Local Hire Jumped 14% in the Year Following San Francisco’s Implementation of Landmark Law

http://wepartypatriots.com/wp/2012/04/24/local-hire-jumped-14-in-the-year-following-san-franciscos-implementation-of-landmark-law/

One year into a landmark Local Hiring policy for construction sites, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor John Avalos say that their endeavor has been hugely successful. A year-end report shows that the city exceeded its local hiring goal of 20 percent, hitting 34 percent while increasing gender and ethnicity diversity on public works projects:

The San Francisco Chronicle points out that prior to the December 2010 adoption of the local hiring legislation crafted by Supervisor Avalos and a coalition of community and labor advocates, the City included, on average, only 20 percent local residents on taxpayer-funded construction. Local hiring reform advocates pointed to a failed decades-old law that required that contractors make no more than a “good faith effort” to hire locally. The City’s new local hiring policy was quickly embraced last year by former civil rights attorney Mayor Lee, who made successful implementation of the law a priority of his administration.

During a recent groundbreaking, Lee touted the program’s success with many whom it aimed to benefit in attendance:

The current class of CityBuild hopefuls, eager to join other community apprentices who have recently joined unions such as the Operating Engineers and Sprinkler Fitters to pursue their construction career as a local hire, were on hand to show the City the faces of local hire.

“In the first anniversary of our historic Local Hire law, we are proving that we can rebuild our City’s infrastructure and ensure our public investments are creating local jobs for San Franciscans,” said Mayor Lee. “As our economy recovers, we must continue implementing the next steps of our Local Hire law to ensure that City investments in rebuilding our roads, parks and sewers keep putting City residents back to work.”