by Jon Styf
The Tennessee Legislature reached an agreement on a bill that could provide more transparency on construction contracts with Ford’s Blue Oval City megasite development in west Tennessee.
The bill could require construction contractors doing more than $100,000 of work at Blue Oval City to disclose details such as number of employees, the state of residence for each worker, union affiliation (if any) and the work they performed to the state building commission and the speakers of both legislative chambers quarterly.
The compromise on House Bill 2659 and Senate Bill 2204 came on the final day of the legislative session. The bill will now head to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk.
The bill applies to any construction work done on a project at the state-owned megasite. It was touted as a transparency requirement related to building at the site, where the Legislature has agreed to give Ford Motor Company $884 million in incentives for its $5.6 billion project.
The bill requires contractors to report the name of the construction company, if workers belong to a union and the number of employees working on the project.
The $100,000 of work required on the project came from the Senate version of the bill.
During House discussion of the bill, Rep. Tim Rudd, R-Murfreesboro, said that it was important for the state to make sure that Ford and its contractors are following state law by not discriminating against non-union contractors when hiring for construction work at the site.
Rudd said that, if the bill passed, the state could then make a call to Ford if it felt that state law was not being followed.
“Earlier this year, we had Tennessee businesses that were applying to do work on the site and they were turning them down based on how much union participation was in their employee force and that was not within Tennessee law,” Rudd said.
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for The Center Square, Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.
Photo “Jim Farley” by Ford. Background Photo “Ford” by Ford.
What is the relevance of the worker being union affiliated to the work performed? Likewise, checking the state residency of each worker? Why? The Memphis area has contiguous states within driving distance. Is the “transparency” better defined as an initiative to assure union membership”…? Sounds like governmental over-reach to appease a small constituency of campaign contributors.
Exactly what is the penalty if Ford violates the terms? A phone call? For goodness sake’s, legislators, put teeth in a bill. We elected you to do your job fully..not half-zzz
Make sure there’s “transparency” in this new stadium deal as well!
Can this so-called transparency bill be circumvented by a contractor simply signing multiple deals each being for less than $100,000 but the total of all being much more? Or maybe by forming multiple companies with each having contracts less than $100,000. I do not trust our legislature. The whole Ford deal stinks.
I hope E-verify will be in full use for this construction project. If not, it needs to be enforced.