Monday's demonstration was caused by an incident in which an unidentified white member of the glazier's union allegedly taunted black construction worker Paul Solomon with a noose, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The newspaper quoted Solomon as saying, "He looked me in my eyes and told me he wanted to hang somebody."
"We have zero-tolerance policies for harassment on our site, and if incidents occur, we do take action," said Jeanne Leonard, vice president of investor relations for Liberty Property Trust, which owns the Comcast site, the Inquirer reported. The white employee was removed from his project later that day.
"Let's also be clear that the kind of racial harassment that Paul Solomon experienced is not limited to just him," demonstration leader A. Bruce Crawley, former head of the African American Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. "In fact, we've been informed that racial discrimination and harassment against black workers and businesses take place at virtually every construction site in this city."
Crawley is among those looking to push a new 13-step program to make sure blacks are considered when city construction contracts are being awarded.
"According to the 2002 census, there were 174 black-owned construction firms with employees," said Crawley, who is a board member of the Technical Assistance Center for Emerging Contractors. "Those firms generated $141 million in revenue and employed 1,138 persons. By comparison, revenues for all Philadelphia metro area construction firms are estimated at about $16.2 billion. That gives black firms about 0.8 percent."
While there is no official city response to the proposed steps, Crawley and others will participate in a construction industry summit being planned by Comcast Executive President David L. Cohen. Comcast is No. 48 in The 2007 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®.
The proposed 13 steps:
1) Construction sites should begin to look increasingly like the demographic composition of the city's overall population
2) Philadelphia needs to ensure that black workers and contractors are included among the companies and workers who provide office interior "fit-out" work on new and existing office towers
3) Philadelphia needs to launch expanded programs to support the creation and development of small, black construction firms
4) The city should expand efforts to provide financing and bonding assistance to qualified black contractors
5) Philadelphia needs to create a credible, accountable, accelerated apprenticeship program for blacks who are interested in working in the construction industry
6) Black construction workers and construction firms are no longer denied access to union membership
7) Philadelphia should commit to a locally administered and monitored anti-harassment policy
8) Individuals who violate that policy should be included on a central, computerized database whose content would be shared among all city construction management and should be barred from working on any city construction site
9) Construction managers and developers must also be held accountable for maintaining construction workplace environments that are free from harassment and discrimination
10) A series of significant fines should be imposed by municipal and state governments on construction managers and developers who allow harassment and discriminatory practices
11) The city should establish a construction industry "harassment hotline" to be used by workers who have been victims of racist and/or discriminatory practices
12) Monthly and quarterly construction industry harassment-incident reports should be provided to the mayor's office, to the president of the city council and to the governor's office
13) The city and commonwealth should require that security cameras be placed on construction sites as a further deterrent to future harassment and discriminatory practices
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