The Failure of Good Faith: Local Hiring Policy Analysis and Recommendations for San Francisco

By the Brightline Defense Project and Chinese for Affirmative Action

Over the next decade, the City and County of San Francisco will invest $27 billion in public infrastructure projects pursuant to its 2011-2020 Capital Plan, creating tens of thousands of jobs in the process. This investment presents policy makers with an extraordinary opportunity to address persistent pockets of high unemployment and poverty, to provide sustainable careers for populations facing systemic barriers to employment, and to strengthen labor standards and worker rights by targeting these job opportunities for residents of San Francisco’s local economically disadvantaged communities. This report first researches the unique nature of the building and construction workforce, and summarizes policies and programs that affect local hiring on public projects. It then presents data on who has worked on recent San Francisco projects and assesses the composition of the construction workforce and trade unions. Next, it offers three models of local hiring policies from other jurisdictions, before finally presenting key findings and recommendations for policy makers to consider in moving forward with a new approach to targeted community hiring in San Francisco.