On May 18, Mayor Daley steered through the City Council an ordinance that requires half the jobs on city-funded construction projects be reserved for Chicago residents. Daley’s concept has long been endorsed by low-income activists, and yet he has won little praise for his efforts. At best critics say the ordinance is a weak first step in the right direction. At worst they say it’s an affront to equal opportunity.
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In 1984 the City Council passed an ordinance intended to remedy this problem by reserving half the jobs on all city public-works projects for Chicagoans. To prevent contractors from fulfilling the requirement by giving city residents only the lowest-paid janitorial and security-guard jobs, each job was assigned a category based on pay and skill level. Contractors were supposed to fill half the jobs in each category with city residents. “The point was to insure that city residents also get a crack at the high-paid trade positions, like carpenters and pipe fitters,” says Wendy Siegel, director of the Chicago Institute on Urban Poverty at Travelers and Immigrants Aid. “It was a tough ordinance, at least on paper.”
But city officials never even tried to enforce it. They either argued that it was unconstitutional or complained that it was too difficult to enforce. Indeed, few people knew the ordinance was even on the books when activists began clamoring for residency requirements last year. “The need for residency rules is greater today than it was even back then,” says Siegel.
To enforce the ordinance, the city will create a monitoring unit in the purchasing department. “In order to receive a payout, the contractor has to show his payroll,” says Marquez. “Then we will know who did the work.”
But Read and others contend the city isn’t trying hard enough to find qualified city residents for local public-works jobs. “They’re running a desk affirmative-action program,” says Read. “They’re not getting out of the office. They’re not going to the sites. They’re running things from their desks, and they accept whatever the contractor tells them.”
Siegel, Pollack, and other members of the Employment Policy Coalition say they will press for amendments that would strengthen the ordinance. And Read says he’ll continue to visit sites.
