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By Chuck Slothower
[email protected]

Months after convening the聽 Construction Career Pathways Project聽work group,聽Metro聽is beginning to forge a path forward to encourage more women and minorities to enter and remain in the building trades.

The effort brings together 16 entities from around the Portland-metro region, including city and county governments, transportation agencies,聽Oregon Health & Science University聽and聽Home Forward.

鈥淚n many cases, there are strong programs in place,鈥� said Noelle Dobson, equity strategy program analyst for Metro, 鈥渁nd it鈥檚 a matter of how we might replicate some of those and take them to scale.鈥�

Some local governments, including the city of Portland, have instituted equity requirements for major public projects. However, there are not enough minority and women employees for firms to comply, Dobson said.

鈥淚t鈥檚 both a supply and a demand issue,鈥� she said. 鈥淓ven if all agencies had (equity) goals 鈥� right now, the supply is not there to meet that demand.鈥�

Retention of minorities and women in the construction industry continues to fall short. The work group is looking at the root causes of low retention, including child care and transportation issues and how workers are treated at job sites.

鈥淭he retention rates are not great,鈥� Dobson said. 鈥淭here are issues around jobsite mentoring, jobsite training, jobsite culture. There are issues of harassment, where people say it鈥檚 not worth it to come to work.鈥�

Members of the work group are examining pilot efforts such as Multnomah County鈥檚 鈥淕reen Dot鈥� program at its Central Court-house project to encourage reporting of harassment.

鈥淗ow do we address some of these barriers that aren鈥檛 related to: Are you a good bricklayer? Are you a good electrician?鈥� Dobson said.

There are also efforts at the聽 Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center聽 project site to help workers.
Construction workers face commutes to work sites that change with each project, and challenging hours that create child care obstacles for working parents, Dobson said. Mortenson is serving as general contractor of the 600-room hotel.

A flood of large public projects is expected to create a steady demand for construction workers for the next several years. These include the聽Southwest Corridor聽Light Rail project, the聽Broadway Corridor聽and the Bull Run filtration plant.