| Opportunity Knocks
Hard At Jail Jobs Fair
By Courtland Milloy - The
Washington Post - Wednesday, November 30, 2005; Page B01
A jobs fair was held inside the D.C.
jail yesterday. It was a first. Eleven inmates due to be
released early next year showed up for job interviews dressed
in freshly pressed orange jumpsuits. Some even brought resumes.
Charles D. Harris's curriculum vitae was especially well
crafted. It noted his many years of legitimate work experience,
including a custodial job in Lewisburg, Pa., from 1987 to
1999. He had "cleaned and disinfected restroom facilities
including fixtures, sinks, urinals and toilets." The
rsum did not note, however, that he was an inmate at the
federal prison in Lewisburg at the time or that he was doing
19 years for manslaughter. But that was all right. The focus
of the jobs fair was on the future, not the past.
Harris and the other 10 inmates recently completed a six-week
employment skills program sponsored by Jobs Partnership
Greater Washington. They will soon be among the 2,000 or
so District residents who are released from correctional
facilities each year -- many of whom are woefully unprepared
to lead productive lives upon their return to the city.
"During a visit to the Rivers Correctional Institution
in North Carolina, where about two-thirds of the inmates
are from D.C., I asked how many were in for parole violations,
and about two-thirds of the hands went up," recalled
the Rev. Stephen Tucker, president and chief executive of
the Jobs Partnership, a faith-based program developed by
a coalition of 156 Washington area churches. "There
is a great danger of them going back once they get out --
for not reporting to their parole officers, not finding
a job and not passing the drug tests. We're trying to break
that cycle, and the best way is to get inside the jail and
get to them before they are released."
Myles Gladstone, a vice president at Miller & Long Concrete
Construction Co., brought good news for the job seekers.
The D.C.-based company is the largest concrete subcontractor
in the United States, with more than 3,000 employees and
about $400 million in construction work expected to begin
soon.
"Our minimum wage is $10.50 an hour; none of our employees
makes less than that," he told them. "We also
have a great benefits package, plus a profit-sharing plan
that has allowed some of our employees to retire with close
to a million bucks."
But there was a catch.
"We start our day at 7 a.m. If you come at 7:01, you're
late," Gladstone said. "We've had people living
within eyesight of the job who couldn't get there on time.
We even bought some of them alarm clocks, and then they'd
say the battery ran out or the electricity was turned off.
In the last two years, we have offered employment to or
actually hired about 200 people. Of that number, only two
are still working for us today."
The inmates nodded. They understood the challenge. Most
of them had job experience -- including construction work.
But bad attitudes and poor work habits had caused them to
lose the jobs.
Their job training had stressed spiritual development, the
importance of integrity, taking responsibility, dealing
with authority figures and controlling emotions. If the
inmates got the jobs they were seeking from Miller &
Long, they would most assuredly need those skills to get
them through the day.
"You may be assigned to work for a Hispanic foreman
who speaks no English, but it can be done," Gladstone
told them. "We try to treat everybody with respect,
but you may get treated a little rough at times. When we've
got 15 concrete trucks backed up and the concrete inside
is starting to harden, it can get rough and you can't be
thin-skinned or take things personally."
And that wasn't all of it. "Just about everything we're
building now are condominiums," Gladstone said. "People
are putting out about $800,000 for each unit. I don't know
where they're getting all of that money from."
None of the inmates was nodding in approval now. But Harris
remained undaunted. "I believe that if I put God first,
everything else is going to work out," he said.
The jobs program had certainly taught him how to talk the
talk. Come his release Jan. 23, he'll find out if he can
walk the walk.
E-mail:
milloyc@washpost.com
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