Ten building contractors were recognized Monday, Aug. 11, 2014, by the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners for hiring the most Long Beach residents for construction jobs at the Port of Long Beach’s Middle Harbor Redevelopment Project.
The companies received the Port of Long Beach’s first “Community Partner Awards” for their work at the $1.3 billion terminal project.
The Port started encouraging contractors to employ Long Beach residents at the project before construction started in April 2011. While there is a requirement to have at least 30 percent of workers come from the region, hiring city residents is voluntary.
Since construction started, more than 300 Long Beach residents have worked on one or more of the projects, logging more than 130,000 hours of labor, adding up to 12 percent of hours worked on the project. The jobs include heavy equipment operators, iron workers, electricians and more, and range from apprentice-level to highly skilled and experienced.
“I’d like to thank our contractors for making the decision to give back to the community by hiring from the Long Beach community,” said Harbor Commission President Doug Drummond. “These Community Partner Award winners are leading the way. They exceeded the requirements and everyone benefited.”
The contractors receiving the inaugural Community Partner Awards are:
American Plumbers
B&I Equipment Rentals
Cal Steel
Connolly Pacific
Dynalectric
Herzog/Reyes Joint Venture
Manson Construction
Neubauer Electric
Parker Diving
The outstanding contractor award goes to:
Manson/Connolly Pacific Joint Venture
The first phase of Middle Harbor construction is governed by “project labor agreements” between the Port and the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council. Those agreements require that 30 percent of workers are residents of Los Angeles or Orange counties. At present, 79 percent of the work force hails from one of those two counties.
The Middle Harbor Terminal Redevelopment Project is combining two older shipping terminals into one state-of-the-art container terminal. The technologically advanced terminal will increase cargo-movement capacity while decreasing air pollution emissions. The first part of the new terminal is scheduled to open in 2015 and the entire project is set to be completed in 2019.