A new pilot program aims to offer residents who hail from Long Beach an exclusive chance at finding a job.
Set to last for two years, the program will be requiring some companies that are entering into contracts with the City to seriously consider hiring its own residents.
Dubbed Long Beach First, the program is only meant to cover two kinds of agreements: construction projects valued between $100,000 and $500,000; and non-professional services valued above $100,000. City Manager Patrick West explained that services that fall into the “non-professional” category include custodial, landscaping and tree-trimming jobs.
The Pacific Gateway Workforce Investment Network, which serves both job seekers and businesses in Signal Hill and Long Beach, has been tasked with managing key details of the program. The agency will be exclusively responsible for providing referrals to the bidding contractor. Long Beach residents will have a 10-day window to be considered for a job before others outside the city limits can apply. Ultimately, the hiring decision will still belong to the contractor.
Nick Schultz, who serves as the executive director for Pacific Gateway, confirmed that when the program is up and running, his agency will post the new jobs as they become open and track who gets hired. He explained in a telephone interview that the agency will be responsible for digging into its own client base and reaching out to its network of community partners to find qualified candidates for the project.
First District Councilmember Lena Gonzalez and 9th District Councilmember Rex Richardson spearheaded the effort to create the pilot program.
Gonzalez explained in a phone interview this week that the program is important to City, particularly to central Long Beach. She said that a key area around the 90813 ZIP code suffers from a 19-percent unemployment rate, a surprising statistic that came to light when the council had been studying the terms for the project labor agreement (PLA) earlier this year.
Her colleague Richardson stressed the importance of this new policy to the entire city.
“It’s really about access,” he said in a phone interview as he described how the program will ensure that “with any net new jobs created, Long Beach residents [will] have a first bite at the apple.”
The program did have a number of critics who spoke out at the Sept. 15 city council meeting. Former 7th District Councilmember Tonia Reyes Uranga said that she had been part of a coalition that had asked city leaders to consider a local-hire policy. She expressed frustration with several details of the program, and she particularly voiced concern that there were no specific goals like those outlined in the PLA, which includes a local-hire goal of 40 percent. That local-hire component under the PLA extends beyond hiring Long Beach residents and even includes residents in LA and Orange counties.
The PLA between the City and trade unions is not affected by the Long Beach First program. That agreement, finalized several months ago, covered construction-project bids valued above $500,000.
Reyes Uranga pointed out that the new pilot program only requires “good-faith efforts” and “first considerations” on the part of contractors.
She summed up her disappointment in her address to the council at its meeting on Sept. 15.
“I am only sorry that the City could not deliver,” she said. “I expected much more because, quite frankly, our residents deserve much more.”
In a follow-up phone interview, the former councilmember acknowledged that she will be watching how the program will unfold.
“I just thought that it could have been a better policy,” she said.
While the council unanimously voted in favor of the pilot project, there were other important details that did emerge during the discussion of the program. Enforcement details aren’t fully spelled out in a city staff report.
“Noncompliance with the Long Beach First process may result in liquidated damages assessed per day/per occurrence to be determined at the sole discretion of the city manager,” states a report from the Human Resources Department.
The Pacific Gateway’s executive director did address why there was no goal in the pilot program for a specific number of local hires even though the PLA does have one. Schultz described how the PLA allows for outside parties to evaluate the payroll and accounting records of contractors who work with the City, and the PLA’s local-hire goal is based on the number of hours worked.
He explained that the City doesn’t have the resources to track data on the number of hours worked, so officials and staff agreed to track “net new jobs.” He defined those “net new jobs” as those jobs that a new contractor would not be able to do with existing staff and would have to find personnel.
Councilmember Gonzalez acknowledged the concerns voiced by the local-hire coalition and other critics of the new program.
“Right now I feel like it’s a good start,” she said in a phone interview, adding that she hoped that, when the council obtained sufficient data after the two-year pilot program had runs its course, the program could be formalized in the form of an ordinance.
The program is expected to start soon. Schultz said that he has already met with staff from the Purchasing Department last week to begin to generate the list of upcoming contracts and that they hope to have the program running this month. The language for the contracts and the bid packages are still being developed and will ultimately need to be reviewed by the City Attorney’s Office, he added.
