Group’s message: Kansas City needs more youth and diversity in construction trades

When Tex Sample looks at the demographics of workers in the construction trades, he sees a crisis looming.

“The average age in many of our trades is in the high 50s,” said the chairman of a Kansas City workforce organization. “We need a coordinated effort to turn this thing around. We need apprentices who will be the next journeymen.”

Sample, a member of the clergy, is one of several area ministers who are part of the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity, also known as MORE². Joined by members of Stand Up KC, Jobs With Justice and other labor-advocacy groups, they took their message to City Hall on Thursday afternoon.

“We’ve been talking about this for two years,” Sample said before a rally at Ilus Davis Park. “Nobody says they didn’t like the ideas, but we’re having trouble getting traction. There’s a real urgency to get something done.”

MORE² wants to quickly build on existing workforce preparedness and training programs in the public schools and community college systems to make area residents immediately employable in the construction trades. The goal includes getting guarantees from the trade unions that they’ll hire graduates of those training programs for their apprenticeships.

Sample said MORE²’s efforts to date have encountered “a lot of people who don’t want to hire apprentices. They don’t feel they’re skilled or efficient. But how will they get journeymen if they don’t train now?”

For Tamara Miller, a minister at Linwood United Church, there’s a biblical reason to particpate in MORE²: “Both the Old Testament and the New Testament have a lot of advocacy for justice,” Miller said. “It’s a matter of justice for our tax money to support good jobs for the people who live here and pay those taxes.”

A specific action sought from the Kansas City Council is to toughen diversity hiring requirements on construction projects that involve city contracts. MORE² wants more local residents hired for local projects, and they want to increase minority percentage hiring requirements on city-related projects.

“The ordinance now requires just 10 percent people of color and 2 percent women in the city’s construction jobs,” Sample said. “That’s a very low requirement. And we lack adequate sanctions to address it when subcontractors, especially, don’t meet the goals.”

The group also suggests some kind of development incentive for companies that exceed diversity hiring goals for people of color and women in construction.

“Our special agenda today is to create pressure to get the changes going now,” Sample said. “We have a new City Council that’s in the political weeds and into a bunch of cross pressures. We’ve got to change the weeds, apply some counterpressures.”

After the outdoor rally, a couple dozen people carried posters with words like “workforce diversity now,” “guaranteed jobs for KC residents,” and “people of faith for work equity” into the council chambers for a silent display.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 4:43 PM with the headline "Group’s message: Kansas City needs more youth and diversity in construction trades."