For the record, my name is Brian Warrell, District 4 City Councilor, and I'm in the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Labor and Economic Development.

Today is April 13th, 2026.

It is 1001 a.m.

In accordance with chapter two of the acts of 2025, modifying certain requirements of the open meeting law, relieving public bodies of certain requirements, including the requirement that public bodies conduct this meeting in the public space that is open and physically accessible to the public.

The city council will be conducting this hearing virtually via Zoom.

Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.labor at Boston.gov.

It will be made part of the record and available to all counselors.

Public testimony will be taken at the beginning and then again at the end of this hearing.

Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify.

If you wish to sign up for public testimony and have not done so, please email our central staff liaison, ShanePack at Shane S H A N E dot P A C at Boston.gov for the Zoom link, and your name will be added to the list.

Today's hearing is on docket number 0218.

Order for a hearing to review the effectiveness of the Boston residents' job policy and improvement equity and employment standards on projects throughout the city.

This matter was sponsored by Councillor Brian J.

Warell and referred to the committee on January 20, 28, 2026.

Today I'm joined by my council colleagues in order arrival, Councillor Flynn, Council President Braden, Councillor Murphy, and Councillor Louie Jen.

I just want to first start off with a few comments, opening comments from myself and my colleagues.

Twice a year, the city council holds a hearing to review the performance of the Boston residents' job policy in monitoring and improving diversity in construction workforce in hiring trends on projects throughout the city.

The BRJP just went to in our peer review to assess diversity on job sites in the city.

The local hiring goes to fired at 51% of Boston residents, 40%, people of color, and 12%.

Access to a job doesn't necessarily mean it's a quality job.

To me, a quality job means a living wage, room for growth, skill development, and promotion, and sustainability in the tough job market.

And when it comes to who has access to a quality job with a good wage, there are clear discrepancies on construction job sites in our city.

The BRJP dashboard shows that hours worked by women have on on average steadily decreased since 2022.

And in May of 2025, the Office of Labor Compliance and Worker Protections reported to the City Council that about 21% of work hours have gone to Boston residents, reflecting the decrease from 28% in late 2018.

Hours worked by people of color on eligible development projects are projected at 40% for FY26.

Which is about a 1.4 decrease from what we saw in FY25.

On some projects, there remain common disparities in hiring practices, trade and associated wage levels amongst contractors with workers of color, women, and especially women, women workers of color being regulated more often than not.

Some of the lowest pay trades refused amount of work hours in any given month of a project's timeline.

When people don't have access to quality jobs, their risk of displacement only increases.

Healthy work environments with sustainable equitable wages and all our neighbors, how we build a strong labor force for the economy for our whole city.

Let us dive into the details and see how fairing in translating the city's workforce equity goals to actual tangible outcomes in hiring and workforce trends and talk about where and how we can improve.

I'll pass it off to my council colleagues for any opening um remarks starting with Council Mr Flynn and then Councilor President Brady.

The floor is yours, Councillor Flynn.

Thank you, Council Rural.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Not only for chairing this meeting, uh, Council War, but for the work you've done since you arrived here on advocating for workers of color and and women as well.

So I also want to thank the administration team for being here.

This is an important issue.

We meet twice a year.

Um I love hearing the public testimony and listening to workers, listening to residents about this program.

I know this program as well as anyone.

Um much of it was done under the Flint administration, especially the employment commission that enforces the Boston jobs of Boston residency policy.

So not only do I support the policy, what's important to me is the enforcement of it and how we're ensuring that the policy is actually actually implemented and respected.

That's what I want to hear about in terms of uh the results of the policy and how we're holding people accountable if they're not hiring uh woman, if they're not hiring people of color, uh, women of color, and also women of color that are that are living in Boston as well, people of color that are living in Boston as well.

I want to make sure Boston is a city for everybody, and that includes our workers, um women workers, and people of color that are in the building trades.

Uh, thank you, Council Rolf, for sharing this important meeting.

Thank you, Councillor.

Council uh President Braden, the floor is yours.

Oh sorry, I was on mute.

Council President Braden, the floor is yours.

Uh Councilor Murphy, the floor is yours, Councilor Louie Jen.

All right.

Good morning, everyone.

Um happy to be here with all of you as we talk about the Boston residence job policy, very important work that was started here.

Um, shout out to Councillor Chuck Turner, who was a visionary behind making this uh a policy, and there are so many who continue to work on this, the Boston Jobs Coalition.

Um we are still missing the mark.

I think some of the issues, one of the biggest places where we see disparities are around the Boston numbers, which isn't surprising when we think about the expensive cost of housing.

Um, and so we talked about often about workforce housing, we talked about um finding what does finding non-compliance look like.

Um, and I I think it was at the last BRJ, the first BRJP hearing that we had last year.