Thursday, October 4, 2012

Ward Room: Emanuel Blames Unions For Lack of African-American Jobs

This morning the Mayor was asked about retired businessman Ed Gardner's protest for black construction jobs that took place in the Beverly community this past Sunday. He was asked this on WVON radio Wednesday morning:
First of all, my staff has been in touch with Mr. Gardner. I think they’re meeting with him this morning, and they’ve met with him before. Mr. Gardner and I share the same goals, and the same objectives. We’ve talked about, where other cities are pulling back on public transportation, I just told you, we’ve got 400 permanent CTA bus driver jobs. We’ve got 200 to 300 jobs in rehabilitating our buses. We’re going to fix the Red Line, and over 30 percent of the work is going to be done by firms that are minority- and women-owned, and over 50 percent of that is African-American firms. On this particular project at 95-th. I talked to my staff, and as soon he said it was Hispanic and whites working on, I said, “Go check out what’s happened.” But remember, only a few years ago, the complaint was, “Nobody’s investing.” Now, we’re investing. The question is, “Now that we’re investing, who’s getting the work and who’s working on it?”…Now we’ve got to make sure that the building trades, which there’s a history at, which have not been opened to African-Americans and Hispanics and others, and minority children, make sure they have a training program, so the jobs that we’re investing in, and finally doing after years of not doing, are open to everybody in the city to apply for, and have the skill set so they, too can have that work.
What are YOUR thoughts?

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