Allegheny County Council - File #: 2379-06

• File #: 2379-06
• Version: 2
• Name: An Ordinance of the County of Allegheny, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, amending Part 9, Article 903 of the Administrative Code, §5-903.02, to restrict County purchases of goods or products made in sweatshop conditions in the course of the formal procureme
• Type: Ordinance
• Status: Approved
• File created: 2/7/2006
• In control: Special Committee on Government Reform
• Final action: 3/6/2007
• Title: An Ordinance of the County of Allegheny, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, amending Part 9, Article 903 of the Administrative Code, §5-903.02, to restrict County purchases of goods or products made in sweatshop conditions in the course of the formal procurement process.
• Sponsors: William Robinson, Jim Burn, Joan Cleary, Rich Fitzgerald, John DeFazio, Michael Finnerty, Chuck Martoni, Brenda Frazier, William E. Lestitian, Bob Macey

Date	Ver.	Action By	Action	Result
3/15/2007	2	Chief Executive	Signed by Chief Executive
3/6/2007	1	County Council	Amended and Passed for Chief Executive Signature	Pass
2/22/2007	1	Special Committee on Government Reform	Released from the Committee
2/7/2006	1	County Council	Referred

TITLE
An Ordinance of the County of Allegheny, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, amending Part 9, Article 903 of the Administrative Code, §5-903.02, to restrict County purchases of goods or products made in sweatshop conditions in the course of the formal procurement process.

BODY
WHEREAS, Allegheny County Council has historically encouraged principles of fair employment; and

WHEREAS, County Council recognizes that the concept of fair employment should be encouraged and applied throughout the County's own policies and procedures, where appropriate; and

WHEREAS, sweatshops are still present even in American society, with 36% of all respondents to a survey conducted in 1999 among Chicago's immigrant and low-income communities indicating that they work under conditions that meet the United States Department of Labor's definition of a sweatshop; and

WHEREAS, that same survey found that 35% of the respondents worked with hazardous chemicals, open flames, dangerous equipment, or in conditions of extreme heat or cold, with 30% not being permitted to take a paid or unpaid sick day without risk of being fired, and with 8% working in facilities in which the exits were kept locked during the work day; and

WHEREAS, during the course of the recent negotiation of an intergovernmental cooperation agreement between the County and City of Pittsburgh regarding purchasing functions, it was noted that the City has a prohibition on purchasing goods made under sweatshop conditions but the County does not; and

WHEREAS, it is the considered opinion of County Council that it is desirable for the County to establish a policy formally restricting the purchase of goods made in sweatshops and that, in order to ease the burden of administering combined City and County purchasing functions, it is desirable for the City and County sweatshop rules to be uniform;

The Council of the County of Allegheny hereby enacts as follows:

SECTION 1.

Subsection A of Article...