MoDOT's I-64 project to offer minority job training

ST. LOUIS -- More than six years after protesters blocked highway traffic asking for more minority construction contracts, a plan to hire a large minority work force is moving forward on a multimillion-dollar interstate project here.

The Missouri Department of Transportation has committed more than $2 million of the project budget to train minority, women and low-income workers for the Interstate 64 construction slated to begin by 2007.

Metropolitan Congregations United has set a goal to have 30 percent of the work force include that demographic. The MCU held a news conference Monday near the busy highway that bisects St. Louis to highlight the training.

MCU, labor unions, highway contractors and other community organizations have been meeting in recent weeks to come up with a plan to meet that goal through training. The Rev. Tommie Pierson, MCU's president, said the plan is to use and improve training programs that are already in place for construction jobs.

Pierson said he wants the same attention given to plans for a new Mississippi River bridge at St. Louis.

"Good jobs can solve a whole lot of social problems and African-Americans can have a big part of this construction project," Mayor Francis Slay said.

The $535 million project to improve and widen 12 miles of I-64 with new bridges and interchanges in St. Louis should be finished by October 2010.

In July 1999, protesters blocked morning rush hour on I-70 when the Rev. Al Sharpton led the MOKAN minority contractors group to push the state to give more highway construction contracts to minority-owned firms.

The blockade got the attention of then-Gov. Mel Carnahan and MoDOT.

"We were invisible at that point and people did not see this as a real issue," said Eddie Hasan, president of MOKAN. "I'm excited about what I hear today."

Since 1999, MoDOT has revamped its program for disadvantaged business enterprises and raised the number of those state-certified companies from 220 to about 1,300, according to MoDOT spokeswoman Linda Wilson.

So far, MoDOT has stood by federal regulations that require only a 14 percent goal for a minority work force on such projects, about half of what MCU has proposed, Wilson said.

"The protest in 1999 certainly raised the level of discussion that wasn't happening before," Wilson said.

"It's a valuable thing to bring all these groups together to continue to improve the level of inclusion on highway projects, but we are still not there yet."

A second informational session also was held Monday in St. Louis for minority subcontractors wanting to work on the I-64 project.

A number of primary contractors have already been asked to submit bids to lead the project, but most of those companies are large non-minority owned businesses, Wilson said.

Rep. Yaphett El-Amin, D-St. Louis, challenged MoDOT Monday to increase its goal, pointing to a 25 percent minority work force used on a project at Lambert Airport in St. Louis.

"We applaud you for taking this first step," El-Amin said. "But we need a further commitment."

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On the Net:

Missouri Department of Transportation: http://www.thenewi64.org