City Hall, NYC—At a City Council Finance Committee public hearing on a bill that would help create good jobs at city-subsidized developments, Council Members heard testimony from economists, policy experts, community organizations, labor unions and a city council member from Pittsburgh, PA, where a similar law was recently passed. Thirty-four Council Members are co-sponsors of the bill, Intro 18-2010, which would guarantee good wages, health care and other benefits to building service workers who work at new, city-subsidized developments and newly-leased city work sites.
“New Yorkers need good jobs that allow them to support their families,” said Council Member Mark-Viverito, the prime sponsor of the bill. “It is time that the City adopts a uniform policy on prevailing wages for building service workers. The testimony we’ve heard today reaffirms that this bill will help create good jobs without creating serious hardship on the bottom line.”
The bill would ensure jobs created with the help of city tax-dollars pay the prevailing rate – the same wages and benefits as other building service jobs in New York. Without an economic development policy focused on creating good jobs, tax-dollars can be used to create jobs for office cleaners, residential building workers and security officers that pay as little as minimum wage.
“We cannot continue using tax dollars to create poverty-wage jobs,” said Kevin Doyle, 32BJ Executive Vice President. “Our communities suffer when families are unable to make ends meet on low-wage work.”
“Before I had a steady job, I was working around the clock and still barely covering the bills,” said Alba Vasquez, a 32BJ member who earns the prevailing rate as a cleaner at Madison Square Gardens. “Life changed when I got a good job.”
Across the country, cities and states have instituted similar laws and policies to ensure economic development programs help create good jobs. A city council member from Pittsburgh, PA, where a new law ensures city-subsidized developments create good service sector jobs, shared his thoughts with the Council.
“Creating good jobs through economic development programs is a goal few can earnestly contend,” said Pittsburgh City Council Member Bruce Kraus. “Like Pittsburgh’s law, the bill you’re considering would help working families and established businesses by keeping subsidized developers from undercutting the local market.”
In New York City, similar wage requirements have not inhibited development. The City’s 421(a) tax incentive program, which requires both affordable housing and good jobs, has not kept developers from taking advantage of this substantive tax rebate. And job-quality requirements, like those in the Good Jobs Bill, will create more than 500 good jobs for office cleaners, apartment building workers and security officers at future developments in Coney Island and Willets Point.
“Around the country, we can see that paying a decent wage to workers does not hurt development,” said Paul Sonn, Legal Co-Director for the National Employment Law Project. “New York can and should be doing more to help create good jobs through its economic development programs.”
“Our economy will not rebound without a resurgence of good, middle class jobs,” said James Parrott of the Fiscal Policy Institute. “The good Jobs Bill is a policy that would help working families, communities, and our local economy. It is also good for business.”
For more information on the Good Jobs Bill, visit www.NotOnOurDime.org .
With more than 120,000 members, including 70,000 in New York, 32BJ is the largest private-sector union in the state.
updated 5/11/2010
