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.

We presented data on how much money the city of Boston is missing out on as a result of non-compliance, not uh not reaching full compliance under BRJP.

So I'd like to hear sort of what steps that we're taking to remedy that.

I think one of the um one model that is a good model is the Madison Park model where there's a commitment to use graduates of Madison Park in the workforce of making sure of the rebuilding of Madison Park, but there's obviously so much more that we need to do.

I mean, there are some unions that are doing some some great work that I think could be models uh for others.

So just looking forward to the conversation.

Um, and want to thank the administration for the work that they've done so far, even though even with the acknowledgement that you know we're still missing the mark on uh on these key metrics.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Uh we will now um dive in, go to public testimony before the panel presentation.

Um you have if you um if you are testifying when your name is Carl, please accept the message, actually need to be promoted to panelists when it appears.

We will go with Weavy Waldenstein.

The floor is now yours.

Thank you.

Um I want to thank uh councillor Warrell, his staff, all the counselors, and also the BRJP staff and the surrounding staff to the BRJP.

My name is Wheezy Waldstein.

I'm currently the jobs co-director at Action for Equity.

I appreciate this opportunity, and I I want to just say a few things about myself because this is a discussion that is sometimes brought, and I think it's really important to appreciate the variety of stakeholders that are all trying to make this work.

I came up as a union shipyard welder, an elected union official.

I spent decades working for national unions and the AFL CIO.

I spent 15 years starting the property services SEIU 32 BJ training fund.

I was part of Chuck Turner's 2017 effort to revise the BRJP under Mayor Walsh.

And I've been part of BRJP site committees, monitoring committees in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Jamaica Plain.

I've been working on access to quality jobs for people who don't have ability to have a union for 14 years, and for the last three years action has been providing technical training in building decarbonization for the quality jobs and building decarbonization.

BRJP is an important tool, just like the hearing order says for inclusion for Boston residents.

And making it work better really matters.

If the Boston residents were getting this work.

Why is this a starting point?

The mechanisms for improvement differ by the type of contractor.

And the economic impact may differ by the type of contractors.

Here's what I can guess, but I don't know.

We need to learn about the unionized contractors.

I've been in, I've been in monitoring meetings after monitoring meeting where the GC and subs say the union does not have the right people to send to them.

But unions have an obligation to their members.

We have to recognize that and respect that.

Increasing diversity among apprentices is good, but it doesn't change generations of exclusion overnight or even over a few years.

What's the situation by trade?

What improvement is possible?

Are there Boston residents sitting on the bench?

This is, it's got to get we got to get open up the numbers and have a practical conversation that's respectful of the union's obligations.

And then what about the non-signatory contractors?

They're not a monolithic group.

It's documented that there's a lower tier of non-union contractors who abuse, particularly immigrant labor with low wages, outright wage theft, and unsafe conditions.

We have to ask, is this where BRJP's good diversity numbers are coming from?

Is from jobs that are actually not good quality?

How do we even unpack those contractors from the many non-signatory, non-union subs and GCs that are playing by the rules, are creating good jobs, and include many of our diverse contractors?

Um how do we understand their really important contribution to Boston's communities and economic base?

How do we support contractors that play by the rules without saying with and create diversity without agreeing that low quality, bad jobs are okay?

Once we acknowledge the issue of job quality, how do we understand the whole market and what owners and developers are paying and how that plays into job quality, particularly in the non-union marketplace?

What can we do to unpack the data we already have?

We'll be in a better position to make improvements that are possible if we do that.

My second suggestion is that we consider other jobs at the same construction sites that exist or are emerging.

Many of our construction jobs are already increasingly like technicians.

I know about energy auditors like hers and RFIs because we provide that training and placement.

But are there other emerging technical and coordinating positions?

Could BRJP be used to understand or even open up potential opportunities in additional occupations in the same sites?

So really two small practical ways of going forward to make improvements by opening up the data and by thinking about the other occupations on the same site.

I want to thank you.

Thank you.

Now we will go to presentation from the administration.

On behalf of the administration, we have uh Jody Sugarman Brosnan, Deputy Chief of Labor Compliance and Work and Protections, Christopher Brown, the BRJP manager.

Before I turn it to you, I just want to recognize that or acknowledge the fact that Councillor Weber has also joined us.

To the administration, the floor is now yours.

Thank you so much, counselors, for giving us opportunity to come today.

And I really appreciate us to understand some of the concerns.

And so I would like to share some slides if that is okay.

Yes.

Great.

So my name is Jody Sugarman Brosanne.

I am the deputy chief in the worker empowerment cabinet and lead the Office of Labor Compliance and Worker Protections and Director of the Boston Resident Jobs Policy.

I'm here with Senior Manager of the Boston Resident Jobs Policy Christopher Brown.

We'll go through our slides and presentation.

Forgive me for many of the counselors who've been on with us on many of these presentations.

I always start with an overview.

So hopefully that it is not too repetitive, but I thought it helps for members of the public who may be attending.

Just a little bit about the worker empowerment cabinet.

It was founded in 2022.

It was an opportunity to bring together all of the work that the administration is doing around workforce development, including our youth employment and opportunity program and our the Office of Labor Compliance and Worker Protections.

That was a new office created in 2022, and the Boston Resident Jobs Policy was brought into the Office of Labor Compliance in April of 2023.

And in addition to the Boston Resident Jobs policy, our Office of Labor Compliance enforces the Boston Jobs Living Wage and Prevailing Wage Ordinance, the Boston Wage Theft Executive Order, the new heat illness and injury prevention ordinance, which you'll be seeing a lot about out this summer.

We also provide free worker health and safety training, and we also have what we call our workers' safety and rights initiative where we provide webinars, in-person trainings, research clinics to make sure workers know their rights and have opportunities to access those rights.

And I just want to put a quick plug in that our free OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 construction training is we have a few more dates in this fiscal year before we release a calendar for FY27.

These are important opportunities for people to gain knowledge on how to stay safe on the job and a language they understand, but is also an opportunity to break down barriers because as we know, public construction projects require that you have a 10 OSHA 10 certification, 10 hours of OSHA training.

So we offer that in English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and I think we are the only ones because it took us a long time to find an instructor in Haitian Creole as well.

You can see the dates here, and we will again in July release once we get vendors for FY27, we'll release a new schedule.

And just a quick overview, folks here know this, but the Boston resident jobs policy has been first established in 1983, and now was amended in 2017 to set employment standards for Boston residents, people of color, and women.

It covers all private development projects over 50,000 square feet, and any public development projects.

And the goals are 51% for work hours for Boston residents, 40% work hours for people of color, and 12% work hours for women.

Oops.

So BRJB compliance for a number of reasons, however, cannot focus on these goals.

We cannot fine or sanction people for not meeting the work hours.

However, we have a set a rubric of seven different administrative requirements.

And these are the requirements through which we can make sure that general contractors and developers and anyone covered by the Boston Resident Jobs policy is meeting the guidelines that we are set to meet.

So these seven measures, and most importantly for us, is that provision of that weekly payroll documentation and data on employee demographics is really critical.

And the again, we these are the seven measures through which we can sanction or find contractors.

And we can sanction or find them up to $300 per violation.

And we'll get into a lot more about some of the work we've done to make a transparent process for better tracking violations and recommending sanctions.

We've done a lot of work since 2023 to try to really expand our impact.

One of the first things we've done, and I really appreciate Wheezy's bringing this up is that we've invested a lot of resources into building a new Salesforce database through which contractors submit their data.

It has far more capabilities than the spreadsheets and access database we were using previously, and it allows us to look at the data and understand the data a lot more deeply to fine-tune and focus our work.

So it used to be that people contractors had to submit data through the BRJP database, but then still submit a certified payroll record separately.

We've now updated so that we can actually collect certified payroll records through the database, which allows us to do much better tracking to make sure we're catching whether workers are being paid what they are supposed to be being paid per for prevailing wage law in Massachusetts.

And these the violations through the seven compliance measures.

So using Salesforce has allowed us to really see those violations more in real time.

We've created a dashboard, which we've shared with you all in the past, where it has a much easier way to look at data.

And I'll, as I'll share in a minute, we um at Councilor Rell's request, we've added trade to the number of um filters that you can now look at the data.

And we've now got BRJP all under one roof.

It used to be there were some monitors at BPDA and some at 1010 Mass Ave.

Everybody is working together under one roof, as people have referred to a couple of times already.

We've done an annual economic impact analysis.

We will do that again this year and bring the data to you in November.

And we are working on a biannual report that is not just the data, which we will share to you today, but a list of completed projects and their final um BRJP numbers.

This is the new warnings and sanction system that we've set up using Salesforce.

We now are able to identify late payroll and other issues, but we're really focusing and prioritizing on that late payroll because that is the May we monitor all the other uh compliance as well as all where where that's how we get the data that allows us to understand how contractors are doing.

If they are not submitting their payroll, they get a warning and a corrective action meeting.

If again after that meeting, there's still non-compliance in 15 days, there's a written warning.

And if the general contractor and subcontractors are still on non-compliance 30 days after the corrective action meeting, BRJP staff have recommended sanctions, can recommend sanctions or fines.

And um senior manager Chris Brown will give an overview of the data, but I'll say that in since putting this into place, we've yet to have to recommend sanctions to the Boston Employment Commission.

Um both the first and second warnings seem to be what is needed to get contractors in line and submitting their payroll.

Um here again is the dashboard.

Uh and since our last time meeting together in October, you can see at the bottom, we've added trade.

So now you can look at BRJP data by um year, developer, contractor, subcontractor, or trade.

And you can see um these were the numbers as I did a screenshot just a couple of days ago, um, where we're at globally uh with regards to BRJP, and this includes data dating back to um as long as it's available through Salesforce.

So this is not just this past year, but for all years.

And here is an example of 2020 when I did a quick look at um this year, 2026 by labor.

And you can see the numbers are definitely different.

Um, you can see we had slightly higher global numbers for Boston resident, but the numbers for people of color um go up, and so do the number for women if you look at just laborers.

And you can look by any trade now and be able to look at it and cut trade, contractor, subcontractor, any one of these filters and any combination of those filters.

So I will hand it off here to my colleague Christopher Brown to go through the um the data and how we uh conduct compliance.

Chris.

Thanks, Jody.

Um, good morning to the council and also to the public.

Uh so I'm gonna jump right into the data.

Uh the first slide that we're looking at is um the BRJP ordinance compliance and that and enforcement.

So we have seven construction monitors um that work for the BRJP office, those are the individuals that are in direct contact with the general contractors and subcontractors when there's um any type of issues with compliance, non-compliance, or submission of paperwork.

Um average, uh we monitor about 150 projects per year.

Uh we have public projects, those are the projects that are in either fully funded by the city or partly funded by the city, and we also monitor private projects, those are the projects that are uh 50,000 square feet or over and do not have any um city funding associated with them.

Uh so if in terms of the public projects, uh we monitor four different uh city departments, um the mayor's office of housing, uh public facilities department, parks and recreation, and public works, and the monitors are signed to these um departments to keep everything uniform and you know uh to provide cohesiveness and consistency.

We like to um you know have certain monitors deal with you know certain departments.

So if there's an issue, for example, for the MOH, mayor's office of housing, everyone knows that Robert Woodson is the contact uh for that project, and also Celso reburial is also works with MOH for public facilities.

Mayor Barbosa is the compliance officer from the B for the BRJP office, parks and recreation, that would be Patricia and uh public works uh Nelson Cunha.

In terms of the private projects, uh Pamela Ruffo and Tekara Hand to all the primary uh monitors for for from the for the private um projects.

Uh so a little bit blurry, but what you're looking at is um is really uh uh just step-by-step process of how we monitor projects.

All projects go through this process.

Obviously, you know, the bigger projects uh, you know, we could uh touch base on um more record basis in each of these categories.

Uh the smaller projects, we you know, we have projects that are two weeks, two weeks, you know, that only take two weeks to complete, they're small, might be you know, uh putting H HVAC in a in a schoolhouse.

Uh so those projects uh don't necessarily meet are able to you know uh meet every one of these categories.

Like we don't go, we can't go through the all the steps with like a two-week project.

Uh but in general, this is what we do, and uh step by step uh for each project that comes through our department.

All right, all right, projects break down.

So uh this is from October 2025 to March 31st, 2026.

Uh we monitor 142 uh projects.

Again, those are the projects that are over 50,000 square feet.

And 99 of those projects were public projects.

And those public projects have city funding, either entirely or a portion of the projects funded by city dollars.

In terms of the public projects, the public facilities department, 30 projects, parks and recreation, 12 projects, public works department, 19 projects, and the mayor's office of housing, we had 38 projects.

And 19% Boston resident, 42% people of color, and 7% women.

So 3,197, 391 hours for the private projects, 18% Boston resident, 39% people of color, 7% women.

The public projects, 642,000 hours, 22% Boston resident, 57% people of color, 5% women.

And again, the grand total, 19% Boston resident, 42% people of color, and 7% women.

And then I'm not gonna go through every, you know, every um neighborhood, but at the bottom you would see various locations.

So a lot of public works projects.

So you might have a contract that you know they're paving a street in rock in Roxbury, and the other street might be in Dorchester.

So that would be those projects are classified as varied locations.

Again, 99 public projects.

Mayor's Office of Housing is always the department that has the most projects that's the affordable housing within the neighborhoods.

So 474,000 hours, 21% Boston resident, 63% people, people of color and 5% women, public facilities department, those are you know, the public buildings, the schools, the libraries, 111,000 hours, 24% uh Boston resident, 40% people of color, and 7% women, public works department, streets and sidewalks, um, about 44,000 hours, 30% Boston resident, 42% people of color, 6% women, parks and recreation, all the city parks, swing sets, uh, so forth and so on.

It's always the smaller department, uh 21%, 12,000 hours, 21% Boston residents, 17% people of color, and 0% women, which is unusual.

I'm surprised to see 0% women.

They're always low-end women, but uh unusual to see 0%.

Okay, so everyone knows about the White Stadium Project.

Uh you've heard about it, uh I'm sure.

Uh so we are monitoring that project.

That project is via um the public facilities department.

So it's one project, but there's two different sides.

There's what we call the East Grand Stand, those are the numbers that you're looking at now, and the next slide we will talk about the West Grand Stand.

Um, so the difference is the East Grand Stand is uh what we consider uh part of the City of Boston Public Facilities Department, and it's my understanding that the West is um a private uh portion of the project.

But we are monitoring it separate, so that's why you're gonna see data on both the east and the west grandstand.

So the East Grand Stand, um the general contractors bond, um, and so 22,357 total hours.

The project is about 5% complete.

Um hundred and ninety-one workers, 13% contract, 13 um contractors, 35% Boston resident, 49% people of color, and 14% women.

Equipment operators, 4,000 hours, 20 workers, 1% Boston resident, 4% people of color, 0% women.

And then we have carpenters at 36% Boston resident, 55% people of color, and 14% women, iron workers, 18, 98 and 8, and then the equipment operators, aka horse engineering engineers, 0% Boston residents, 0% people of color, and 0% women.

So that's for the east side.

The West side, the developers, the ABLE company.

The general contractor is bond building.

A little over 8,000 work hours, 101 workers, non-contractors, 28% Boston resident, 47% people of color, and 12% women, the top trade, again is the labor's trade, 5,000 hours, 52 workers, 41% Boston residents, 62% people of color, 18% women.

Then we have the equipment operators, carpenters, iron workers, and the electricians.

Thank you, Chris.

And I can stop sharing the slides now.

We prepared the slides because we had heard that the counselors had on White Stadium because we heard counselors had a specific question about that.

And we were very pleased to see that the numbers for White Stadium were very good, especially for women, but even higher than average for Boston residents and very good for people of color as well.

And we're happy to continue to bring those updates to do our biannual meetings if that project is of specific interest to the counselors.

So I'll leave it there, and we are happy to, of course, take questions.

Thank you.

I want to acknowledge that counselor Kaletta Zapata has joined us.

So thank you so much for collaborating and working with the council and dive in deeper on transparency when it comes to the work.

So thank you so much.

One request I do have, and I think I said it before, and I and I believe we are working on it, is the dollar amount.

If we could, you know, when it comes to the trade, my understanding is like there's different levels within each trade.

So just kind of breaking out uh wages uh the same way that we break out uh the hours.

But yeah.

I don't know.

You're about to say something, Jody.

Yeah, yeah.

Sorry, I I'm happy to say that now, as now that we are um collecting the certified payroll records via Salesforce, that means we do have wage data for the first time starting in November of this past year.

So give us a little bit of time to have a little bit of a trend, but we will be able to give that information because the wage data is required on certified payroll record.

It was not previously required in the sales boards because we hadn't blended those two compliance measures, but but I'm very happy to report we will we will be getting to the point where we can report that to you.

Awesome.

Excited for that.

Um now I'll go to my council colleague in order arrival uh for first round of questions, starting with councilor Flynn.

Counselor, the floor is yours.

When I pop back on the screen, counselors, that means your time's up.

Yeah, that thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I was listening to the compliance from the city city departments, and I noticed some of them had zero percent um listed in there.

I think POX may have been one of them.

And um another another city department.

Can you explain those to me, please?

Certainly, uh, and thanks for bringing this up.

Um, so what the Parks Department is usually a smaller um uh product, it is a the smaller uh project within the city of Boston of all the different um all the four departments, and I believe the reason the women numbers are always my experience is the women's numbers are always lower.

Usually you have the contractors are smaller.

You might have the man with the truck, a son, the father and son out on the project.

Uh usually, you know, you have two or three person crews.

There's you know no excuses.

Uh you know, these contractors have to comply.

They should comply just like all the other contractors, but we see this as being, you know, my experience is this is the reason why uh you know the the women category lags uh with with the parks department.

Well uh thank you, Chris.

Chris, what was the other city department that had zero as a percent?

Yeah, so I don't see any other uh department with zero.

Um only um the parks department zero percent in the women, uh all the other categories, all the other um departments that have representation in in all the um areas.

Are any of them are any of them below the recommended um numbers?

Yes.

Um yeah, they um it's hard to meet the numbers for uh a number of different factors.

I would like to thank the my colleagues and you know, also the public, and you know, it's really a collective effort with our city and you know all the nonprofits and so forth and so on that we have.

Uh we always strive to meet the numbers.

Uh you know, it's you know, we have to have numbers in order for contractors to aim for uh you know the people of color numbers are always hitting, have always and you know, have hit the mark, they they're hitting the mark now.

Um the women numbers have progressed over time.

Uh we're at the 7%.

I I remember when we were at 4% back in the day, uh, but there's still still work to be done in their area.

And the Boston resident numbers, yes, um, you know, like all trades and all professions.

Um, you know, unfortunately, people are moving, you know, out of Boston.

Uh, but you know, given all these different factors, um, you know, we we're we're still kind of holding steady um in the with the Boston resident goals, although uh we have seen a decrease recently with the with the Boston Resident percentages.

Thank you, Chris.

Chris, what about the mayor's office of housing?

The percent of women, um five percent.

That seems that seems low, doesn't it?

Yeah, that is low.

Uh the goal is 12 percent.

Uh we have two compliance officers that work on that uh, you know, on in that on uh Celso and Robert Woodson, they they work with the mayor's office of housing, and I know that's always an emphasis for for Robert and Social.

Uh and again, uh I I think um because uh the mayor's office of housing, I believe that this is also one of the departments that on occasion can have small contractors out on the project.

Uh of course it all depends on the size of the project, but some of those projects are smaller projects.

They're not like the downtown projects, right?

The skyscrapers, and uh which um tend to have more workers and a better opportunity to have you know uh people in all categories.

Again, no excuses.

Uh we have seen an increase.

It the I'm surprised to see 5% because it was uh up at 7% uh at one point.

So I it's kind of going up.

The mayor's office of housing, public facilities, public works, and we spoke about parks and recreation, but they're the in terms of the number of women, they're they're not meeting the city's um guidelines.

That's correct.

You are absolutely correct.

We continue to work in this area.

Again, uh, I've been around a long time and I've seen the progress.

Uh it's not enough.

They're not at the 12% mark.

Uh the compliance offices continue um to push in this area.

I I think for women, there like we've heard in the past, there's a number of factors, uh, child care issues, uh, you know, could could be a factor.

Uh and I think also uh just in all the categories for for all individuals, um, I think um just be honest with you.

I don't I think um work has changed over the years.

Uh I I I think a lot of um young people are uh picking YouTube and all the gig, the gig economy, and not necessarily um picking construction.

So I I think uh collective um collectively, the city, uh all the nonprofits, we need to continue to do outreach to explain to the younger individuals that are entering the job um world that construction can be a viable and um uh financially rewarding.

Uh so I think we continue to to do that outreach.

Oh I thank you, thank you, Chris.

Um, my my last point again, the parks and recreation percentage of people of color, 17%, very low.

Um I I just think if we if we are asking others to be in compliance with with this law, I think Boston should be leading the way as an example of what to do, how to do it.

And and uh I know I and I like it, Chris.

I know you're doing the best you can.

I respect you, but I think we have to get these numbers up.

Thank you, counselor.

Thank you, thank thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um the chair now recognizes counselor president reading.

Counselor, the floor is yours.

Good morning, everyone.

I was listening in earlier, wasn't on a on a call, but um thank you for the presentation.

Um it's a little discouraging to see that uh the women to Councillor Flynn's point that the the representation of women in the workforce is uh in this in this particular metrics aren't um achieving the goals.

But uh one question I had with regard to the public versus private projects, um private projects over 50,000 square feet.

Um how much leverage do we have with private uh general contractors?

I think my understanding is the problems really arise when you work with subcontractors who are not necessarily compliant.

And uh I know we've we hear from our union colleagues often about concerns about wage theft and and uh mistreatment or um unfair practices with regard to subcontractors, especially in some sectors like drywall installation, stuff like that.

So, how much leverage do we have with the private contractors?

So we can um we require that the general contractors in the Boston Resident Jobs policy compliance are responsible for their subcontractors.

So if a subcontractor is not submitting their payroll or misses a corrective action meeting or doesn't show up at a pre-construction meeting, we contact and hold the general contractor responsible.

And then the one two times that we've actually fined and sanctioned um while the uh violations were the result of a subcontractor, those violations go to the general contractor.

So in this case, it's in this uh ordinance we hold the general contractors responsible for their subcontractors.

Yeah, so the onuses on this on the general contractor to make sure that they're their subcontractors are complying and treating their workers well.

Um we we don't have any we outside of now monitoring prevailing wage, so we do have a monitor a construction monitor who um on projects for prevailing wage is required, which is public projects.

Our monitor is watching to make sure that worker the payroll submitted matches the um rate sheet that was required.

But with regards to other issues, we do have our um wage theft executive order, um, which requires disclosure of wage theft violations and the course of a contract, but um but through BRJP, we don't have a lot of um ability to hold for work standards outside of those that we monitor.

However, if we do come across something where we believe there is an issue, we report it to the attorney general's fair labor division.

Very good.

Um then in terms of uh Chris, the age analysis, you you mentioned like you know, the the workforce seems to be changing and and we seem to be having a decrease in um you know an increase in workers leaving the city.

I I'm constantly advocating that the folks who build this stuff in Boston should be able to live in the city and live in the homes that they build.

So um uh is there a is there do you see any sort of prevailing trend with regard to workers leaving the city who are just seem to be priced out?

Is that what's your not what's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, so yeah, I don't have any data only what's out there, right?

Through the Boston Globe and you know, and other news um uh outlets.

But you know, I I think the I I think there's a couple of things going on.

I I think the Boston resident job jobs policy, in my opinion, has been successful.

And I think um there have been Boston residents that have worked on these projects more so in the past, especially earlier on.

The numbers used to be in the 30% tile, and at one point it was up, you know, company-wise 40%.

It was a long time ago when it was at that point.

But I think uh a lot of those Boston residents um uh I would say probably worked on these constructive sites because they did live in Boston and there were a lot of hiring of Boston residents, but they ended up moving out for for financial reasons, right?

Bob bought a house and we're outside of Boston.

I'm sorry, what was the second part?

Are you yeah, and just in terms of um I know this is maybe a more general question, just about um attracting younger young the younger folks into the trades and making sure that we recruit and have viable pathways and apprenticeships for folks.

Yeah, I just think that uh the workforce has changed over the years.

Just my P you don't have any data on it.

Uh, but I I think uh again through the city through the outreach jobs pain coordinator that we have through the workforce development um team uh that we need to get the word out.

Uh continue to get the word out that construction and it is not all about leagues and conferences, right?

There's plumbers, there's spike feeders, there's trades that young people don't know about equipment operators that pay very well.

Uh you know, HVAC tax and so forth and so on.

So I think uh a lot of young people they may or may not know about uh certain trades.

The fact that a lot of those trades make a lot more money than even the labors and carpenters.

Yeah.

Um I think the typical young person, when they if they don't already have a person that they know of uncle or father in the trades, the you know, the first thing they think of is oh, a laborer or a carpenter.

Again, we don't know anything about pipe fitter or you know, those type of trades.

Yeah.

Thank you, Chris.

I see constantly uh Morales back on screen, so it means my time's up.

Thank you.

Can I add one thing, Counselor Rurella to add to Chris's, which is that folks um have mentioned that we have a project labor agreement with um regarding the rebuilding of Madison Park and other schools that requires that up to 50 young people per year from Madison Park have pathways into pre-apprentip and apprenticeship in all 17 trains, and there's an enormous amount of work being done with the trades now to do more of the education that Chris is talking about, to have folks in the in Madison Park field trips um and even programs that we're beginning to look at to bring other people from not just Madison Park but uh across the city to Madison Park for evening programs to learn more about the trades and even field trips from middle schoolers.

So we're um taking off my BRJP hat and putting on my office of workforce development hat.

There is a lot of work trying to do exactly what Chris um is talking about, so that we can ensure that young people are exposed to this.

And I'll say that when we did our analysis of the jobs that are being supported by our climate policies in the city, 67,000 jobs per year, half of them are in the building trades.

So we know that we need to make sure we're doing this work so that the investments we're making in policy and climate infrastructure are leading to good quality jobs, and that Boston residents are getting those jobs.

That's wonderful news.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Um go to Council Murphy next, but I have just one question.

Do we do we have like a landscape?

Do we have a idea?

How many um uh laborers or operators we have in the city of Bob?

And like breaking that down across when it comes to people of color and also women, like do we have that information?

Um we um we have data from the reports that we've done on the annual economic impact, but I am not sure that that includes an overview of the actual supply side.

In other words, how many how many Boston residents do we have that are currently um in each of those trains?

But I could ask our um our research and develop our research staff to help with that data.

Awesome.

I want to recognize that counselor has joined us.

Um but now uh we'll turn it over to Councilor Murphy for questions.

Councilor Murphy, the floor is yours.

Hi, um sorry.

So thank you, Jody.

Thank you, Chris, for this.

A few questions.

I know we've had conversations before, Jody, when there's been a need for like corrective action and is violations or when we see Chris the numbers you're showing back at highlighted where some departments are just really not beating any low threshold of any expectation.

Obviously, city departments we can't cancel contracts with, but how are we doing?

Because I know we've had those conversations where we continue to give contracts to um you know developers or businesses who have violated in the past.

Yes, I really appreciate the question.

We know that this is really challenging.

And I think among the most challenging and frustrating things about the Boston Resident Jobs policy is that we cannot enforce based on the actual ability of contractors to meet the hiring guidelines that we've laid out.

We can share and strive to share this information back to the awarding authorities, the different departments through which we work with.

But we are also somewhat limited by public procurement law in the way that we procure projects.

Now, having said that, there is an opportunity for us to do more, and some departments are doing better than others, and we certainly are really interested in learning, for instance, um, why mayor's office of housing is able to do so much better in certain regards than some of the other cities of departments.

So that's something I think we really want to better understand and work with.

And I know our construction monitors are doing everything they can to share best practices to bring when we see contractors that are not meeting the guidelines or wildly off to bring them in for corrective action meetings and ask them to commit to new strategies.

But I I know that we are still trying to create a feedback mechanism through which the information and data that we're collecting is getting back to awarding authorities and a format that they can use it.

We're making public procurement decisions.

Um that's the report that I talked about that we're working on, which is a biannual report, not only of the data, but of the actual these four these 33 projects were completed.

Here's their final numbers, here's where how they did.

We want to create that so that departments have an overview of their projects and can um see which contractors and subcontractors were doing better than others.

Thank you.

And I know Council has highlighted and I've seen it where the dashboard is much stronger.

Um, is that information on the dashboard?

Is there a tab about any violations, or is that something we would have to call and ask for?

So we have done very well with the warning system to keep contractors, and again, the violations are um are such that um we've we've only sanctioned and fined contractors two or three times total.

However, at any point, a um member of procurement staff could go onto the dashboard and pull up any subcontractor or any general contractor and see their global numbers as to how they had been performing within BRJP.

That was one of the goals of the dashboard is to empower procurement staff with that information.

Awesome.

Thank you for that.

Um Chris, you were um you work with all city departments, correct?

Yes.

So when it comes to the fire cadet program, which I'm using this one as an example, it's a newer one, it's a few years in, but it has its own, you know, residency requirement.

Do you oversee that, or is that something just the HR and fire department oversees?

Is that something that you're also looking at?

Yeah, so that's not part of the BRGP.

So we just do construction projects, actually construction sites.

Okay.

So the residency is just for the construction side.

That's something, okay.

Um when Jody, we talked, or you know, a big part of your oversight, or I think advocacy is on the wage theft or making sure the prevailing wage is being paid.

And projects where obviously, you know, I wish I could support every project going through.

It's that balance between, you know, pro development and we need people working, we need houses, we need things built, but at the same time, we need to make sure not just neighborhood voices are being heard, but also unions are being heard.

And I know recently there was a project a couple weeks ago that you know, my office went in opposition because the carpenters or a few labor unions reached out and there was no guarantee, right?

And the um developer had said that he's not going to use union work, right?

So it's that fine line between supporting it as you know, work is work, but at the same time, I don't agree that work is work because we know that the wage theft and all of these violations only happen when it's not union, like it does not happen when a union job, you know, unions are represented.

And so is there more oversight on the jobs that we know the companies are not going to be using union labor?

We if it is a prevailing wage job, we collect certified payroll records, whether it's union or non-union, and we have a um construction monitor dedicated to pulling those projects and reviewing the prevailing wage rate sheet with what workers are actually being paid.

That's a somewhat new role and new oversight, um, which we're really excited about.

Um and the other is that this works hand in hand with the wage theft executive order, um, and which is on its way to being a stronger ordinance where we're well, we've had many conversations about that, but that requires at the time of bidding disclosure so that of wage theft violations, so that the city should have a mechanism through which they are identifying vendors that have a history of wage theft and not working with those contractors as part of its public project.

But being able to look at wage data and make sure that contractor that workers are being paid on prevailing wage jobs, the the rates that they're supposed to be paid, that's that is something that we are doing now.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jody.

Thank you, Craig.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, counselor.

Um I know we talked about the department and procurement uh with Council Murphy's line of question.

I just want to also encourage my council colleagues on that development happened in your district.

Um there are contractors whose uh BIJP numbers, their data is also here.

Uh so that is something that we can encourage or look into when developers and contractors are presenting before us on large or small development inside of our district.

Uh now turn it over to Councilor Council Louie Gen.

Counselor, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you to the administration for being here and for your presentation to you, Jody, and to you, Chris, from the very beginning.

Um, it's very clear how much you care about this, and you too, of course, Jody.

Um, I just want to thank you for your persistence.

Uh, when you gave the project breakdown number, it so it seems like we are lagging on public and private projects and our woman numbers and on our Boston residency numbers.

When it looks like to people of color, uh 57% of the public projects are meeting the public are meeting that target.

When BRJP the requirement is 40%, is that right?

40 41.

That's correct.

That's correct, counselor.

Um, and 39% it's just missing that mark on the private pro on the private projects.

That's correct.

Can you talk about why the discrepancy between like that's a four that's like an 18% spread between private and public projects, and there are more private projects.

So can you talk about why it's easier?

It appears to be easier to meet the people of color targets on public projects than it is on private.

Like what is accounting for that discrepancy?

Okay.

Uh so the private projects, though, the those are usually the larger projects, right?

The skyscrapers, and there's a process, they go through the union.

The men, you know, there's a lot of unions have like a you know, a list, who's up next type of list.

Uh but in terms of and most of those private projects are union projects, right?

Downtown projects, I've never seen like a skyscraper that was non-union.

They're all union projects.

And there's a process they have to go through through the union.

Uh the public projects is a mixture.

Uh it's been my experience that uh a lot of public projects are it's probably 50-50 or 60-40 um non-union.

And so it's easier for a non-union contractor to hire Chris Brown who lives next door, uh, you know, in the house next door.

You know, I can just hire me, I can walk one, you know, I'm not in a union.

So I I think that there's lack of, you know, it's not as much process associated for non-union um contractors.

Uh they can pick and train whomever they want to without you know, without having to go through any, they can just hire a person off the street, basically.

And I think that's easier easier for them to meet that goal.

But they're um I'm trying to understand, but those are public projects, so those are projects that there's some sort of like city involvement.

That's correct.

And are we doing that?

Are we the ones saying it's more like picking up you know, Chris Brown who lives in Roxbury to work on a project?

Like what?

Well, I it's up to the contractor.

So is if you know, if a person that owns a company and you know, they're meeting with us, and we're saying, hey, you need to have um, you know, 40% people of color.

Even if they don't have a person of color at that time, it might be a contractors, contractor that's not based in Boston.

Doesn't necessarily mean that Chris Brown is gonna win the contract to get a job in Sargon's or whatever out of out of Boston and Chris Brown's gonna continue to work for that company.

But they are able to hire that person in order, you know, to get those Boston hours on the project that they're working in that neighborhood in Boston at that particular time.

So that there's kind of you know, that might be a little some of that might be happening as well.

Um so and and the unions that are um doing a better job of hitting the uh people of color numbers, what are they doing differently than other unions?

Uh I think um I think outreach is plays a lot.

And again, I I go back to the the young person who you know they know the labor, usually the laborers and the carpenters are are the most popular unions with people of color.

And if you look at the data throughout the years, those are always the trades that are the higher in those areas.

And I think it's just because those are trades that they're more familiar with.

Uh and when I was growing up, I knew anything about a pipe fitter.

So uh so and again, I think outreach and just exposing and just letting them know that there's more trades than just carpenters and laborers.

Have you been seeing the numbers increase over time by participation of folks of color in in those unions?

That like the pipe fitters, elevator operators.

Yeah, so yeah, the mechanical trades, yep, uh pipe fitters, electricians.

I know 103 has, you know, the electrical union has done a lot of outreach.

They've made have a lot of progress in especially in the recent years and recruiting and boston resident women and people of color.

Uh I think uh there's a lot of mechanical trades that are doing a better job.

Uh a lot of mechanical contractors that are doing a better job.

One of the things that I have seen is uh there's a couple of contractors, mechanical contractors, like plumbers and uh they employ plumbers and pipe fitters.

So a lot of those companies that have factories or shops that are might be outside of Boston.

So what they do is they hire a young person from high school to have that person work in the shop, right?

The person basically just delivers uh product to construction sites, right?

So they get to know that person, and the per that worker gets to know the team, you know, a team that works at that company, and they can see whether Chris Brown's gonna show up on time, because Chris Brown is you know it's gonna be reliable, whether he has a good personality or attitude, whether he's a good, it's gonna be a good fit.

And so they hire Chris Brown in the shop, and the next time that they have an enrollment in the union, uh they will sponsor Chris into the union.

And so we've seen that not, I would like to see that more.

We've seen that on a smaller scale.

We know there's a couple of plumbing companies that do that on a regular basis, but you know, it's like two or three three young people a year, it's not enough to make a difference in overall numbers.

I see the chairs back, but can I ask one more small question?

Um the uh we uh we had public testimony um from um I believe the jobs director at Action for Um Action for Equity.

And um one of the things that she stated was all of the jobs sort of like around construction, the ancillary work that we also and I I've talked to someone else about this, and it's escaping me who, but there are all of these other jobs around construction that we should be doing a better job of getting folks into.

Are are those numbers, are those people captured by BRJP, and what are we doing to also think about that question?

Yeah, so the BRJP program captures workers that are on actual the actual construction sites that are part of the trades.

So you might have technicians who are coming out, they're they're called, you know, they come out to test uh HVA system, they're not uh a surveyors, they're not part of the data.

Or the people working in the office for the construction project, for example.

Right, they're not part of uh what we monitor the compliance.

It'd be great to try to capture that data to figure out a way to capture that data and encourage, but um, so that just very actively on my mind based on conversations that I've had previously about folks in BRJP, but wanted to put that out there and think um uh the woman from BRJP because I think that's an important way that we can also try to get people into these into these very um stable stable careers.

Thank you.

And thank you, Mr.

Chair, for allowing me to ask an additional question.

Counselor Mayor, one um, which is that we do have an analysis that was done as part of our um climate jobs report that they was specifically looking at diversity and uh apprenticeships along over a period of time that I can share with you, counselor Lujan, that shows um how certain uh unions and trades are doing better than others, um, but in particular iron workers and IBEW have done very well, especially those with pre-apprentipog programs and building a more diverse base of apprentices that hopefully will result in more diverse base of of um uh turning people over time.

I can follow up with that report.

Thank you.

And I don't IBW has someone specifically working on diversity equity inclusion.

A lot of the unions that you're doing well have business agents like IBW and the carpenters who are dedicated to doing this.

So yeah, I just wanted to find by them.

Thank you, Joni.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Uh the chair recognizes Council Webber, Councilor Gives the Floor.

Uh thank you very much, Chair.

Uh yeah, I guess just following up on uh the last question by Counselor Louie Jen.

Uh I mean, I get you know how are we creating that pipeline, you know, for our you know, uh younger residents or even adults who are you know getting training.

So can you just say a little bit more about that?

Um and and like particularly are we using the data that we're getting from uh the BRJP to create programs to fill in the gaps.

Yeah, I can talk about wearing again my um Office of Workforce Development's hat.

Um we do are doing a lot of work, particularly with Matt within Madison Park High School to expand opportunities for young people into the building trades, the project labor agreement, um, which um was signed back in May of 2025, created the direct pathway for up to 50 young people into the pre-apprenticeship program building trades, and then directly into one of the 17 um trades.

We're also looking at um Madison Park is also looking at expanding to include a carpenter's pathway, and we're working with them hopefully to build and expand um a pathway for Madison Park students directly into um water utilities and um the machinists union as well.

So there's a lot of work in trying to ensure that young people are exposed to these different careers and have direct pathways through commitments from the project labor agreement into um different trades, and um you know, we share BRJP data, the dashboard of public data, we share that regularly and are happy to report.

I know oftentimes we um different departments ask us for how they're doing, and we give them their numbers and encourage them to um check out the dashboard, but building those pathways into good quality careers is what Office of Workforce Development's sole purpose is, and they do that for all of the expanding and important industries, um, whether it be healthcare and life sciences or construction.

You're muted, counselor.

Sorry, uh mentioned the wage theft ordinance.

Uh um, and we I think we're very close to the finish line on that uh to give life to that executive order.

Um in terms of like a little case study here on the dashboard.

If I look at a project like 361 Center Street, blessed sacrament, um, it says I think 10,300 hours have been worked.

Uh and it's uh 51% of the hours worked by people of color, 6.5% were by Boston residents and 5.5% by women.

I mean, like have you issued warning?

Like, would this result in a warning or uh is there I I can't, I I don't know how many contractors are working on this.

Like what what do we do?

What what do you do in your office with this data?

Um, so and I can let senior manager Christopher Brown say, but that warrants what we call a corrective action meeting, in which the general contractor and the subcontractor are brought in for a meeting where we ask for them to report on what their strategies are going to be in order to move forward with stronger commitment to bringing in people of color and women um and Boston residents.

However, we cannot find or sanction them for not meeting those numbers.

We can only find or sanction them if they don't submit their play role on time, or if they don't show up for that corrective action meeting.

So it's really um it's really based on a commitment to try to come to the table and do better, but in terms of our um the teeth that we have, it exists only within those seven compliance measures, though we will bring people in for our control corrective action meeting when we see numbers that are not doing well and they're not meeting goals.

Um Chris, would you add anything there?

Um no, I think you explained it very well.

Um yeah, so we have corrective action meeting.

We continue to pursue the contractor or contractors and make sure that they're making um a better effort.

Uh it might, you know, depending on circumstances could be different, right?

It could be a trade that just doesn't have uh a lot of women that that that's in that trade.

Uh so there's different factors associated with um different trades, different contractors, so forth and so on.

Yeah, I mean, I guess have you taken any action?

I mean, I guess uh I mean uh falling short on women and even shorter on bought on residents, it's only at 6.5%.

Um what's your uh you know they what what specific actions have you taken and just in general, like what's your reaction to numbers like like that?

Is this just you know how it uh you know uh is this uh I don't know, just asking for your reaction.

Yeah, not good, not going in the Boston resident area, not good in the women, very good in people of color.

Uh so one doesn't make up for the other.

Uh so a lot of times when we see high people of color numbers like that, that means that uh obviously the first those people of color are not don't live in Boston, right?

And so we continue to emphasize that it's not good enough uh to say, okay, I got 57% people of color.

I mean, those people don't live in Boston.

Um you know, they might be buying gas in Boston, right?

Uh, but they might be spending money for lunch in Boston, but uh they don't live in Boston.

So we continue uh to ensure that uh their companies uh we're very intentional about uh when about Boston residents and and and women, in particular Boston residents, because that's been the most challenging most recently that's been the most challenging category uh in my experience.

Yeah, uh Chair, I see I see your I just have one uh quick question.

Uh thanks.

Uh so I I think it was in the last uh BRJP meeting, maybe it was two years two meetings ago, where someone from a union said that there was a practice of I think non-union uh contractors of just picking up a van full of folks in a faraway place, you know, uh uh workers of color and then bringing them in, putting them up at a you know, red roof in or something, and uh having them work and and that's that's seeing these numbers kind of made me remember that story.

I I just I don't know if you're uh you know, if you're do you think that is an actual thing that's happening?

Uh is there anything you know the idea that people could be exploited, or is this just how construction works where yeah, you need a lot of workers, uh relatively short uh time frame, so they you have to bring them in for somewhere else.

I I just I maybe think of that story, and I don't know what your thoughts are.

I mean, I heard the same for that the same testimony that you heard.

Um I suspect if if it's a company from let's say way out, right?

Springfield, right?

They're not gonna commute with an hour and a half hour 45 minutes from uh, you know, uh I I would if it look if it's a local company that doesn't uh reside in Boston, say let's live in or something like that, then I would suspect that it's less likely that they would put workers in a hotel if the company and most of the workers from Lynn, right?

Because it's close enough for them to get into Boston.

Yeah, but I've heard the same thing.

I don't have any data uh surrounding that, but I I heard the same testimony.

Yeah, uh okay.

Well, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh I appreciate it.

And uh thanks for conducting this hearing.

It's incredibly important.

Thanks.

Thank you, counselor.

The chair recognizes Councillor Coletta Department.

Counselor, the floor is yours.

I do not no council collar the potato give myself.

Five minutes.

I might not have five minutes worth of questions, but again, thank you for all the work you have done around um uh BRJP.

Um and also just this website.

Um, the progress on here and the data that we're capturing and pushing out is so important.

Uh um I I do believe this is very much part of anti-displacement work, and I know you talked um talked about um you know I guess some of the differences between contractors and how some of them are able to meet different numbers.

Can you just dive into that a little bit more and kind of just elaborate some other differences that you have seen on you know why some contractors are um better at reaching certain goals than others?

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for the question.

Yeah, so I think again, the non-union companies are they can hire person right next door, right?

Um they get a project in Boston.

Doesn't mean the company is based in Boston.

Just they might just got the contract in Boston and they meet with Chris Brown.

I'm like, hey, listen, you need to have Boston residents, people callini, and you need to have a woman too, a woman.

Uh they can just hire the person next door, keep that person for two weeks, three weeks, a month, um, to get numbers on the books, to get hours on the books.

Doesn't necessarily translate into a permanent job for that person, right?

And the company might, you know, go, the next job might be out of Boston and that worker.

I've seen where workers get laid off, right?

Those those people get don't go with the company, right?

Uh really, so we encourage companies to make uh that don't normally work in Boston, they get a contract in Boston, they hire Boston resident to try to keep that person, right?

To try to, if that person's a good worker, uh that person has skill set, uh, is willing to be trained, uh, keep that worker.

Uh keep that worker employed, because you know, the next time you come to Boston, you already have that Boston resident, that person color and that woman on your crew.

And it, you know, it goes both ways, right?

The worker has to show up, the worker has to do the job, um, perform the job, and and that company wants that worker because that worker has that company has timelines to meet and money to make, right?

So it's it's uh especially if their company needs additional, um they're not just hire that person because the person living in Boston, if their company needs additional qualified workers, uh that person can become a permanent uh core worker.

Um, and that's what we we see.

It's important that companies, it starts with the core workers for that company, right?

You have a company that has 10 workers and none of them live in Boston, they're gonna put those 10 people, those workers out on the job site first.

So we are constantly talking to companies about making sure Boston residents, people of color and women are part of your core crew.

And so you won't hear, you won't have to hear from us every time you get a project about not having Boston residents and women because you have you've met a Boston resident, you kept that Boston resident, and so when you get another project, we know because we see contractors over and over again, right?

And we know that company X hired that person on project eight.

So when they have project B, it was like, oh yeah, you still have that worker, keep up the good work.

Now let's add an additional worker.

Awesome.

And then when it comes to monitors, um, I know we've had eight, I think last year.

Where are we at now in terms of product monitors?

So we have seven compliance AA construction monitors, aka um compliance officer, and then we have another uh uh person who's uh Stacy uh Watts, and she does um compliance monitoring with prevailing wages.

So that's her sole responsibility is to check wages uh for prevailing wage wage jobs.

So if you add her, yes, we have eight uh construction monitors or compliance officers.

Yeah, and in terms of uh capacity, uh capacity and responsibility.

Um are we stressed, stretched thin?

Is it more than enough?

Well, more is always better in my opinion.

But you know, I think the staff uh, you know, we have experienced monitors and they're able to manage their their jobs well, uh, prioritize.

Um obviously the more high profile projects get the most attention, uh, but doesn't mean that we're not monitoring the other projects.

We we give them attention uh as well.

Uh but no, I I just think they're doing an excellent job.

Uh the in my opinion, the workloads are not overbearing.

We've had a lot more projects than we have now in the past.

Uh so I I think the monitors are doing an excellent job in managing their workload.

Okay, then my last question is um I know there's been conversation is always like this focus on you know, targeting young people, and I also think there's an opportunity to target our young adults as well, um, or individuals who are, you know, and jobs and looking for career change.

Um, I guess it kind of goes back to this landscape question.

Have we ever surveyed our BPS students uh around, you know, what jobs are are you interested in, right?

To kind of get an idea of you know what direction we should be rowing in.

I know sometimes, you know, adults always want to come up with a plan for the future.

Um so just a just a question, and if not, I would love to see the Office of Workforce Development like kind of establishing some sort of survey just to kind of pick the brains of our young people to hear what their interests in terms of like career paths are.

Yeah, I think there's two forces here.

Obviously, where are young people interested?

And that's likely a question for BPS is there.

Um, but then we at the Office of Workforce Development are very labor market focused.

So we try to invest our dollars and pathways that lead to good quality jobs where there are jobs.

Um so we look at the industries and where there's going to be industry growth in Boston and try to ensure that we're creating pathways to that.

That's why we did that climate jobs report.

That's why we look really closely at the healthcare industry and life sciences.

Um, but I think there's a lot, and we know we'd like to be our Office of Workforce Development partnering closely with the um VPS is happening more and more to ensure that we're um working with young people, not just to help show them which opportunities are there, but hear from them also as to what where and what they want to be doing.

Um, but we do focus for the Office of Workforce Development.

We are very focused on labor market analysis and working with employers because if we're investing dollars and public dollars in pathways, we want it to lead to a good quality family sustaining job.

Absolutely.

I think it's definitely a both hand.

Um I have no further questions.

Um my colleagues by show of virtual hand have any additional questions.

Councilor Louis Jen, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I just have one follow-up question based on the dashboard.

Um, the dashboard isn't able to disaggregate for the detail.

Is it like, are you able to say um capture uh when you when you look at percentage of Boston residents, are you able to disaggregate by neighborhood?

I think we cannot do that, but we might be able to.

I think we've been looking at by zip code, Chris.

Can you remind me what we were looking at to be able to better identify neighborhood impact?

Was it zip code or were we trying to realign zip code with neighborhood names?

So it would be not by neighborhoods.

Uh we called zip code, which it was a little bit tricky to do it by zip code.

I was working with the IT person.

Uh initially, I was like, hey, can we put data together by zip code?

She was like, uh, that's a little bit tricky because however the system set up, but by neighborhood would would be better.

Uh we should be able to put something together by neighborhood.

And what about the uh people of color breakdown?

Are you able to disaggregate that further?

Our reports to the Boston Employment Commission are disaggregated.

So every report to the Boston for Project Reports to the Boston Employment Commission show a breakdown by people of color.

Um, and I can't remember the exact categories, but we definitely have that information, and we we could probably add that to the dashboard as well.

Neighborhood and people of college, yeah.

That would be a great addition to the dashboard.

Because I I also know that in previous iterations of uh these hearings, I would have community panels and they would ask for that information about disaggregated data, just you know, because of the spirit and intent of former city councilor Turner's vision.

And so um, I think that's why it's good for us to be transparent with that information, that data as well if we have it.

Thank you.

That those are all my questions, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, counselor.

Um, seeing no other virtual hand raised, just want to thank the panel for all your hard work.

Um, want to thank um public testimony, um, also um my council colleagues for all their great questions and their advocacy.

Also, just want to give a big shout out to Central staff um for preparing and hosting this meeting.

And with that said, this hearing on Dart number 012 uh 0218 is adjourned.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone.