Despite acknowledgements of technology industries making advances in including more diverse voices, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has demanded more, and intends to back it up with legislation. 

According to Recode, black employees make up around 5 percent of the tech industry as a whole, and each major company only boasts a work pool of about 1 to 2 percent black employees. During a visit to Silicon Valley where they participated in a live discussion with the executives of Apple, Twitter, PayPal and Square, the CBC expressed frustration with the industries minimal progress. 

Participating CBC members including Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. and Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y.

The CBC members acknowledged Facebook’s recent hiring of its first black board member, Kenneth Chenault, but public held the belief that more needs to be done for diversification.

“I’m talking about some regulation,” Waters said during the event. “I’m talking about using the power that our voters have given us to produce legislation and to talk about regulation in these industries that have not been talked about before.”

During the talk, the CBC proposed an expansion of the Community Reinvestment Act, which required financial institutions to meet the needs of the low-income communities they are based in. Currently, the act does not include tech companies, but the CBC hopes to revise the act in order to do so. Members also hope improve the requirements for companies submitting an EEO-1 survey, which is a report that mandates that data be collected on the race/ethnicity of all employees. Finally, the CBC proposed the launch of a partnership negotiation between tech companies and underserved schools in their area, which would serve as a gateway for black students through education. 

For their goals to be realized, the CBC has to depend on Democrats taking back the House during the midterm elections, which would give them the votes to get things done. 

To members like Waters, it is not a question of if, but when. 

“I’m not urging I’m not encouraging, I’m about to hit some people across the head with a hammer,” Waters concluded.