Close to Home: Making good jobs open to all

Wednesday marked the 49th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of Executive Order 11246 - the basis for requiring affirmative action and equal employment opportunity under federal government contracts.

In a recent Press Democrat article (“Aiming to end the rarity of women in construction,” Aug. 31), Associated Press reporter David Crary described a long-standing injustice and offered several reasons to account for the startling fact that women constitute only 2.6 percent of the 7.1 million Americans employed in construction-related jobs in 2013.

Reasons advanced to explain this poor showing include the lack of adequate recruitment efforts, pervasive sexual harassment on the job and the need to expand training and apprenticeship opportunities for women and minorities.

Not included in the article’s list of barriers both to women and people of color is an issue of concern to our local North Bay Organizing Project - the need to revise and update the U.S. Department of Labor’s s tandards for minority hiring and apprenticeships and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section 3 workforce regulations.” Due this year, the revisions have not been released by the White House.

Few subjects make our eyes glaze over quicker than a discussion of bureaucratic regulations. Nevertheless, these rules provide vital points of entry for low-income people to a world of well-paying blue-collar jobs.

One of the writers of this commentary (Soza) has personal experience of the difference access to an apprenticeship can make. She started her 5-year electrical union apprenticeship program in the early 1990s. Her classes and books were free, paid for by the union. She went to school two nights a week, while working 40 hours a week - definitely an earn-as-you-learn program.

After five years, she earned her journeyman’s card and traveled throughout the United States working as a journeyman electrician. She settled in Santa Rosa Local 551 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

She has helped build high-rise buildings, schools, hospitals, condos and museums and has donated many hours on Habitat for Humanity homes. Her career has progressed from apprentice to journeyman to foreman and now to business representative and vice president of her union. Other women she knows who have gone through apprenticeship programs work as building inspectors, own their own electrical companies and run local unions.

Twenty years ago, she could not have imagined how rewarding her career choice would be. She speaks at local high schools, foster care agencies, conservation corps - just about any venue where she can share the experiences and benefits of her path to success. But more remains to be done.

The North Bay Organizing Project is joining with other members of the Gamaliel network of community organizations around the country to bring the regulations governing employment under federal contracts and apprenticeship programs up to date. Some of the goals of these regulations have not been adjusted since 1979 to reflect changes in the labor force

On this 49th anniversary, the North Bay Organizing Project and the local chapter of the National Organization for Women, together with union activists, are asking the White House to release the draft changes to these key regulations now so they may go through the period of public comment and be formally in place before the end of Obama’s presidency.

Then the 50th anniversary of Executive Order 11246 in 2015 will indeed be cause for celebration.

David Walls of Sebastopol is emeritus professor of sociology at Sonoma State University and a member of the NBOP’s leadership council. Denise Dee Soza of Monte Rio is business representative of IBEW Local 551 and an executive officer of the North Bay Labor Council.