Ordinance Aims to Provide Skilled Jobs for Newark Residents

Mayor Cory Booker Tuesday signed into law an ordinance requiring contractors to make “good faith efforts” to hire local residents for construction projects and also extracts a promise from unions not to strike.

“This ordinance makes sure Newarkers have pathways to real careers. Newark is going to continue to build,” Booker said during a signing ceremony in his office, which was attended by Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, county labor leaders and members of the Newark Municipal Council.

The ordinance requires contractors on certain projects to enter into so-called “project labor agreements” with the city that meet a number of minimum requirements, including the provision that local residents be hired for at least some of the work.

The ordinance only comes into effect for public projects whose cost exceeds $5 million or private-sector projects exceeding $25 million that have also been granted tax abatements. Most major projects in the city have received such tax breaks. 

The ordinance states that for affected projects, contractors must make a “good faith effort” to ensure 20 percent of the work hours are performed by Newark residents in trade apprenticeship programs and that 30 percent of project work hours are performed by female or minority city residents.

The law also requires labor unions to seek out Newark residents for apprenticeships when projects come up and requires developers to help pay for job fairs. The city and unions, working with agencies like The Institute for Social Justice, will also help provide pre-apprenticeship services, said Deputy Mayor Adam Zipkin, who spearheads the city’s development efforts.

City residents have long complained that they have been left out of the building boom in Newark, where Panasonic, Wakefern, Marriot and other corporations are in the midst of major construction projects. Even when Newarkers have found jobs on work sites, critics said, they were low-skilled and only provided employment for the lifetime of the project.

The ordinance signed Tuesday is designed not just to give Newarkers temporary work but marketable skills, Booker and others said Tuesday.

“There had to be two wings to the plane,” said West Ward Councilman Ron Rice, who with Council President Donald Payne was one of the chief council sponsors of the ordinance. “The other wing was to ensure residents had a pathway to jobs that lead to careers.”

Booker first proposed a project labor agreement ordinance in 2009 that was tabled by the council, with the two branches of government fighting over the specifics for the next three years. But the governing body and the mayor congratulated each other Tuesday for an ordinance that Rice said will benefit the city “in perpetuity, during any administration.”