Contractors know the drill by now—put on the minority “beard” to get the contract, pay the “beard” a nice wad of cash to pretend they matter, and then carry on as normal.
Yes; call it a “diversity tax”. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth here in NJ when they couldn’t find enough preferred minorities for heavy construction work on a large project; the contractors assured them there would be lighter work to follow (you know, the lines of blacks and women waving flags when you drive past a construction site - four or five of them doing what one white guy used to do).
Police departments here have gone from overlooking veterans to now casting aside Hispanic men as well; no shortage of qualified Hispanic men working as cops, and now they’re just taking set-aside jobs from blacks and women.
Yep. Local contractor has decided it’s more efficient to just pay the minority plumber to sit home and hire a qualified plumber to actually DO the work. Ultimately costs less than delays from having to redo the subpar work