Delaware Senate Bill 35 passes with no additional amendments, despite pushback from Latino labor groups on requirement for collective bargaining agreements
DOVER, Del.- Senate Bill 35, which aims to increase the diversity in the construction companies that were awarded state contracts passed the House Thursday night and now heads to Governor John Carney’s desk.
The measure passed after defeating multiple amendments including two that would have made explicit protections for Disadvantaged Businesses Enterprise (DBE) pilot programs in the bill, as well as an amendment to strike a requirement for collective bargaining agreements to be reached between those who are awarded bids and unions to have a mix of union and non-union labor on the job site.
A measure to require documentation for laborers as part of the program was also defeated.
The original language for DBE expansion has remained as part of the bill.
The disadvantaged businesses enterprise program seeks to give direct support to individual businesses, which both advocates and opponents of the bill hoped would have been called on to specifically help Latino-owned businesses after a disparity study found those were the least represented in the states bidding for public works projects.
Proponents of the bill, including Delaware AFL CIO Leader James Maravelias tell 47ABC the measure will introduce much-needed diversity to the workforce and believes the measure ultimately comes down to who is enforcing the hiring, the Unions or the businesses themselves.
“It’s always been verify and trust I don’t believe in that, I want to be on the job site to watch what goes on I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I know the contractors do what they want to on the site so we want to be there to be sure the minority population is represented and also have women on the jobs site which we don’t see in this state at all union or no union,” Maravelias said.
Marvelias was joined by union workers in support of the bill at legislative hall Thursday.
But the Latino business leaders who were protesting the bill in Dover today say they should be the ones to manage diversity in hiring.
Senate Bill 35 opponent Javier Torrijos says he believes the current language is heavy-handed in its requirement for Latino businesses to have union labor, and lead a protest against the measure at legislative Hall Thursday.
“We believe in choice and to have the government require these collective bargaining agreements is anti-choice,” he said adding “We want to see the DBE program and what we want is to have it across the board and remove the collective bargaining language and language and to add requirements for hiring Latino worker to increase their percentage in the workforce,” he said
In response to the bill passing without the amendments, Torrijos released the following statement to 47ABC:
“The Hispanic leadership, business owners, workers, and families who were present today are extremely disappointed with the Democratic party for not letting their voices be heard. We are disappointed that it came down to party lines. We thank the Republicans for standing up and supporting us at Legislative Hall. This pilot project discriminates against a community that is majority non-union. We ask the Governor to please veto this bill and stand up for a minority group that will be impacted by this legislation.”
