Contracts, Discrimination, and a little Basic Math

OK. A group of black contractors in Albany, Ga. are threatening to sue because they feel they've been locked out of contracts. Here's the original story. Jim's thinking the issue a bit overblown, and truly hopes that Jackson doesn't come rolling in to save the day. Dean chimes in by noting that when given a choice between reason and politics...folks will choose politics most of the time. Math makes people's head hurt. And of course, people chiming in on both sites are arguing that what black folks really want are guarenteed contracts, regardless of whether the bid is the lowest.

I'm thinking some context is in order.

First things first. I don't think Jim has anything to worry about as far as Jackson or Al are concerned. I'm pretty sure there's no loot in it for them, and no major press coverage. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

For some reason, I'm reminded of voting rights. When folks say that black people couldn't vote in the South, what they really mean is that MOST black people couldn't vote. There's an interesting story, or set of stories, to be told about the few black people that were allowed to participate. What did they agree to do in exchange for their participation? If they couldn't ever vote against the grain (voting in effect, AGAINST white supremacy) then why in the hell would they vote in the first place? Status plays an important role here most likely. Being able to SAY they could vote was more important than actually voting for their long term interests.

But I'm waxing nostalgic.

If we were to look at the number of registered black people in the deep south who actually voted, I'm betting that number would be fairly high. Taking a look at Hanes Walton's seminal INVISIBLE POLITICS for example I find that in Louisiana between 1900 and 1930, black voter registration hovered around 100. There's no typo there. Out of a black population of 200,000 only 100 were registered.

I'm betting if we looked at black voting in Louisiana as a percent of registration, it'd be around 70% or so. We'd be silly though to use this information as proof of African American political empowerment. Now of course the Albany case is nowhere close--I'm just using the Louisiana example to show that resource allocation should be studied in two stages. The first stage concerns access, the second stage concerns results.

While there is much about the Albany case we don't know, it is clear to me that an argument can at least be made that the first stage requirement of access hasn't been met. Black contractors in Albany probably don't need to know multivariate regression to know that.

Comments

[tootsie]

My Daughter graduated from UofM engineering school,Jack Nasser at the time was ceo of Fordmoco.Jack commencement address started with a look at the class and said this was unacceptable,the school should mirror the state population(only two females and three black males)A company should mirror its customers .The contracts should mirror the population;sending out applications is not enough.
tootsie

[Cobb]

I'd like to know the annual revenues and contracting history of the African American businesses notified as well as the reasons for non-participation. It might moderate the charge, but also deflate the notion that the 297 black notifications were on the up and up.

For all we know some of them were barbershops.

[lks]

the central key is understanding both the history of the businesses, and the nuts and bolts of contracting bids. having had a good friend end up on the bad end of a similar process, while we know there are shaky businesses who don't deserve the time of day, we also know that "lowest bid" doesn't really mean jack. particularly when we're talking about government contracting.

[Ward Bell]

I've recently done some work in this area (developed a compliance monitoring system for a small and underutilized business program; city-government sponsored) and the numbers can be quite deceiving: the raw numbers do not really reflect availability or capacity to do the job.

What seems to be the only real way to work these "affirmative action programs" (I use that term very, very loosely) is to build a comprehensive database of minority suppliers -- including measures of experience and capacity to do the job. Then, require that prime contractors seek out and accept bids from all sub-contractors that perform work in the associated SIC Code areas (construction has some 20 or so SIC Codes that fit various activities). The Primes must report on the results of each of their contacts -- providing reasons for non-selection. My database program partially automated that process.

Finally, and the most important part: the sponsoring agency must invest in some monitoring and auditing because the process relies on self-reporting. If discrimination is found, that prime is severely punished financially.

With the proper follow-up and teeth, Primes quickly begin to see in makes good sense to do business with the lowest, responsible bidder.

Waxing on: one of the problems with setting numerical goals based on population is that even when they can be adjusted to account for experience and capacity to do the work, they become "ceilings" instead of "floors." Pushing the concept of "economic sense" oens the possibility of crashing through such artificial barriers.

In the end, the Governmental Agency involved will have to pay more than lip service to expanding opportunites and for making up for past discrimination.

[lks]

thanks a lot ward. your contribution is very helpful to this discussion. as black businesses ARE businesses conducted by regular folk who just so happen to be black...some of them are going to be random and trifling. on the other hand we know that non-black contract granting agencies (both public AND private) often explicitly and implicitly exclude. and it's possible that both are going on at the same time. it's tricky measuring this dynamic.

[Ward Bell]

Explicit exclusion is against the law: when and if you catch it, you gotta come down hard. You use all the tools available -- including the press and other media. You gotta have your stuff together, however.

Implicit is more difficult: you still gotta work it hard and push the envelopes until "they" do the right thing. (And the right thing is often about the "green;" it is funny how much discrimination goes away when the $$$$ line up right.)

There are 100s of ways to exclude; we need to chip away at them and eliminate the easy ones.

One of the ways is to collaborate: unfortunately, some folks don't understand the whys and hows of collaboration.