, because they can no longer afford to live here in the city that they literally have built. And so that's why every six months I show up to this chamber to have this conversation because I'm hoping that one of these times we can Thank you. Thank you. So as a single mom myself, I know how difficult it is and it was for me early on when my daughter was little and I had to pay for child care. It was very expensive and luckily you know how you gotta do what you gotta do but my daughter ended up and Care. But I know that workers' hours for folks who need non-traditional workers, we worked alongside our union brothers and sisters to We fight for a million dollars for Care That Works efforts to ensure that we had some money put aside to help support. that gap and and so I know that that it may not be a problem for everyone but there is definitely a problem for some folks who need to be on the work site at six o'clock in the morning The child care provider is not opening until 7. So everybody wins, right? Because the child care provider is able to open up their doors, make some additional Wages for them. So everybody wins when everybody can go to work. So I think that that is the type of model that we should continue to push ourselves for. So I do have some questions. And it's more so an opportunity for us to, again, try to figure out what we can be doing differently. and I think Dan you know having been in this now for decades as you have said and have seen the The bad actors, right, continuing to loosely get a pass and continuing to do business in the city of Boston when they refuse to do business with the residents of Boston. If you had an opportunity to say one thing that the city can do with the unions to better collaborate to strengthening local hiring and retention and advancement, this is for everybody if you want, What supports do you think we should be looking at? Training, enforcement, what would that look like? What can we be doing differently to help achieve some of these goals from your perspective? And you each can go.

Okay, I'll start. In my time here at Local 103, Mahia, you said it. You addressed the graduating class, and you could see what Local 103. Local 103 every day builds up. We're miles ahead of a lot of people. We have the workforce. We have women. We have all the training. We do the pathway to trades. I love what the city has done with some PLAs. Sometimes that's a dirty word in the rest of the world that do not like union construction. And I love the fact the city is thinking outside the box with the office conversions to residential. I mentioned that in my opening that if we could cater that to and more strict Boston residents policies because we want to build these units for people that are building it want to live there. We want to be able to afford to live in these beautiful new buildings that may be residential Thank you for watching. Breadon and I's neighborhood of Alston-Brighton, our great partnership with Harvard has brought up a whole bunch of affordable units. There is traction being generated, of course. I would like to see the bad actors held more accountable. The Boston residency job policy, their hands are underneath their legs sometimes. And I do want to say, anytime I've called your commission, it's been wonderful. Takara Hamilton, in particular, has been wonderful. and I met with Chris over the phone I believe many years ago but every time I've reached out you guys have been spot on so I appreciate that. I appreciate the language. Most of it's written from 1978. It's been updated a little bit, but I think we need more teeth to actually Invest in our neighborhood because we are losing residents. Everyone I grew up in my neighborhood, a lot of them have moved on, whether it's affordability, or whatever other decisions. And I see it with the young apprentices too, saying, I wish I could live in the neighborhood I was born in. And the opportunity is there for sometimes for work, but if it could be stronger to enforce stronger work policies, because everything we do in our fellow trades, we give back to the city times 10 at least, times 100 I would say. We just need more accountability and more traction.

Thank you. So I'm going to speak from like a parent disciplinarian point of view. Maybe like withholding work permits from them I know a lot of this information is in public record. I feel like contractors, if they know that these things, if residents can see the data and the information, that will hold them accountable in a way. I know that you guys spoke about fines, but like maybe higher fines for repeat offenders, just not letting it fly when you do get the data, like making sure they get in trouble, be punished for what you're doing wrong, you know?

No, I appreciate that really quick just because it's like $300 when you got a million. That's nothing. That's like a tip. After you eat at a restaurant. So please, increase those fines right now.

And given the budgets that they have, learning, because I also go to Wentworth and I'm learning project management. knowing that they have budgets for certain things the way that they allocate their funds it's like from a business standpoint that is something that they could actually factor in to their You know, to their budget, you know? So it's like, how are you really getting in trouble for what you're doing? You know?

Liz? I'm joining Wentworth University. You might want to talk about that a little bit.

Oh, okay. Yeah, it's a... Through IBEW, they partnered with Wentworth, so I do go to Wentworth 40% off tuition. So I will be finished in 2027. I'll have my bachelor's in project management through the IBEW.

And the JATC honors your school hours.

Yes, and the JATC, they actually get 26 credits starting the program automatically because I am a JATC member being an IBEW student.

I'm going to go join y'all. Okay, Liz.

I will all the kudos in the world to 103 because they have been doing fabulous work. And the only slightly defensive thing I'll say is some of the other trades have similar programs with Wentworth. But it is not taking any away from their shine. So in no particular order, and I don't know, somewhat emphasizing what's already been said, more affordable housing. It's big, complex, it's out of the scope of this group, but it is one of the things that's needed. For the city of Boston to consider expanding to actually having functioning access and opportunity committees, so you could have One for every 15 projects. So you could have one for different funding sources within the city. But the back is just, in spite of everybody's best efforts, it's not doing it. I would love to have you all look at this idea of a big credit program. Because again, it's rewarding good behavior and it has been very successful in other places that have had it. I mean, could you add on your website top 10 and worst 10 contractors? Because people will do a lot to get on a public list like that and a lot to stay off the bottom list. And it's not... You're not evaluating, you're just reporting the numbers. Top highest 10 numbers, top lowest 10 numbers. The lawyers will probably freak out, but consider that. I'll do it.

No, I'm just joking. I don't want to get in trouble.

And then I really do think that looking into whether the lawyers The city procurement law would allow for a broader use of low responsible bidder, which I think could include hiring goals, and I think it also could include the Whole Underground Economy and Wage Theft Tax Fraud that has also been talked about today.

Thank you for that. And I would have to say that for us here in these conversations that we've been having is the lowest bidder. because oftentimes that also impacts women and people of color from bidding on these projects and then you have to break down the contract and so they have to make decisions. if we can fix that problem then we might be able to address all the problems and I really do like the idea of making sure that we're not just fining people and holding them accountable, but that there is some real consequences that they're paying when they're not meeting the Boston jobs residency goals. And I think that the reason why I think that shaming or incentivizing people. It could definitely work to our benefit. And I do think that there is an opportunity for us to revisit the ordinance and give it the teeth that it needs for you all to be able to bite.

And just if I could add one thing. So the Mass Gaming Commission established an access and opportunity for the casinos and developed a lot of these best practices. They had no ability to find. But there's other ways to make people uncomfortable. So there was a particular contractor, there was a hip contractor, very high hours, a drywall company, and who made all these promises at the beginning when the whole thing was being enabled, but then were doing terrible on their numbers. and they had corrective action meeting, nothing happened. Corrective action meeting, nothing happened. Corrective action meeting, nothing happened. So the Math Gaming Commission decided they were gonna have one once a week and require the owner of the company to everyone. And after six weeks, they magically found all the women drywallers. So that didn't cost, it wasn't a fine, but it cost the company in hassle and time, which is their money, and that was the thing that moved them to do something. My time is way over. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Mejia. Councillor Worrell.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the panel for being here, and not only for being here, but for your advocacy. have said that I believe that Webster has gotten the word, categorized the word equity incorrectly. They categorize it as a noun. But I believe it's a verb, right? It's an action. And through your actions, you guys have increased the diversity inside of the trades and continue Thank you for your work. Outreach. I know you mentioned outreach on getting the word out. And I've had this conversation with You know not even you know what it is what we do in City Hall but also when it comes to like affordable housing and those opportunities like that the mail doesn't work anymore or as well and the newspaper Not too many people pick up the metro. Can you talk to me like what is your ideal way of like outreaching and communicating, you know, these opportunities to the residents?

I would say social media is a very big thing, especially for basically everybody now. You know, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn. I think that's still what it's called. But yeah, I think social media, Google, just ads, you know, like visual ads. I know it's expensive to put things on TV, but I just feel like Now everything, people are more visual. Not everybody is going to still read a newspaper or even open their mail. So I feel like that would be a good way to do more outreach.

Yeah, I agree 100%. So I just did a Pathway to Trades program at Brighton High School three weeks ago. And the room was filled. The copters were there. The iron workers are there. A lot of the trades were there. It was great. So as far as recruitment goes for the people that actually live in the city of Boston, we have a direct line to reach out to these kids. and show them what the trades are about. So that's a good way. We're not underrepresented in our workforce. We're underrepresented in the numbers of what the contractors are giving back to us. So we have a great advocacy We have a very robust organizing. We have two full-time organizers in 103 that are constantly going to different contractors that I've continually to work in the city of Boston and and they may complain that they can't get Boston residents because they put a poster on a telephone pole and it didn't work out. But our organizers can reach out to these contractors and say, we are right here, we have the diverse workforce that you can yield from. All our trades are pedal to the metal for all this reaching out. I love the idea of social media. I'm still an old guy that waits for the mailman to come myself and I do actually look at the newspaper but I can't shake my age on that. Social media is a great advocacy too.

Or even the radio, that's a common denominator.

It sticks. Yeah, I learned about my pre-apprenticeship on the radio. They had a PSA and some of the pre-apprenticeships I've helped run, we've It's a lot of work to get a radio station to give you a PSA, but they're supposed to do a certain amount and we were able to do those. I also want to mention geofencing. So if I walk past a job site, it pops up on my phone that, oh, there are hiring goals here. This is who I contact. That's not that expensive, actually. And then I'll just mention one particularly great example. If you're on TikTok, that union laborer. is Chelsea Fenton who's a laborer in Western Massachusetts and she has built a tremendous TikTok following and is constantly having videos of her on the job and promoting joining the union and She's just a great example. We could use 100 more like her, including some folks from Boston.

Yeah, no, I think those are all great ideas. I guess getting out of the old ways of outreach and going into the new ways, geofencing, social media, but also just being intentional, right? And making sure that this information is getting to the younger generation, a young person said recently at the groundbreaking of the Grove Hall Community Center is like they make up 30% Right, of the population, but 100% of the future. So we have to make sure that they are as engaged. Yeah, yeah, that was a good one. I stole it.

But can I add one more thing? The average age of our apprenticeships is 28. And so my theory about that is people get out of high school, they think they're going to be the next... you know whoever and then they get beat up in the workforce a little and then they're like wait what was that thing about a union what were they saying that's starting to sound a little better to me or I'm trying to buy a house or I'm trying to get married So I think we absolutely need the high school stuff, and it's good as it keeps evolving and getting stronger and stronger, but I think we also need to find those high school to 28-year-olds In one way we did this, I was assigned to be the business agent in New Hampshire for a while. and I've never been able to get this to happen in Massachusetts, but when we were recruiting for our pre-apprenticeship program, we actually had a little team of us that fanned out and went to every unemployment office info session for newly unemployed people and we had a strict five minute limit but we gave our five minute pitch for considering the trades that we were actively interested in folks who didn't have a background in the trades and ask people like, here's our flyer, if you don't want it, put it up somewhere, help us recruit some folks. So I think thinking about that, You know, 18 to 28 year olds is part of it too.

That makes sense. My last question is, you spoke about increasing the capacity and then the BEC. What would that look like? Like how many staffers and what would they be doing? I know you talked about required meetings.

Yeah. I don't know if I know how many staffers, because I don't have a clear enough picture about what's there now, but the output, what it would look like, is... Instead of or in addition to the regular back meetings, there would be enough meetings that I mean, so we get to dream, right? Here's my dream. That every jobs covered by the city of Boston has to report to an Access and Opportunity Committee meeting.

where- Weekly, monthly? Monthly.

Okay. And where they really get into You know, the numbers, like, here's the chart, here's the sub, and we get into the detail.

And those are like one-hour meetings or two hours?

Hour and a half.

Okay.

Depends on how many, right now Lowell doesn't have any construction at UMass Lowell, so there's no committee. but UMass Amherst has eight projects and so there's particularly long meetings on those right now. I think, you know, Realistically, probably 10 jobs reporting, 10 to 15 jobs reporting in a meeting is about as much as people would have brain space for. So given, did you say there's like 170 jobs? So that would be 17 access and opportunity, 17-ish access and opportunity committees. And what it would take to staff that? You know, I don't know, but it's, more is needed.

Right, yep, just wanted to get an idea.

Thank you, thank you for your time. Yes, Councilor, the fact is, With my sisters in the trade behind us, we have a robust workforce. We have a robust Boston residency workforce ready to go, and women and people of color. What rattles me up are jobs that continually feed into bad contractors that aren't investing into the city. They are not investing into apprenticeship programs. and they're not investing dollars that should also recirculate into the city. So we have a pretty good nucleus. We have 2,000 people applying to Local 103 every single year. So we have the outreach to get as many people as we need and we have it and unfortunately with construction slowing down, bad players can bid jobs a little less because they're not paying fair wages and benefits and insurance for that matter. Everybody should be having insurance. I think we have the nucleus to bring up the numbers of women and people of color and Boston residents, but we just needed We needed robustly attacked, I guess, but we really have to hold the... all the contractors accountable. Reward the good ones and slap the bad ones on the wrist a little more somewhere else.

And I agree and I think that I think that through the new annual report that the BRJP plans on issuing, I think that we need to be highlighting those that are doing well in those numbers and those who are not reaching those goals. a way to make sure that we are encouraging those contractors and developers to get there but also through a creation of more monthly meetings with those contractors and those developers to direct them to IBEW or anyone else who has the diversity that's needed to get on their website. The job site is essential.

And just for a little context, the UMass Building Authority has one person managing their program and five campuses.

Okay, that's one for five cases.

And she doesn't always have committees on all five campuses, but sometimes she does. Maggie Duino does her name, and she would be more than happy to talk to any of y'all.

Thank you. Okay, thank you, Councilor Worrell. I guess, Dan, what you said about crews coming up from other states, I spent a few years representing migrant farm workers, and these are, Mostly guys getting recruited thousands of miles away from the work site. I represent a lot of cotton gin workers and they would ride in a van for 15, 16 hours, and then live in a trailer behind the cotton gin. And often they would be recruited with false promises. They're like, come up here. They sometimes they pay the recruiter, they get there, they can't leave because they need to make enough money to pay the recruiter or pay for their expenses. and they don't file wage complaints because they're out of the state the minute they're done working. In terms of people coming here from out of state, and maybe meeting some of the numbers for that and I'm sure nobody intended that to be the outcome of the BRJP. So how do we get good data on that? Do you have any suggestions? Thank you, Councilor.

It's disturbing that that idea is alive and well today as it was for migrant farm workers. I think that would go back to the Boston residency job policy that to not only keep track of, it would be more accountability on where people actually live, Some of my sisters in the trade were talking about it. We obviously have a lot of people coming from close border states, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut. But I guess it would be a little bit more paperwork to figure out how many people of color actually live in the city, how many women live in the city, how many women of color are on these jobs. It would be another category. When you're going over the limits of the people of color and you're way under the women in Boston residents, there's a disconnect there.

Yeah, and a colleague said, like, if there's any kind of abusive practice of workers, it started on a farm, you know, somewhere. So, it just, and... These teams would work 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day for six, seven weeks before they went back home.

and quite frankly as far as contractors go that don't have good work practices it's not the workers we know that everybody wants a fair shot at a decent job Everybody has clothes to put on their back and food to give their children. We want to rise up all the workforce in this This policy was created to make it fair and at least an equal shot in the city and it's done its thing, but people take advantage any which way they can and it just has to be refined a little bit. Any of the workers, again, with our organizing drive in 103, we reach out all the time. Whether it be, do you want to do the same job for twice the money with a big banner outside a job? Just come over here and sign up. We want to represent every worker in the right way. Just to be fair and give people a shot at the middle class.

I had cases where people had their IDs taken from them when they got to the job site. It's still happening, yes. Yeah, and anything you can imagine. It's just something that we should not really tolerate here. I guess in terms of, You know, the... I guess, Liz, do you have anything more to say about going down in the number of women work hours? Like, what the cause of that is? Or is it, you know... If we don't have our foot on the accelerator, we're just gonna go sort of backslide.

I mean, here's the thing. The same contractors that aren't meeting your goals are meeting the goals on the state projects. So I think the word is out that the city is not really serious about women. Literally the same contractors are doing better on state projects that have all these best practices in place. then in Boston.

Is that impacted by the governor's executive order? I think it will.

No, I think the governor's order is so new that I'm not sure we've seen the impact of it yet, but I think it will. I think... The projects that are using the full best practices, so an access and opportunity committee and all the tools that are laid out in finishing the job are currently state projects. City of Boston's not doing them. and we've been doing them with these state agencies for 17 years.

Can I just, so in terms of, we're talking about state projects and city projects. Our residence jobs policy encompasses non-city projects. So is it, do we, is it part of it we have a broader like we we can have more control over who's working on a BHA project but if we're just talking about a development of Suffolk Downs or something you know our ability to impact that might be less Is there a difference in the data because of that? And I hear you that we're just not serious. And I ask you that and also a follow-up. To you, I think on the Boston Employment Commission, if they're worried about enforcement because they're going to be targeted by the Trump administration, I don't know what, you know, what, Tools we have to deal with that.

Okay, this is two really big questions. I guess I'll start with the second one. So I'm not a lawyer. I hang out with some and I've learned their language, some of it. Our mayor has been incredibly brave at standing up to this administration. And she's took a stand. Our governor has been incredibly brave. She's taken a stand. When Governor Healey was attorney general, she sued the first Trump administration countless times. I think these are unprecedented times. It's terrifying on a million levels, and it requires some bravery. I think it's great to hear that the back commissioners would be defended by the city. I think that's an important step. I think most people in the legal community are swirling with what to do and how to do it and when to do it. So I don't know that I can solve that personally, but I do think part of it is we got to be brave. Now I gotta remember your first question. Can you restate your first question?

I think you were talking about the data and Was that my first question? Yeah, yeah. So I think there is... City projects versus city and private.

Yeah, there's... There's a scale difference, right? So the city of Boston, I don't know what that 170-ish jobs are worth, dollar value, but I think it's more. And the 38 projects that I mentioned, have used the, including UMass Boston, so one of them is a city project. that have been using the full best practices. It's only 38 because it's been 100% volunteer work from those of us on the community side and the labor side. So if we'd had more resources, it would have covered more. But I think you can't really compare 170 projects to 38 projects over 17 years. There's a real scale difference. I'd say that to give credit to the BRJP and the staff that works there because I think they've been treading as fast as they can to keep up with it. I think not enough resource has been put there or maybe you do access and opportunity projects for the projects over a certain size. I think there's a way to use these best practices that have been so effective in other spaces Thank you very much.

So I'm just going to I think we're getting to the end of the hearing. It's three hours. Give central staff credit for helping us and everything. So I'm just going to, if any of my colleagues have one more follow-up question or they just want to say something, We'll go to that. I'm not going to put the time on. Get one question or you can make some comments. Councilor Flynn.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to say thank you to the for being here for the important work that you are doing, supporting Boston residents, supporting women of color, ensuring that they're treated with respect and dignity in the workforce, especially in various construction fields. I support what you are doing. It's about working together, especially during these challenging and difficult times. I think we have to work Thank you. Thank you. Not just that goal, but also the goal of retaining them once they graduate and while they're in the apprenticeship program, supporting them and their families, their children. Whether that be housing or other types of transportation services or assistance, I think supporting women of color in the building trades is something we have to work on together, improve our numbers, and give everybody and opportunity to the middle class that should not be exclusive to one particular group. It should be open to all. And when I see the when I see women of color, not necessarily. Being part of that success, then it's upon us as city councilors to address it and to make improvements. And that's exactly what you all are doing. That's what the women in the audience are doing. and want to say thank you also to the building trades that are doing their job to support women of color in the building trades. Mr. Chair, thank you for sharing this important

discussion this afternoon. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, Councilor Mejia. I know you have a lot more to say and we could go on for a long time and it would be valuable.

Is that your way of telling me to keep it short?

I'm telling you to keep it short.

Well, that's, I'm so used to that. That's okay. And no, no one's going to tell me to keep anything short. OK, I got eight minutes here. No, I'm just joking. So I think it's because we have a lot of folks who follow us on social media and they tune into these hearings. They try to make sense of everything that's happening. so they can better understand what our job is, right? So I'm just gonna give a little quick analogy for those folks who are tuning in and what this looks like. It's like an abusive relationship. You continue to say you're not going to cause any harm, but you continue to do it. And I think that that's what's happening every single time we allow a contractor to bypass The residency policy are Boston residents, everything, right? And every time we give them a pass, we're saying it's okay to abuse the system, if you will. And the fact that across the state, You know, folks are getting it right. And then they're not taking Boston seriously. We should be embarrassed by that because Boston is the largest municipal, you know, we're the largest city, we're the capital, right, Massachusetts. and we're the boss of everybody. So this is a union town, like we like to say. And so what are we doing to live up to that goal, right? And I think that shame on us if we're not doing everything in our power to support this process. And the reason why they keep allowing this to happen is because they need to start feeling what it looks like. And I'm curious, and I'm not gonna say this, well, I'm gonna say this. is that all of these people who are out here from New Hampshire and Rhode Island, what if we taxed you for every single worker that was not a Boston resident? Would you change the way you do business? Yes, probably, but until we are being serious and aggressive about what this is gonna take, we're just gonna keep having these hearings every six months and thinking that we're actually making progress. Well, no shade to this administration. We're making progress, we're getting there, but we still have a long way to go to get to the finish line, and what we can keep doing is displacing the people that live here. We need to prioritize workforce development, housing, For our workforce, and we need to have the political will and courage to do this work in a way that keeps our Boston residents here employed. Thank you for your fierce advocacy. Know that you have a big mouth here ready to do whatever y'all need me to fight for because I like a good fight. I'm here for it. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Councilor Mejia. Councilor Breadon?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, everyone, for being here this morning. I don't really have anything else to say. Well, I think you've given us a lot to think about today because I've come to these hearings over the last six years and you know it's just like oh as I said at the start we'll hopefully we'll have some good news to share and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not so good but I really do feel that Really getting more serious about access and opportunity committees and just seeing what other tweaks that we can make to really hold folks accountable and improve our outcomes on this very, very important. City Policy. So, as you said, Elizabeth, Liz, are you Liz or Elizabeth? Liz. The only people who call me Elizabeth is my mother when she's annoyed at me. You know, the notion that they can hit these targets at the state level on state projects, but they can't do it in Boston is just mind-blowing. So it means that there is room to move. There is places, there is ways that we can make this better. So I really do thank you. I think this probably merits further conversation after this. I think we've definitely got some things to think about in ways to make this better. and thank you Daniel, Dan, neighbor of ours, and thank you also. It's been great hearing all your comments and your thinking about all of this this morning. Thank you.

Yeah, I want to thank Councilor Breadon. As the chair, I think that this has been a great discussion today. We've heard from the administration. I know prior panels, Liz has been here. The Ironworkers and the Carpenters. But, you know, IBW really brought it today, I think. And we have some concrete suggestions. And I think the work is going to You know continue outside of this hearing to try to make sure you know we're you know improving this and and being able to You know, not hear the same thing from Liz at the next hearing that Boston is sort of, you know, contractors are not taking us seriously. I don't want to hear that at the next hearing. I just want to thank my colleagues for participating. I want to thank the panelists. I want to thank central staff for making this possible. Is there anyone signed up? No. No one else signed up for public testimony. I just want to thank everyone, thank the panelists again, and everyone for showing up today, and my staff for putting this together. So this hearing on docket number 0473 is now adjourned.