Published: June 17, 2010

Assemblyman Michael Gianaris says business improvement districts will be removed from his legislation requiring companies with publicly funded contracts to pay contract workers a prevailing wage. But the BIDs won't celebrate unless the bill dies.

Their executives remain worried that other provisions will ensnare them.

“Nobody really understands what the implications are,” says one BID executive. Language in the legislation says organizations with contracts with a “public agency” exceeding $1,500 must guarantee workers a prevailing wage, according to the executive's analysis. BIDs collect assessments through contracts with the city, and they worry about having to pay $22 an hour to workers who now earn $7.15 to $15 an hour. Unions say the language applies only to contracts with the state, but BIDs trust neither that interpretation nor the placations of Gianaris, who says: “BIDs should have no fear. The bill will not affect them at all.”

BIDs are seething that the legislation, introduced in March and sponsored by Eric Schneiderman in the Senate, blindsided them. The organizations spend their money cleaning streets and potting flowers, not on lobbyists, although they have now hired Claudia Wagner and Brian Meara in response to the wage bill.

The concern among BIDs is that the union behind the legislation, 32BJ, is trying to use the legislative process to do what is already being done among BIDs' unionized employees: negotiate wages and benefits. The legislation would “abrogate” union contracts, according to one BID executive. If it passes, it could set off a legal fight over the sanctity of contracts.

Moreover, BIDs want the Legislature to consider one of their origins: They were formed largely because the cost of unionized city workers was too great to have them clean commercial districts all day.