WSMV Channel 4 Convention center workers' religion documented

The city and state have been keeping track of what churches that workers building the new Nashville convention center attend and the information is available to anyone on the Internet.

"I have actually never seen the government collecting information on what religion someone is on any realm other than the census. I have been doing this work for about 15 years and I have never seen that question (on a certified payroll) and I've looked at hundreds of them," said Richard Rehberg, IUOE union representative.

On the most expensive and expansive public project ever undertaken in Tennessee, a report, compiled every quarter includes the religions of the workers on site.

A spreadsheet is available to anyone on the Internet, broken down by percentage of Catholic, Episcopal, Baptist, Presbyterian and Methodist laborers. Anything other than Christian is lumped under the category of "other."

"I didn't believe you when you called me and told me they were demanding or requiring information about religion or religious beliefs of the employees. You had to email it to me. I had to read it for myself. I think it's an outrageous gross invasion of privacy for an employer to say, "I want to know what church you go to or temple or synagogue or place of faith and worship, and I'm going to report your religious information to the local government.' I've never heard of such a thing," said attorney Larry Woods.

The Music City Center authority also blacked out the zip codes and addresses of workers, saying they were too private to share, potentially violating the Constitution.

"Instead of tunneling down and focusing on who's getting hired, and who's not getting hired, they just said, ‘Give us the percentages of who's a Methodist, who's a Catholic, who's a Baptist etc, who's black who's white.' Who's Arabic is one of their terms. Who's American is another one of their terms. I mean these are unbelievable designations. They're using and a gross invasion of privacy," said Woods.

"We've had conversations with the authority about why they are collecting this data but haven't gotten a satisfactory answer. I don't know if they know honestly," said Rehberg.

At first, the Convention Center Authority didn't really know why and was asking for guidance.

It's initial quarterly report in September 2009 said:

"This is information we have never collected and are consulting with legal counsel regarding our ability to do so."

The following month this answer came:

"After consulting with an attorney we will begin requesting religion information 'as the legislation requires.'"

It turns out a Metro ordinance and a state law passed in 2007, asked for religion "record keeping" as an assurance of diversity on the project. Is it inappropriate or illegal?

"It's right at the line. These are the kind of paperwork forms that I use when I file suits prosecuting companies for civil rights violations for discrimination in hiring firing transfers. These are exactly the kind of paper forms and computer spreadsheets that get them in legal trouble," said Woods.

Despite the law, one year into the project, fewer than half of the companies under contract have shared their religions.

At the very top, Bell Clark, the general contractor, and the Music City Center Authority itself, apparently chose not to comply, listing its religious affiliation as 100 percent unknown.

"This is the most expensive purchase that you and I the taxpayers have ever made. I keep better records on used cars that I buy than they're keeping on this project," said Woods.

The Music City Center told us it didn't want to be interviewed on this subject, just like the issue of the worker addresses.

But after we questioned why Bell Clark and the Convention Center Authority itself had not shared their religion data as required, it said:

"It's not right to ask others to do things you yourself are not, so henceforth, religious affiliations of the two staffs will be gathered for the report."

The next report, which is due to the state July 20, will include that.