Some of my colleagues are working to develop a PLA to submit to the State of Illinois and would like any comments and advise. Thanks for your expertise. Brian Illinois PLA 1. The Illinois construction workforce must be an All-American workforce. That is, it must be the best. 2. Also, the Illinois construction workforce must be all American in the sense that the workforce represents all Americans with respect to their community (Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)). Usually this is not the case in Illinois. 3. Many construction workers are reaching retirement age. After years of dedicated service they deserve the peace of mind to retire without concern over the solvency of their retirement fund or fear of loss of affordable health care. 4. To compete with other states and other countries, Illinois must develop replacement workers. Illinois will not fully benefit from their capital investments if it is necessary to import out of state workers to do the work. 5. Congress expects states to maximize the use of federally funded construction to provide on-the-job training to improve the skills of low income workers. 6. Improving the skills of low-income, minority and female Illinois residents is projected to provide a cost benefit to Illinois and its communities of billions of dollars. 7. In cases where a trade workforce represents its community, no action is required except to use its apprenticeship program to maintain this community representation. 8. On cases where women and/or certain minorities are under represented in a trade workforce, the maximum number of apprentices as per the apprenticeship to journeymen ratio in effect in 2010 shall be employed and most of these positions should be used to correct the lack of diversity until such time the trade workforce represents the community. This should take no more than a few years. 9. Resources are scarce. We can no longer tolerate a system where large numbers of apprentices drop before reaching journeyman status. 10. The unions and the apprentice programs they help sponsor must work with the community to identify viable candidates. 11. The unions and apprenticeship programs must open their doors and welcome women and minorities. 12. Mentoring programs must be established to help apprentices succeed and become journey persons and to become active union members. 13. Union members must become active in the construction preparation programs that the state funds. Students that successfully complete these programs shall be admitted into the union and given priority on state and federally funded projects. These programs should be required of all candidates. 14. Pre-apprenticeship programs are encouraged/required. Building trade candidates are allowed to work as trainees. The candidate finds out if he/she really wants to become a journey person in that particular trade. At the same time, the union can determine if the candidate is really cut out for the trade. It is in everyone’s self interest for this program to succeed, so everyone is expected to operate in good faith. 15. The need to replenish and diversify the construction trade workforce is real as is the need to insure retirees have adequate income and health coverage. Trades that meet their minority workforce and on-the-job training goals shall receive $3.50/hour for each on-the-job training work hour. When these goals are not met, there shall be a $7.00/work hour sanction for each work hour short of meeting the goal. 16. Furthermore, as minorities and women reach journey status and diversity benchmarks are reached, the unions are to receive bonuses. There are no restrictions on the use of these funds, but the unions are encouraged to use them to support their apprenticeship programs, to shore up their retirement funds, and to ensure workers and retirees are provided with affordable health care. 17. Unions can also obtain these bonuses by unionizing companies with high numbers of minorities and women. 18. Unions can also achieve these goals by developing programs for re-instatement of minorities and women that have worked as journey persons in the past but have left the field. 19. The metric shall be work hours. The unions, apprenticeship programs, and contractors shall make available summaries of their workforce history for the previous 3 years/5 years. This shall include the numbers in each year of their apprenticeship program and the composition of the apprenticeship program. 20. The workforce history will be used to determine if a union, company, or apprentice program must participate in the on-the-job program or not. If it determines that a union, company, or contractor must participate, the history will be used to set the requirements. From this time forward, it will be used to measure year to year progress and good forth efforts. 21. FHWA and IDOT (i.e. the state of Illinois) responsibility. FHWA and IDOT must accept responsibility for their role in allowing minorities and women not to have the same opportunity to benefit from the investment of tax money in capital projects. 22. President Obama and DOT secretary LaHood have stated that investments by the federal government in infrastructure should benefit all communities especially those that have historically have been excluded. 23. In making decisions regarding which contractors and workers shall get the work, the entire cost benefit and equity must be considered – NOT just which contractor will do the work for the lowest cost. That is, contractor with the lowest bid that can also met the equity requirements. These requirements must be set forth in the Request for Bid, the contract language, and the Project Labor Agreement (PLA). 24. One percent of the Capital Budget shall be used to fund the “diversity fund [check for exact name]” that was established by the General Assembly [bill #??]. The Fund is to be used for incentives, bonuses, and pre-apprenticeship training. Also, sanctions shall be used to fund the ______ fund. ------------------------------ Notes, comments, and discussion ------------------------------------ The paragraphs are numbered so we can reference the notes, comments, and discussion to specific paragraphs. 23. IDOT has said that they would re-negotiate the PLA to include placement provisions before the spring letting of contracts. The Workforce Development Committee has asked that all advertising and letting of contracts be suspended until such time as the PLA has been revised to include the placement provisions for the construction preparation graduates into apprenticeship programs and provided work on government projects. Mr. Jon Lackland is checking to see if IDOT will agree to this request. 15. & 16. Want to make sure that the minorities and women that are in the trades especially journey persons get their fair share of work and at the same time the maximum number of apprentices allowable by the apprentice : journeyman ratio be used to diversify a trade. For example, if the cement finishers in the region (Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)) have 12% African-Americans and African-Americans make up 17% of the MSA workforce, then the African-American cement finishers already in the trade (journey persons) should get 12% of the work on the projects (all not just government projects). Also, since they are under represented then the maximum number of apprentices should be used and almost all the work (say 95%) should go to African-American and women until the percentage of African-Americans reaches 17% and women reaches 26% (DOL goal based on St. Louis MSA data). The percentage of the work going to apprentices should be about 20% (depends on the union’s set apprentice : journeyman ratio. I would like to see a bonus based on African-Americans and women that become journey persons. What ideas do you have regarding the bonus? 15. & 16. In the Missouri Model (I-64), an incentive of $3.50/hour was provided if 20% of the work went to minorities and women. A sanction of $7.00/hour was assessed for each hour the number of hours came up short of the 20%. If the number of work hours for minorities and women exceeded the 20% goal up to 30% there was an incentive of $10.00/hour for these hours exceeding 20%. 15&16. The MODOT and IDOT On-the-Job Trainee policies include the $3.50/hour incentive and the $7.00/hour sanction referenced to the number of trainees assigned. With permission they can receive the incentive of $3.50/hour even if they exceed the number of trainees assigned. The $10.00/hour incentive for exceeding the goal was proposed by IDOT but denied by the FHWA. The provision has been fine tuned by making it applicable by trade and contractor. In the Missouri Model, the incentives and sanction was only calculated on the combined work hours for the project. The FHWA in my opinion did not operate in good faith. The FHWA on I-64 told the contractors and unions that they had reached their limit on trainee hours. Thus, they were unable to exceed the 20% and denied their chance to get the $10.00/hour incentive! The shift to a breakdown for each union and contractor is an important change. The most important additional change(s) I want to see if to change from looking at the “project” and look at the total work hours for the contractors and the unions. Instead want to use the work history up front, not rely on the hours on the project. I also want to see each apprenticeship program be held accountable too. 3. & 4. Illinois is a state that requires contractors in order to bid on state project to sponsor DOL registered apprenticeship programs for all the trades they are to employ on the project. If we can get the DOL to de-register programs not in compliance with EEO provisions like they are suppose to, then we could leverage this requirement.
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