As the Prince George's County school system prepares to build six new schools in three years under a public-private partnership, questions surround who's building the schools and how workers are being compensated.
Lanham-based DC Plumbers Local 5 is one of many trades asking the Prince George’s County Council to hire union on construction projects.
“We’re not advocating so much for the union workers; we’re advocating for workers, period,” said T Smalls, who represents the union.
New majority on the Council is requesting a labor project agreement ensuring a percentage of county workers are hired and that the construction jobs are union.
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“Our residents have health care benefits, retirement and things that most people take for granted,” Council member Ed Burroughs said.
The move caused backlash. Almost 50 Black businesses signed a petition saying they're concerned their construction companies tend to be smaller and some don't have union affiliations.
“There's just institutional barriers and challenges of things that have been in place for years and years that minority small businesses, new businesses, have to overcome, and that's what this creates – more of those barriers,” Warren Builds President and CEO Shane Warren said.
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Council member Mel Franklin said the Council's move to create a project labor agreement for the school construction project is punishing Black business owners who are trying to grow.
“Our minority business community has been the subject of discrimination over the last several decades, particularly in the construction industry,” he said. “So, we should be doing the opposite of shutting them out of opportunity.”
Some Black and brown contractors also wrote the Council supporting the union agreements, saying they insure quality work from contractors and workers.
Smalls hopes the workers Local 5 trains have a guaranteed future close to home.
“We’re just wanting a level playing field for all Prince Georgians to get the work done in the county,” he said.
Burroughs said at the end of the January the Council will meet with some minority business owners to try to work some of this out.
Franklin said he's concerned that if the Council doesn't meet its deadline by the end of summer, they could lose the opportunity to build the six schools.
