Industry Leaders Reject Ban on Affirmative Action

St. Louis area construction industry leaders are distancing themselves from a controversial state ballot initiative in the wake of charges that contractors are behind the effort to ban affirmative action in Missouri.

"That is not what we are about," AGC (Associated General Contractors) of St. Louis Chairperson Tracy Hart said, referring the self-styled "Missouri Civil Rights Initiative," an affirmative action ban promoted by Californian Ward Connerly. "We have to continue diversity efforts," she said. "We need more people in our industry." Hart also is president of Tarlton Corp., one of the largest general contracting companies in St. Louis.

An expose in the winter issue of Ms. magazine alleged that large contracting companies are the driving force behind Connerly's efforts to ban affirmative action in Missouri, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. The magazine's press release stated that Connerly has ties to "the good ole boys network of big contractors that want to shut out women- and minority-owned businesses from competing for government contracts."

Connerly first managed a successful state ballot initiative against affirmative action in California in 1996, and later followed that up with successful campaigns in Washington state and Michigan. According to Ms. Executive Editor Katherine Spillar, early significant seed money for the California campaign came from such construction-industry organizations as the Construction Industry Advancement Fund of the AGC of California and the California Construction Advancement Program. Indeed, at the time, Connerly actually administered those funds, said Spillar. Contractors and their organizations ended up contributing about one-sixth of the money Connerly raised for the ballot initiative in California, Spillar said, "but they were the big, early boosters."

According to Ms., California's passage of an affirmative action ban was devastating for women- and minority-owned contracting companies in that state. The article cites a study by the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law that concluded that the affirmative action ban chopped the caused women- and minority-owned contractor's share of state department of transportation contracts to fall from 27.7 percent to 8.2 percent. Spillar noted that Sacramento-based Granite Construction Inc., which is the largest partner in the joint venture team rebuilding I-64 in St. Louis, long has been active on the AGC's liaison committee with Caltrans, as California's transportation department is called. She added that Granite Construction has ties to Connerly through the industry funds he used to run. A call to the corporate communications director at Granite's Sacramento headquarters did not net a response.

It is the California experience that forms the basis for the magazine's allegation that big contractors are behind the push to ban affirmative action in Missouri in order to shut out women- and minority-owned contractors. Spillar said that Connerly and his American Civil Rights Coalition corporation have not yet had to release the names of any of the contributors the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative. The honorary chairman of the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative, however, is John Uhlmann, a resident of Shawnee Mission, KS. Uhlmann owns a grocery products company that is based in Kansas City, MO, and an advertising company that specializes in producing ads for conservative causes.

Local construction leaders say Missouri in 2008 is not California in 1996.

"We are not involved" in Connerly's petition, said Jay Schultehenrich, executive director of the SITE Improvement Association. SITE has a highway and bridge division that represents most of the major road and bridge contractors in eastern Missouri.

"We are not for that initiative at all," said Jim LaMantia, executive director of PRIDE of St. Louis, a tripartite group that includes representatives of major construction companies, construction worker unions, and major users of construction services. The last group includes public agencies and large corporations such as Anheuser-Busch and Monsanto. "We know affirmative action is needed," he added. "We don't have a meeting without talking about it."

LaMantia pointed out that PRIDE is in the second year of a four-year contract with the Missouri Department of Transportation to provide a training and employment program for minorities in conjunction with the rebuilding of I-64. Spillar said such a program could become illegal if the ban on affirmative action passed. The ban in California, she said, has been interpreted to mean that government agencies may not even report statistics by race and gender. "Wherever this petition is coming from, it is not from any group in PRIDE," LaMantia said.

Labor and corporate groups in general are lining up against the ballot initiative to ban affirmation action. The Kansas City Chamber of Commerce issued a condemnation of the petition on February 11, 2008. Two days later, the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association and the Greater St. Louis Building and Construction Trades Council both announced their membership in a statewide effort to defeat the initiative petition and protect diversity, called the We Can Coalition

Richard Fleming, president and CEO of the Regional Chamber and Growth Association, said, "The region's business leadership opposes attempts to weaken or ban proven policies that promote diversity." A ban on affirmative action, he said, would weaken economic development efforts by sending the message to corporations and young workers that "we do not welcome talent."

Jerry Feldhaus, executive secretary-treasurer of the Building and Construction Trades Council, said passage of the initiative petition "would destroy all the efforts the building trades and contractors are making to create opportunities for minorities and women in the construction industry." He acknowledged that in the past the industry had problems accepting women and minorities -- 40 years ago, construction unions went on strike against the federal government's first affirmative action order, which applied to the construction of the Arch monument -- but those problems a re "long gone," he said. "With the dramatic need we face for construction workers in the future, all efforts to recruit workers are helpful, and affirmative action is an important part of that," he said. Terry Nelson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Carpenters District Council of Greater St. Louis, which is not part of the AFL-CIO, also opposes the proposed ban. "It is not good for our industry or for minorities or for women," he said.

According to LaMantia, the widespread opposition to the ban is understandable. At a time when unions and contractors "are bending over backwards to do the right thing" in order to attract women and minorities to an industry that desperately needs people, the proposal to ban affirmative action "is not helpful," he said.

"Personally, I think this (the proposed ban) is really unfortunate," Hart added, but she is hopeful that it will fail. "I can't imagine this community not wanting to stay the course (for diversity)," she said.

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