Overplanning?

The Detroit Public Schools are in the middle of completing several building projects, as the result of a bond proposal which the city's voters had approved. There seems to be trouble at the mill, though. It was promised that within the resulting jobs, two-thirds would go to Detroiters. Yet only 46% in fact have. The DPS has exceeded the goals with contractors, as 71% of them are within the city boundaries.

There are all kinds of explanations for the discrepancy among individual hires. The contractors perhaps could not find the type or amount of labor for the jobs in question. Perhaps enough Detroit residents simply did not apply for or know how to get the work. It may well be that the contractors did not more actively seek workers from the city, didn't actually care to search for them, or just plain ignored the provisions of their contracts and the bond issue. Arguably even union seniority requirements, if unions were involved (and it does not seem plausible that they were not) got in the way. Whatever the case, one thing is certain: tying large construction deals, indeed tying any given contractor's jobs to specific numbers of hires really isn't the best way to do business.

It would be safe to assume that what has happened here was little more than a veiled affirmative action plan. And like most any such plot it hasn't worked out very well. Mandating the percentages of a given workforce, and this applies to all regardless of race, gender, or whatever other group may be the target, is a bit of a fool's errand. The important thing with construction is that it is done well, and not who actually did it.

It really shouldn't matter to the DPS exactly how the projects go or who actually works on them. Writing what are essentially political provisions into such contracts merely invites jealousy while placing a hardship upon the employer. Unless a systematic bias against certain folks exists and can be proven, no private firm should ever be told who to hire.

To have a cause is one thing, even if it's a bad one. But making your cause someone else's is hardly fair. Good work and not socio-societal expectations ought to drive the process of who works on public projects.