Ready to Help Build NGA
Date Posted: March 7, 2016
Posted In: Ideas, Workforce,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
by Jeffrey Aboussie
There is no doubt that if the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency were to select north St. Louis city as the location for its new Western Headquarters, it would be a big benefit to the city. Retaining the NGA’s 3,100 employees while driving reinvestment in north St. Louis would certainly make a significant impact to the city, state and region.
But we believe there are additional opportunities to make lasting, positive change; change that will help the NGA, the federal government and its priority initiatives to invest in urban areas and the region’s workforce, which would greatly benefit from an increase in minority training and hiring.
That is why the St. Louis Building and Construction Trades Council of St. Louis, AFL-CIO, and our affiliates are proposing a very ambitious set of workforce goals for work on this project, including:
• For minority and female workers, at least 37 percent of all labor hours.
• For women, at least 7 percent of all labor hours.
• For city residents, at least 23 percent of all labor hours.
• An expansion of our Building Union Diversity program, which provides opportunities for minorities and women, as well as existing journeymen, to become apprentices with participating unions so that they can learn the skills needed to be employable for the rest of their lives. City residents and people living in designated Promise Zones within the region will receive priority status.