Nashville Council majority, unions promote bill to bolster construction worker safety

The majority of Nashville's council is lining up behind a bill that aims to bolster construction worker safety under city contracts.

The bill, introduced by District 30 Council member Sandra Sepulveda on Tuesday, would establish a board to monitor and inspect Metro's existing construction projects to ensure safe working conditions and equitable wages for workers.

"(Metro) Nashville holds a significant role as one of the largest purchasers of construction projects in Nashville," Sepulveda said, surrounded by workers union representatives, council members and community members in a news conference on the steps of Nashville's courthouse. "It's imperative that we set the standard for safety moving forward."

The bill passed its first of three readings Tuesday and now has 26 council members signed on as co-sponsors.

This is Sepulveda's second attempt at legislation aiming to bolster worker protections in Music City. Tennessee's legislature preempted a bill introduced by Sepulveda in 2021 that would have included workplace safety and fair compensation in the city's contract awarding criteria.

The proposed five-member board and a non-voting council member would evaluate Metro's construction contracts and inspect sites to ensure contracts are compliant with Metro's equal business opportunity program. The board could investigate complaints regarding projects involving the Metro government and make contract policy recommendations to Metro's Finance Department.

The board, lacking its own enforcement authority, would refer inspection findings to federal or state regulators.

"We recognize that agencies like OSHA and TOSHA are stretched thin and lack the resources to adequately inspect all construction sites," Sepulveda said. "By bolstering our inspection capabilities we not only address the lack of inspectors but also safeguard Metro's interest concerning our contracts. This is no longer a question of what happens when we encounter wage theft, workplace injuries or fatalities on Metro sites. The question now is what is Metro willing to do?"

This work, she said, is years in the making, during which time Nashville saw the deaths of 16-year-old Gustavo Enrique Ramirez who was working on the roof at a La Quinta Inn project in 2020 and 20-year-old Denis Geovani Ba Ché who fell to his death in October 2023 while repairing the roof at Glencliff High School.

"Every week, every month, every year we wait, more people are getting hurt, more people are dying," Sepulveda told The Tennessean. "So I'm finally happy to have arrived at a good solution. I know we still have to get through the passing of the legislation and get through the budget cycle, but we're pretty optimistic."

Nashville is in the midst of crafting its budget for fiscal year 2025, and the proposed board would need a budget to hire an executive director and inspectors. Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell's budget proposal does not include funding for the board's creation, but Metro Council could include it in its upcoming substitute budget.

At-large Council member Delishia Porterfield, who serves as the council's Budget and Finance Committee chair, said it could cost around $500,000 to fund such a board. While the budget is "very tight," it's a priority for her and she's "committed to working very hard with Finance … to find a way to fund it."

For Ethan Link, vice president representing the Laborers' International Union of North America on the Tennessee Central Labor Council, Nashville has been waiting too long for something like this to protect the wellbeing of the workers who build Nashville.

"Every time I drive past the La Quinta Inn, I think about Gustavo and the system that led him to not coming home. And now after years of inaction, Metro Nashville has been visited by consequences of contractor negligence," Link said Tuesday.

"Denis Geovani Ba Ché was a 20-year-old trying to make a life here in America. He gave his labor, his sweat, his early morning hours and ultimately his life repairing our schools," Link said. "Denis should have never been on that rotten roof, but the contractors who put him there didn't care. They knew he couldn't say no because no one was listening, and no one was watching until he laid dead on the floor of that gymnasium."

Alonzo Alvarex Choc, Ba Ché's cousin, said he was "loved and respected by everyone in our village" and is greatly missed.

"The reason I am here today is to seek justice for the working class of Tennessee and to prevent the situation that my family experienced from happening again," Choc said.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville considers bill to bolster construction worker safety