The Safe From Hate Alliance
The Safe From Hate Alliance is a comprised of employers, trade associations, unions, public agencies, community organizations, and tradesworkers themselves who are committed to collectively addressing harmful construction jobsite culture that contributes to the attrition of skilled craft workers from the industry – and disproportionately impacting women and people of color.
The Safe from Hate Alliance came together following a May 2020 incident in which a noose was found on a downtown Portland construction site. Since that time, with leadership from the Metropolitan Alliance for Workforce Equity (MAWE), community, and industry, dozens of stakeholders have signed the Safe From Hate Jobsite Culture Pledge. The pledge commits signers to enforce a zero-tolerance policy when workers initiate or fail to report job site discrimination. It also commits them to hold job site trainings fostering a positive work environment and to hire a diverse workforce and to get more minority workers into leadership positions.
The vision is to address psychological safety as earnestly as the industry has addressed physical safety, through the development of respectful workplace programming as part of a comprehensive safety plan. The outcome is the active recruitment, retention, and mentorship of diverse workers and the intentional advancement of women and people of color into field leadership positions.
The financial impact of worker attrition due to harmful jobsite culture affects the stability of construction firms through critical worker shortages, wasted investment by costly turnover, continuity of site leadership, safety, crew cohesion and secession. It impacts community stability by restricting a valuable pathway out of poverty and into family wage jobs that do not require a college degree or any associated debt.
Addressing jobsite culture is critical and long overdue. Respectful workplaces are good for the industry:
- minimize lost time
- reduce overall project costs
- increase overall productivity
- support safety protocols
- enhance employee engagement
- support retention of a skilled workforce
- increase health and wellness of workers
Together, coalition members are working to shift the historically toxic jobsite culture of the construction industry, and create safe and respectful worksites for every worker.
The Structure of the Safe from Hate Alliance
