ARCHIVES OF LEAD STORIES
March 17, 2005
Activists hit minority hiring on Red Line
Jeremy Schwab
After years of trudging to dull, cold, often roofless subway stations
along the Red Line at Savin Hill, Fields Corner and Shawmut Avenue,
commuters should in two years see brand new stations that bring
their neighborhoods the same comfort that residents in most other
neighborhoods with subway lines take for granted.
While commuters may benefit from the new stations, labor rights
advocates say too few laborers of color and women laborers are
benefitting in terms of construction jobs on the project.
Around 10 a.m. Monday morning, 12 white men could be seen working
on the renovations to Fields Corner and Savin Hill stations, alongside
just one black man, two white women and one black woman.
While a mostly white labor force is a common sight at construction
sites in Boston, activists expect more diversity because the Red
Line renovation is a state-funded project. While the state does
not have specific requirements that contractors hire workers of
color and women workers, a coalition of labor rights advocates
is demanding that the state do more to push the contractor to
hire more workers of color and women.
“[Prime contractor] Barletta Construction Division committed
themselves to hire 30 percent minorities and 6.9 percent women,”
said Dorchester-Roxbury Labor Committee member Jean Alonso. “What
they committed themselves to they did not do.”
Activists say that 17.8 percent of the 66,915 work hours on the
project were logged by people of color, while 2.4 percent were
logged by women.
Pressure from the Dorchester-Roxbury Labor Committee and Women
in the Building Trades led Barletta to set its percentage goals
for the project. But monitoring their compliance proved a challenge.
“Women in the Building Trades gained the right to look at
the sites and get figures from the T’s diversity office,”
said Alonso. “But they had to actually pry those out of
the diversity office.”
Barletta Project Manager Tom Day referred all questions about
his company’s hiring to the MBTA.
A spokeswoman said the transit agency began over the last month
to work on a plan with labor activists, unions and Barletta to
increase the recruitment and mentoring of workers of color and
women for the jobs on the Red Line. The work on the stations has
been going on since May of last year, and is scheduled to be completed
in 2007.
“Up to the present, we are very pleased with Barletta’s
efforts,” said MBTA spokeswoman Lydia Rivera. “They
have demonstrated good faith. They are reaching out to union halls,
seeking minorities and women to employ when necessary.”
But Barletta’s efforts have not impressed labor rights activists.
“It is morally irresponsible,” said Boston Branch
NAACP President Leonard Alkins. “It is the same business
as usual without unions reaching out to people of color to fill
these positions. That has been pretty much the pattern throughout
the Big Dig. There are many union card carriers and non-card carriers
who could fill these positions. People of color can go to the
union hall on a daily basis and say they are not working, yet
they are passed over because people take care of their friends.”
Back
to Lead Story Archives
Home
Page
