AN ORDINANCE related to City public works and the priority hire program; amending Sections 20.37.010, 20.37.020, 20.37.040, and 20.37.050 of the Seattle Municipal Code to change references to “project labor agreement” to “community workforce agreement,” to make certain technical corrections, and to change the number of core workers open-shop contractors may bring to a project.
The report of the Full Council Agenda Item one Council vote 1190 32 relating to City Public Works in the Priority Hire program amending sections 20.30 7.0, 10.0, 20.0 49.0 50 of the ceiling. Mr. Code to change references to project labor agreement to community workforce agreement, to make certain technical corrections and to change the number of core workers open shop contractors may bring to a project. Councilmember Herbold. Thank you. Does this item need to be moved or not? I'll move it after you speak to it. Thank you. So just a little bit of context. The priority hire program requires that public works construction projects that have contracts totaling 5 million or more must be covered by a master community workforce agreement. That does two primary things. First of all, it requires a minimum percentage of workers being local residents from economically disadvantaged zip codes and it requires utilization of apprentice IT apprentices that come from pre apprenticeship programs. This second requirement improves the opportunity of an on and underemployed workers receiving entry level training to be eventually placed on these public works projects. We're celebrating two years since the passage of this legislation, and this program is very successful in maximizing the city's investment in public infrastructure to help residents secure apprenticeship and journey level employment opportunities on city funded works, public works projects. The legislation, as passed out of committee makes a couple of changes to the to the priority hire legislation. Primarily, it will reduce from 5 to 3 the number of court employees that open shop contractors may include on a project before hiring through the priority hire hiring process. And two, it allows open shop in women and minority business enterprise contractors to bring, in addition to the three core employees, two apprentices from state approved training programs that are either a worker from a disadvantaged zip code, a pre apprenticeship graduate, or a woman or person of color. These revisions are supported by the executive, and they're also supported by the Priority Hire Advisory Committee. Since the passage of the 25 legislation, Seattle residents have actually doubled their percentage of hours on projects compared to past projects where the percentage of Seattle residents working on these taxpayer funded projects prior to priority hire was only 5%. And then the the the efforts of focusing on workers in economically distressed zip codes in Seattle has been very successful because those zip codes are now performing more than three times the hours as compared to past projects. And then finally, women more work more than two times the hours. Now, compared to previous years. Very good. Um, I'll move to pass Council Bill 119032. Is there a second? I'll get it. Okay. Thanks for the description of that. Bill comes from her brother. Any further comments? We're good. He's got the role on the passage of the bill. Herbold Hi. Johnson. Swan I bagshaw Burgess I. Gonzalez, President Herrell I seven in favor and unopposed. Bill passed and chair of the Senate Please read Agenda Item number two.