Updated Nov. 18, 6:15 a.m.
A Boston commission approved a new policy Wednesday to impose fines on developers who fail to provide the city demographic data on their workforce, under a longstanding city ordinance that requires builders to employ Boston residents, women and people of color.
The new policy allows fines of up to $300 per day for each violation of a series of procedural requirements. Only one member of the Boston Employment Commission — Priscilla Flint-Banks, the newest member — voted against it, saying that it does not go far enough.
Under the Boston Residents Jobs Policy, city-funded projects and private construction jobs of 50,000 square feet or more must have a workforce that is at least 40% people of color, 12% women and 51% Boston residents.
A GBH News examination last month showed almost all major construction projects failed to meet those hiring standards over the last five years. None of the top 150 projects met the standard for hiring women, just three met the standard for hiring Boston residents and less than a third met racial equity goals. GBH News previously reported that the city has never issued sanctions related to the policy.
The new sanctions policy still does not include penalties for failing to meet the goals; instead it focuses on penalties for failing to report data and meet with city officials who are monitoring the workforce numbers.
Punishable violations include starting work on a project before meeting with the employment commission; missing “corrective action” meetings designed to increase hiring of diverse workers; and failing to submit weekly payroll data or confirm that workers live in Boston. City officials have previously said they do not have the legal authority to fine companies for failing to hire women or workers of color because there is no data to prove those workers are available.
“We didn’t get everything we wanted from this, but it certainly is a long way from where we started,” said JocCole Burton, who chaired Wednesday’s employment commission meeting.
The new sanctions policy also permits the city to create and distribute a list of repeat offenders — companies that consistently fail to meet requirements — although it does not necessarily ban them from working on future projects.
Burton said he was hopeful the new policy would open the door to future sanctions and give the jobs policy “as much bite” as possible.
Flint-Banks said the $300-per-day fine for each violation per day will be too small to pressure noncompliant firms into hiring a more diverse workforce.
“I don’t think it’s clear enough,” she said. “I don’t think it has enough teeth.”
Commissioner Charles Cofield, who voted in support of the new policy, said he’s been unhappy with the city’s inability to sanction contractors since he joined the commission last year. He said noncompliant contractors should be barred from working in Boston or anywhere in Massachusetts. But “if the legal guidelines in the state or in this city are not going to allow us to move forward,” he said, at least the new sanctions policy creates some level of punishment.
The timeline for the policy to take effect is not yet clear. Celina Barrios-Millner, Boston's chief of equity and inclusion, said her team would “circle back with legal” to determine when the city can begin sanctioning.
Daniel Kool is a Boston University student who is part of the Justice Media Computational Journalism co-Lab, a collaboration between the College of Communication, the BU Hub and BU Spark!, an incubator and experiential learning lab for computer science and engineering projects.
Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story misattributed a quote to Celina Barrios-Millner. The story has be updated to correct the attribution.
