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HIRE THE LOCALS
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
By JARRETT RENSHAW
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Healy: Tighten rules for builders

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy yesterday unveiled a new proposal aimed at including more residents in the city's booming construction market.

The proposal would require developers who receive tax abatements to use union labor for private projects over $15 million, and public projects over $5 million; and establish an apprentice program aimed at getting more Jersey City residents, particularly minorities, onto local work sites.

The proposal - which must get City Council approval - would require 20 percent of the work to be conducted by union apprentices, a program that teaches workers the techniques of the trade and is considered the first step into a well-paying union job.

"I think it only fitting that the bulk of the workforce in the building and construction field, that has been the source of our city's renaissance, be directed at Jersey City residents," Healy yesterday told a crowd of more than 200 union members of various trades at a news conference at City Hall.

The proposal is widely seen as an answer to critics of the city's tax abatement policy, which also has job creation as one of its goals but by most people's estimates has largely been unsuccessful.

The current tax abatement contracts include language that calls for developers to show their "best-faith efforts" at hiring local residents and minorities.

However, developers are only required to disclose to the city the race, sex and hometown of the workers on site, and doesn't include any penalties for not meeting the stated goals.

This new proposal includes a much stronger bridge between residents and development projects. But city officials admit that if developers show they have made the required attempts, they will not be held accountable for not meeting the 20 percent goal.

Some of the requirements included in the proposal are:

Developers and union officials meet with city officials 90 days prior to the start of construction in order to lay out how they plan to fulfill the requirements of the ordinance.

That the city notify the Jersey City Board of Education, the Jersey City Employment and Training Program and the Jersey City Housing Authority of the availability of apprenticeships prior to construction.

That the developer advertise the apprenticeship jobs in two local newspapers.

That the developer and the union hold at least two job fairs at a location to be provided by the city.

Union representatives' attendance yesterday was noteworthy since it was the unions that fought and defeated Jersey City's previous attempt at instituting a quota system.