Nashville Council Takes A Stand On Worker Safety, But Questions Linger About Enforcement

Nashville’s council wants to improve safety conditions and employment rules to better protect construction workers. 

During this week’s meeting, councilmembers unanimously voted on a bill that tries to do the following:

• Requires employers to offer permanent jobs after employing a worker for 30 days. 
• Puts a freeze on contractors getting a Metro contract for three years if they violate employment laws or safety violations. If contractors don’t have a written contract for all subcontractor work, it makes them ineligible for seven years.
• Makes changes for who should be on seven member procurement board. That will now include the Metro director of finance, Metro director of law, the head of another Metro department, four outside members who aren’t Metro employees or elected officials. At least one member should be a woman and another an African American, but a single person, such as a Black woman, couldn’t meet both requirements.
• At least one handwashing station on every floor of the project being constructed. OSHA standards must be met when it comes to providing bathrooms for workers.

Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda says she introduced the measures to protect the people that are building Nashville. Before the council got into the details, she reminded everyone that 16-year-old Guastvo Ramirez died on a construction site a year ago.

“Far too often, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers don’t come home,” she explains in a somber tone. “Far too often the people go to work where they may experience wage theft. These people build our city.”

Despite the bill’s passage, a state law passed last month will be a roadblock to making most of it enforceable. 

Since September, Sepulveda and labor groups met with lawyers four times to draft legislation. By April, Governor Bill Lee signed a law that targeted and undercut their efforts.

“As it is currently submitted, I would estimate 85-95% of it is preempted by state law,” the mayor’s director of legislative affairs, Mike Jameson, told council on Tuesday. “If it were to be adopted by the council tonight, I would not be doing my job if I did not tell the mayor in the morning you can not sign this.”

But that didn’t discourage Sepulveda and the council from standing up to the challenge by approving the bill.

“For far too long, we’ve been afraid of what the state is going to do,” Sepulveda said. “And I don’t think that’s the way we should be governing. If we’re going to govern like that I don’t know why I’m here.”

A letter submitted to the mayor on Thursday outlines every part of the bill isn’t enforceable except changes to the procurement board. And it highlights that this is one of several efforts in recent years the state has taken to restrict local governments power in soliciting and enforcing contracts.

One of the mayor’s spokespeople said he will follow their guidance and not sign the bill. That would allow the law to go into effect without him signing on.

The law could take effect May 11 if the mayor doesn’t veto the law. WPLN News is checking to see if that’s his plan. It’s also unclear if Metro departments will be advised not to enforce the law.

That comes after the council unanimously approved a deal to bring tech giant Oracle to town, which has also raised questions about ensuring worker safety during the large amount of construction.