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Portland’s black community lost a friend in Bob Caldwell

James Posey — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 06:13:08 +0000

I was out of town when I got the news that Bob Caldwell had passed. It was even sadder when I heard a few days later of the circumstances of his death. But those circumstances did not lessen my sense of loss or diminish my respect for what Bob had tried to do for the black community. It felt like at times the black community had no access to the hearts and minds of the larger white community via the dominate print media. Bob tried to open portals for those of us who have been shouting at the top of our lungs about the growing economic disparities of blacks in Portland. Bob listened and on several occasions wrote exposing to Portland’s white world what they inherently knew, but was made graphically ugly and inescapable on the Oregonian editorial page.

Yes, the black community lost a friend in Bob Caldwell and many of us know it and are grieving accordingly.

Read his obituary at the Oregonian.

We have to deal with unions.

James Posey — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:00:30 +0000

The black community should know that all unions are not created equal. The employee unions (SEUI), postal workers, transportation unions, etc., have a very stellar reputation for diversity and have often have been a showcase for inclusion. The craft construction unions give all unions a bad name when it comes to diversity and inclusion. Even within the construction craft unions some do better than others. I have heard that the electricians, labors, and carpenters do better than the rest. But you don’t really know because they hide the numbers. The Operators, Pipefitters, Cement worker, and Ironworkers are notoriously terrible. But there are other lurking unions that hide from public scrutiny, adding greatly to employment disparity for blacks, for example electrical linemen.

As a small minority business owner when you sign on to a union agreement they have the right to inspect the color and type of your mother’s underwear. They give the term intrusiveness new meaning, yet they reveal very little about their operations and structure.

The construction craft unions have a very well-earned reputation for retaliation and intimidation for those willing to challenge their propositions. I can share personal witness to their behavior and their willingness to assert economic and political power. It is literally dangerous to espouse anti-union sentiments for all kinds of reasons. But the main reason is because over the years they have developed an enormous war chest and can economically destroy most opposition. Most political candidates for public office are seeking union contributions and endorsements and the candidates are not making a distinction by type or ethical behavior.

The real sad irony is that the reputable employee unions are not willing or able to exercise any influence over the construction craft unions to achieve any significant levels of diversity. They in fact become part of the problem rather the solution by signing on to gimmicks like the so called “community benefits agreements”.

The truth about the proposed Community Benefits Agreement in Portland

James Posey — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:18:57 +0000

For more than a year a local contingent of the trades unions, led by The Carpenters and Operating Engineers union, have enlisted the services of a former city commissioner to fashion and sell what they call a “Community Benefits Agreement.” They are making all sorts of promises, assertions and exclusions for minorities, but their end game is to woo more public agencies to invoke exclusive union participation on all public projects. They are simply trying to increase their market share and use the prospects of hiring more minorities as a lure. Their most recent strategy has included trying to buy out community media and offer up token trinkets like minority student scholarships. It is reassuring that Bernie Foster and the Skanner Newspaper are not willing to sell out whole cloth to their scandalous attempts.

If our public agencies fall for this sham, it means that minority contractors and their workers will lose the last arena (non-union projects) where blacks and other minorities have had a chance to exist. What the general public does not know is that most union contracts are very rigid and by their nature prevent upward mobility of new workers. The base union membership is primarily all white males and inherently protects itself against diversifying its composition regardless of what their public relations message states. The unions have been very successful in touting improvements in their apprenticeship programs but to date haven’t demonstrated significant inclusion of blacks and other minorities at the high paying journeyman levels. What’s worse is that public agencies are not holding unions accountable for disclosing the full record of who is in their membership and at what levels. If I am wrong, please show me the evidence.

The rigidity of the unions almost always precludes the minority contractor from hiring from their own communities. It also prevents the small minority contractor from having a dynamic workforce where each employee must perform multiple tasks. This allows the minority contactor to be efficient, profitable and stay in business so they can hire more minority workers.

But the real issue presented here is whether or not public agencies will opt for more options for minority contractors or narrow the scope of opportunities by signing on to a long range strategy of making union participation on public projects the norm.

There is nothing in the market place now without a “community benefits agreement” that prevents unions from including more minorities and women except their own selfishness and greed. Let them demonstrate that they can overcome their historically exclusionary nature before we give them the keys to the public store.