Hurdles remain for landmark legislation that seems to pave the way for opening the city’s predominately white trade unions to more minorities.

The measure rolled several groundbreaking caveats into the operating agreements needed for the $700 million expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It moved out of committee Thursday. Its sponsor, City Councilman Frank DiCicco, is expected to call for a final vote this week. If he fails to do so, the proposal could die.

In addition, Gov. Ed Rendell must agree to the conditions imposed this week by City Council and officials at the Convention Center must choose to implement them.

The Tribune was unable to reach the governor or Convention Center president Albert Mezzeroba Friday for comment.

The unprecedented proposal stipulates nonunion contractors would be allowed to submit bids and nonunion workers would be allowed to work at the construction site, sets participation goals of 40 percent with the following breakdown — 25 percent African-American participation, 10 percent Hispanic and 5 percent Asian.

To ensure that those goals are met, the proposal also included a proviso that forces the convention center authority to issue monthly reports on participation rates and conduct a random on-site labor census twice a week and provide payroll verification that minorities and women are actually working on the project.

Further, Council would also require contractors to turn in proof of timely payments to sub-contractors once every month.

After the fierce battle between the city and unions in committee this week, it seems unlikely that the measure will not fly through Council, said Councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr.

What happens after that is less certain.

“We provided a tool that the Convention Center can use,” said Goode, who has long campaigned for more minority inclusion. “[But] at the end of the day, it is up to the Convention Center authority whether they will utilize the tool of the open shop that we have given them. At the end of the day, we don’t get to directly select the contractors.”

One of the members of the Convention Center board is the business manager of the Building and Trades Council of Philadelphia and Vicinity, Patrick Gillespie. He resisted all pressure from Council this week to provide hard numbers on union diversity.

That didn’t worry A. Bruce Crawley, an activist who has also campaigned for more diversity.

“Pat Gillespie is a mayoral appointee and mayors change as of Jan. 2,” he said. “So, I don’t think that point is a big issue.”

In addition, he said, the board is filled with others who realize the importance of diversity and how perceptions affect the city’s economy.

“The city is being projected as a place that excludes people of color,” he said.

In the past open-shop work sites have resulted in union pickets. But Crawley declined to speculate on that possibility in this case.

And with the number of big projects on the horizon, the unions have no worries, he said.

“What they need to understand is, that even if there is some inclusion of nonunion workers, there is still an abundance of work,” he said. “Too much work for the union members to do.”

Billions will be spent on the Convention Center, casinos and expansion plans at some of the city’s universities.

“None of what was done in Council [Thursday], none of that threatens the livelihood of anybody who is a Philadelphia union member,” Crawley said.

Goode was optimistic that the proposal would move forward as anticipated and that it would serve as model for other public projects.

“We see this as a model for the future,” he said. “Because this is a major project, we sought to set the tone.”

The size of the project and decades of inaction by the unions finally convinced Council members that they needed to take a stand.

“I believe that City Council wasn’t left with many options yesterday when the head of building trades pretty much made a joke about not releasing information about the building trades organizations,” Goode said, referring to Gillespie. “There was a need for Council to respond.”

He also floated another idea, a more long-term concept, of creating other unions that are more inclusive.

“[We could] create competition by crating new labor unions that better mirror the make up Philadelphia,” he said.

The problem has plagued the city for years, he said, but Council members have grown more adept at anticipating problems.

“For years City Council did not really engage economic development legislation,” he said. “But, Council members have, over the time that I’ve been there, have begun to build their capacity to respond to what they want to see. Many different members are building their capacity to have an impact on these matters.”