LISTEN TO RON HARRIS:
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“If we don’t do something about it, it’s going to be like Bolling Joint Air Force Base. They have 13,000 jobs over there [and] only three percent are held by D.C. residents,” Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry said last week about the construction of the $3.4 billion Department of Homeland Security headquarters at St. Elizabeths in Anacostia, the largest federal construction project since the building of the Pentagon.
“The only thing this community ever asked for was an opportunity,” said Ron Harris, an organizer with DC Jobs or Else. Harris says too few District residents have been hired to work on the project by Clark Construction, the lead contractor hired by General Services Administration (GSA). The license plates in the parking lot outside the site seem to confirm Harris’s assertion. Of the 151 cars, 72 had Maryland license plates, 68 had Virginia tags, and only 9 were from D.C. (there was one car each from Pennsylvania and West Virginia).
At the Sept. 21 action, protesters shut down the construction entrance to the DHS site by not allowing any trucks to enter or leave, just as they did on Aug. 31. “We don’t work, they don’t work,” they chanted. Speaking to demonstrators through a bullhorn, an organizer with DC Jobs or Else said, “Clark now knows that anytime this community is ready to come and shut this project down, the people are going to come out and do it.”
As he walked through Barry Farm – the public housing that abuts the site, where unemployment is sky high – Harris said, “We’re not saying give all the jobs to D.C. residents or Ward 8 residents. No, the only thing we’re saying is give them an opportunity because we have qualified residents in this community who could do this work… The only thing they want to do is, like anyone else, provide for their family and be a positive influence in their community.”
Before protesters marched to St. Elizabeths, they gathered at Matthews Memorial Baptist Church, where Barry told them, “I stand in solidarity with Clark being kicked in the [butt]… Because they’re not only doing this at St. Elizabeths, they have a number of D.C. government contracts that they’re not doing right on.”
Clark’s staunchest supporter has been Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. In a Sept. 19 statement she said, “356 D.C. residents are working at the site, most on construction, and account for 25 percent of the total workers there… [which] is high considering that D.C. residents account for only 10 percent of the regional population, and considering the proportion of D.C. residents generally working on construction projects in the District.”
Harris contends that the 25 percent number is not as impressive as it sounds. “Clark Construction has manipulated the numbers to make it appear as if they are hiring more local residents than they actually are. Despite what they claim, certified payroll data show that fewer than 14 percent of total work hours on the site have been performed by DC residents, based on an analysis of data obtained through a request under the Freedom of Information Act,” said Ron Harris in a press release.
“Part of our frustration is that our elected officials and GSA and Clark Construction, when they started this project they came to this community and made a lot of promises,” Harris explained. “The only thing we’re saying is [they should] fulfill their promises and give folks in this community an opportunity.”
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