Dear Metro Council Members:
The way Metro Nashville spends its money and conducts business must reflect its values. It is time to move from rhetoric to concrete action. We fully support Stand Up Nashville’s Get It Right campaign to make Metro Nashville’s Procurement Code reflect the values of inclusion, worker safety, fairness, and transparency in Metro contracting. Metro Nashville’s Capital Spending Plan averages more than $400 million annually, making it the top buyer of construction services in Davidson County’s massive $3.6 billion construction market.
The communities we represent are disproportionately excluded from opportunities to have safe, good-paying jobs in this industry that was once a pathway out of poverty. Metro Nashville can lead the way by passing legislation that puts workers’ voices, safety, and opportunity for minority contractors back into decisions about how we spend our tax dollars. That is why we are calling on the Mayor, Metro Council, and Metro Departments to Get It Right!
Worker deaths in the construction industry are an ongoing crisis in the Nashville market. From 2017 – 2020, 21 workers lost their lives on Nashville job sites. This is more than double the number of fatalities in peer cities like Austin, Charlotte, Denver, Atlanta, and Minneapolis. Last summer we witnessed the death of 16-year-old Gustavo Ramirez, who fell 120 feet from a large mechanical scaffold while building a hotel to serve the tourism industry. There has been no response by Metro to limit the access to public work by the contractors responsible for his death, nor has there been any action to prevent future workers, even minors, from dying in service of building luxury amenities. We call on Metro Nashville to take responsibility to Get This Right!
Wage theft by tiered subcontractors and the over-reliance on temporary staffing keeps our local workers from their well-earned money and from accessing good-paying jobs created by our tax dollars. Instead of living wages, healthcare, retirement security, and training, Nashvillians’ seeking opportunities in construction are likely to be misclassified as independent contractors, paid under the table, or end up in dead-end gigs through temporary agencies who have an incentive to keep them in poverty.
In 2018, more than 100 workers were left unpaid for two weeks of work on the luxurious JW Marriott. In 2019, it was reported that more than $43,000 in wages were still owed to a concrete crew who performed work at McMurray Middle School. These are only the best documented cases of a practice that is becoming the norm in both commercial and public construction. Black and brown workers are disproportionately affected, and we have seen no effort to correct this trend. We are calling on Metro Nashville to Get It Right!
Compounding these issues is the devastation of COVID-19 which has left hundreds of reported, and many more unreported, infections and exposure in the construction industry. Metro’s own reporting showed that 5 of the top infection clusters were construction sites. We have witnessed first hand how these “essential workers” have been exposed at higher rates, with black and brown workers being disproportionately affected. We believe this harm should be rectified and prevented in the future, as our economy rebuilds.
While the problems in this industry are deep, the opportunity for Nashvillians to have a better life is still in reach. Nashville is home to the Music City Construction Careers (MC3) program and more than 40 federally registered apprenticeship programs. These are powerful engines for building pathways out of poverty, to home ownership, and into family-sustaining careers with insurance and pensions for hardworking Nashvillians. Contractors who invest in this training to build a pipeline of local workers receive no recognition and their workers often have more opportunity outside of Davidson County. Nashville’s procurement priorities only consider top management positions when evaluating how to spend our tax dollars, never workers. Metro can expand opportunity for all by making OSHA training, federally registered apprenticeships, healthcare, and direct employment a goal when leveraging public dollars for public benefit.
We urge you to support the Get It Right procurement reforms that will add worker and community voices to the procurement process, end contracting with unsafe and unethical contractors, incentivize high-road contractors who invest in workers, and offer protections for workers on Metro projects.
Signed,
Stand Up Nashville
The Equity Alliance
Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition
NOAH Economic Equity & Jobs Task Force
IUPAT Local 456
Central Labor Council
Payne Chapel AME Church
A VOICE for the Reduction of Poverty
The Nashville Jewish Social Justice Roundtable
A Voice for the Reduction of Poverty
Metropolitan Nashville Education Association
Destiny Theatre Experience
Haynes Trinity Neighborhood Coalition
Urban League of Middle Tennessee
Rethink Public Strategies
Southeast Center for Cooperative Development
