Fund to keep businesses here

From the Times Ledger:

The mayor’s office hopes to entice new industrial development to the city with a $150 million fund for nonprofit and for-profit developers in an attempt to stem the gradual loss of industrial real estate and jobs throughout New York.

Two representatives from the city Economic Development Corporation presented details of the newly established Industrial Developer Fund to the Queens Borough Board Tuesday night at Borough Hall. Borough President Melinda Katz, who heads the board, attended the meeting along with the heads of each community board.

The fund will be a combination of $60 million in taxpayer money with an additional $90 million from private financing. The city wants to encourage the development or renovation of 400,000 square feet of industrial real estate, and the EDC contends the developments will result in as many as 1,200 new industrial jobs by the close of the decade.

EDC Senior Vice President Jeffrey Lee said the fund would be a positive fit for developers who could ensure that opportunities for a living wage job with potential for advancement would be available to members of local communities, including those without a formal education.

How about not rezoning industrial areas for condos?

Unions want living wage included in citywide upzoning

From City & State:

A construction union trade group that wants the de Blasio administration to include new hiring and training requirements as part of its rezoning efforts is doubling down on its argument.

The Greater New York Laborers-Employers Cooperation and Education Trust released a memo this week from attorney Albert Butzel arguing that there is legal precedent in New York and other states for zoning that aims to provide jobs to local residents or includes living wage provisions.

The latest move comes after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration dismissed construction unions’ calls for the inclusion of training and hiring provisions in the city’s rezoning proposals, saying that the job standards are beyond the legal scope of the zoning code.

Living wage expanded

From the NY Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to sign an executive order on Tuesday significantly expanding New York City’s living wage law, covering thousands of previously exempt workers and raising the hourly wage itself, to $13.13 from $11.90, for workers who do not receive benefits.

The change is also intended to frame a looming debate in Albany, where Mr. de Blasio hopes to win the authority to set the citywide minimum wage at the same amount. If Mr. de Blasio succeeds in matching the minimum wage to the living wage, all hourly workers in the city would earn more than $15 by 2019, according to the city’s projections.

The executive order will immediately cover employees of commercial tenants on projects that receive more than $1 million in city subsidies going forward. Workers who receive benefits such as health insurance will earn $11.50 an hour, compared with $10.30 before.

While cautioning that it was “notoriously difficult to develop projections related to economic development,” the administration estimated that about 18,000 workers would be covered over the next five years, roughly 70 percent of all the jobs at businesses that will receive new financial assistance from the city’s Economic Development Corporation.

DeBlasio's living wage promise has yet to be fulfilled

From the NY Times:

For the new administration, it was a pivotal moment: Mayor Bill de Blasio was standing before the crowd, announcing the first concrete steps of his progressive agenda. By the end of February, he vowed, he would issue an executive order to expand the city’s living wage law.

“We want to ensure that New Yorkers aren’t relegated to the ranks of the poor when putting in a full week’s work,” Mr. de Blasio declared in his State of the City speech.

The mayor was making good on a campaign pledge, promising to broaden the law requiring some city-subsidized businesses to pay their workers a living wage, which is often defined as enough money to cover the cost of basics like food and rent. His supporters eagerly anticipated the move, which was unimaginable under the previous mayor.

They are still waiting. February has come and gone, but there has been no executive order, no expansion of the living wage law and no public discussion about where things stand. Instead, there is silence from City Hall, where the mayor’s aides have declined to explain what has accounted for the delay.

So today I’m climbing on my soapbox to ask: What happened, Mr. Mayor?

More broken promises at city construction site

From the Daily News:

Unions and community groups are calling on the Bloomberg Administration to halt construction work at the City Point mega-project.

The city should stop the massive downtown Brooklyn development at DeKalb and Flatbush Aves. while it does a new study of the impact of low wages developers are paying, the groups said.

“We know that construction workers are being paid poverty wages at City Point and they are not getting any benefits,” said Terry Moore of Metallic Ironworkers Local 46.

Workers are being paid $15 per hour at the 1.6 million-square-foot residential and commercial development, the advocates charged — which adds up to $22,500 per year, below the city’s poverty level for a family of four.

“Brooklyn’s middle class is under attack and this project is a major portion of the assault,” the groups’ lawyer Thomas Kennedy wrote in a March 4 letter to Deputy Mayor Robert Steel.

Bloomberg Adminstration spokeswoman Julie Wood called City Point “a linchpin for revitalization in downtown Brooklyn” but did not address charges of poverty-level wages.

You may recall this was another eminent domain deal that was supposed to provide great jobs, parkland, etc.  It's funny how the outcome is NEVER what's promised?  When will we stop believing the hype?

Quinn defends Bloomberg at rally

From AM-NY:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn made a dramatic exit from a news conference Monday heralding the expected passage of the city's living wage bill when a member of the crowd criticized Mayor Michael Bloomberg - who has promised to veto the bill - by calling him a "pharaoh."

"In a democracy, people have the right to have different views, and we do not have the right to then call them names," she said in videos posted online.

The bill requires businesses that receive major tax breaks from the city to pay workers at least $10 an hour on economic development projects. Bloomberg has threatened to sue the City Council if they overturn his expected veto.

"Congratulations on the bill," Quinn said as she left. "I'm not going to participate in name calling."

From the NY Times:

The City Council passed a small so-called living wage bhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifill on Monday, and the accompanying language, in classic New York style, was gloriously excessive.

The measure, Speaker Christine C. Quinn and her Council and labor allies proclaimed, would put in place the most extensive, most ambitious, “most impactful” (a leader in 2012’s ugliest adjective of the year contest) living wage law in the country.

As revolutions go, however, this bill falls short of the Bolsheviks’ storming the Winter Palace.

Ms. Quinn spent months trimming and cutting the bill down to the size of a hat box. In the end, 500 workers in city-subsidized projects of a certain size under certain conditions in certain places will gain the right to make $10 an hour plus health benefits, or $11.50 an hour without.

Greg David, a business-friendly columnist at Crain’s New York, took note of Ms. Quinn’s handiwork and did the math: The bill, he noted, would affect 0.013 percent of the jobs in the city.

It’s to take nothing away from those lucky New Yorkers to note that this is one of those moments in which symbolism and subtext trump text.

Council suddenly grows a pair

From the Daily News:

The City Council passed a controversial “prevailing wage” bill Wednesday — setting the stage for a clash with Mayor Bloomberg, who has vowed a veto.

The measure would raise pay for hundreds of service workers at some 41 buildings that receive city tax breaks. The salary bump would be determined by the City Controller’s prevailing-wage scale.

Repairmen and cleaners at major office buildings whose pay is now governed under that scale earn $24.74 per hour, or roughly $50,000 a year. Workers covered under the bill would get a pay increase of 35% to 45%, officials said.

The bill passed 45 to 4, an indication the Council most likely has the two-thirds vote needed to override a mayoral veto.

The Council successfully overrode mayoral vetoes on two other bills Wednesday. The first was a measure to ban the Sanitation Department from slapping fluorescent stickers on cars parked in violation of alternate-side and other parking laws designed to clear the way for street sweeping.

The second was a bill to require traffic agents to rip up muni-meter tickets if a motorist produces a paid receipt within five minutes of the summons.

Living Wage at Willets Point: What happened after this video was shot?

From Willets Point United:

The New York City Economic Development Corporation has solicited developer firms to implement the Willets Point development, on the basis of a Request for Proposals ("RFP") that contains NO living wage provision. However, that plainly contradicts the announcements and testimony of union officials during 2008.

This 4-minute video compilation shows union officials during 2008 announcing, and testifying to the New York City Council on the record regarding, an agreement that requires a living wage provision to be included in the Request for Proposals seeking developer firms to implement the Willets Point development.

No matter what the unions may now have us believe, it is quite clear from this video that:

(1.) The unions unequivocally state that a living wage provision is "guaranteed" and "required" to be included in the Willets Point RFP, and that this has been memorialized in a written and signed agreement (i.e., there is no wiggle room);

(2.) The agreement to include a living wage provision in the Willets Point RFP was "critical to labor's support on this [Willets Point] project";

(3.) The agreement was consistent with the ideology of the local City Council member (Hiram Monserrate), without whose consent approval of the proposed Willets Point development would have been unlikely;

(4.) The local City Council member forewarned that in the future, the City of New York might attempt to avoid implementing agreed labor provisions, but that the City must honor its commitments to labor and to the City Council;

(5.) The City Council requested, and union officials agreed to provide to the City Council, a copy of the written agreement pertaining to the the inclusion of a living wage provision within the Willets Point RFP. Therefore, that agreement is part of the record on which the City Council based its decision to approve the proposed Willets Point development.

Now that the City has reneged on its commitment to include a living wage provision within the Willets Point RFP, who will challenge this? Will the unions -- whose agreement apparently has been violated by the City -- bring a lawsuit to require a new RFP that includes a living wage provision? Will the City Council act? Will law enforcement?

Or, were union officials exaggerating, or perhaps deceiving themselves, during 2008?

Unions allow EDC to walk all over them

From City Hall News:

In June 2008, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Stuart Appelbaum, stood on the steps of City Hall to praise the city’s Economic Development Corporation.

Along with several other powerful union bosses, Appelbaum touted the EDC plan to jumpstart a long-stalled, $3 billion project at Willets Point in Queens, because he said it would lead to the creation of so-called “living wage” retail jobs for his workers – paying a minimum of $10 an hour.

“It won’t just mean thousands of jobs,” Appelbaum said. “It will mean thousands of construction and permanent jobs that pay prevailing wages and living wages.”

Appelbaum’s contentions that his members could expect living wage jobs at Willets Point were based upon by a letter penned in April 2008 by Robert Lieber, then the city’s deputy mayor for economic development, to the then-head of the city’s umbrella labor organization, Gary LaBarbera.

“NYCEDC will view favorably development plans that maximize the number of jobs that meet the City’s living wage and health benefits standards,” Lieber wrote. “The proposal must explain how the proposed tenanting plan maximizes the number of jobs that meet these criteria.”

Yet this May – when the EDC put out a 125-page request for Willets Point proposals to developers – there was not a single mention of living wage jobs. It did state that developers had to hire construction contractors who would pay prevailing wage and that some building workers would get prevailing wage salaries—but retail workers were left out completely.

Ah, ok. So memory isn't failing me. I remember quite clearly that living wage was part of the Willets Point deal that the Council voted on in 2008. So the City is allowed to renege on its promises and no one bats an eyelash? Well, let's see...Hiram's gone, Katz is gone, Lieber's gone, Marshall is still around but she's useless. Who is going to call the administration out on the carpet for breaking their promises? Whether or not you agree with a living wage, a deal is a deal, and the Council factored living wage into the equation when they voted on the project.

And where are the unions now? Shouldn't they be protesting this major duping by filing lawsuits and holding rallies on the steps of City Hall? You got the rug pulled out from under you, peeps and have been made to look like fools. Why are you taking this lying down? Where are your cojones?

Someone's in for a big surprise...

From Crains:

The fate of the [living wage] bill is largely in the hands of Ms. Quinn, who must decide whether to let it come to a vote. Thirty of her fellow council members have signed on to support the measure, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg has promised to veto. Thirty-four votes would be needed to override his veto.

Opponents of the measure are promising a fight. They've advertised in local newspapers and a dozen plan to testify at the council hearing. “It's no surprise that the same union which helped kill 2,000 good jobs at the Kingsbridge Armory is back on the bandwagon now,” said a spokesman for a coalition of business groups that oppose the bill.

The opponents say it would make it impossible to develop retail projects in the outer boroughs. An insider at one firm that bid for the first phase of the Willets Point redevelopment said the project “would be unleaseable,” and therefore unbuildable, if the living-wage ordinance passes.

“Any project that has a large retail component will not be able to get over the burden with national retailers,” the insider said.

Living wage was mandated by the City Council as part of the Willets Point project. So which nimrod firm bid on a project they don't think is feasible? Mike Meyers, is that you?

Trying to unionize Target

From the NY Times:

In the world of big-box discounters, Target enjoys a reputation as a model corporate citizen that sells the latest in cheap chic. That’s a sharp contrast to the image of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, which labor unions have pilloried for years, accusing it of providing skimpy wages and benefits and skirting various labor laws.

Some 5,000 workers at 27 Target stores in the New York area are being urged to join a union.

But the arrows are about to come flying at Target’s famous bull’s-eye logo. The nation’s largest union for retail workers has embarked on its first broad campaign to unionize Target workers.

The union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, is trying to organize 5,000 workers at 27 Target stores in the New York City area. A majority of workers at the Target store in Valley Stream, N.Y., have already signed cards supporting unionization, and a government-supervised election there on June 17 will be the first time in more than two decades that Target workers will vote on whether to join a union.

The union decided to focus on Target after employees in Valley Stream, on Long Island, asked for help in unionizing. Echoing longstanding complaints by some Wal-Mart workers, the store’s employees complained that many of them earned too little to support a family or afford health insurance, forcing some to rely on food stamps and Medicaid for their children.

That's interesting. No one protested when Target came to town. But Wal-Mart is a different story? Hmmm...

This is one of Queens' "business experts"...

Jack Friedman, executive VP of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, tells GlobeSt.com that the [living wage] measure would all but kill development, which has already been hit hard in the region. “I can’t imagine Willets Point going forward if the living wage mandate goes forward,” Friedman says. “Because what retailer in their right mind is going to agree to sign leases in a place where they’re going to have to pay their employees 50% more than the people down the block?”

This business genius apparently has forgotten that "living wages" were mandated for the Willets Point project, which he relentlessly cheered for. So with this incredible statement, he's basically admitting that "NYC's next great neighborhood" will never happen.

Photo from the Daily News

What will Christine do?

From Crains:

For Ms. Quinn, political calculations can be the toughest part. She's a former tenant activist with a progressive past, but her alliance with the mayor raises questions about what her path to victory might be in 2013.

She enjoys support from the business community, which is largely responsible for the $3.2 million in campaign cash she has collected in the past four years. Mr. Bloomberg is certainly a fan—a Democratic consultant said (disdainfully) that the mayor's team thinks of the speaker as staff—but as his popularity sags, his imprimatur could become a hindrance.

Still, the mayor can help Ms. Quinn behind the scenes. A Democratic insider said that former Bloomberg campaign manager Bradley Tusk, a consultant for Walmart, is telling some clients to get on board with Ms. Quinn. (Mr. Tusk said only that he's setting up meetings for his education reform clients with Ms. Quinn.)

The speaker has been moving to cast herself as independent of Mr. Bloomberg. But even if she bucks her business supporters by opposing Walmart's attempts to open a city store and backing living wage and paid sick days, insiders said, the most crucial labor unions and the Working Families Party would still support Public Advocate Bill de Blasio or Comptroller John Liu for mayor, should either one run.

Instead, campaign experts said, Ms. Quinn must assemble a patchwork of constituencies: small business, gays and lesbians, women, building trades, tenant activists and African-Americans. Smoothing Walmart's arrival would help her with the building trades and some black voters, who want the jobs the retailer would bring.

In other words, she has to tweed.

Lack of living wage may become an issue for TDC

From the Daily News:

The $800 million plan for a complex of condos, shops and a YMCA set to be built atop a municipal parking lot got a thumbs up on April 5 from Community Board 7.

But area business owners aren't raising the white flag just yet in their fight against the controversial project.

"Every week goes by and I hear the developer talk about this great place, but they're killing us little by little," said Ikhwan Rim, a jewelry store owner and president of the Union St. Merchants Association. "I feel very hopeless because nobody is helping us."

Members of the merchants group have turned to Jim Gerson, chairman of the Flushing Business Improvement District. Gerson has hired the Parkside Group to lobby for area businesses.

"I thought that the merchants of Flushing should have a voice," said Gerson, who hired Parkside through his real estate company, Gerson Properties, rather than through the BID, which is prohibited from lobbying activities.

Rim said he and his fellow merchants are chipping in donations to Gerson. "We have a common goal," he said.

That goal includes securing funding for merchants during construction. The city Economic Development Corp. has allocated $2million for a business assistance program and City Councilman Peter Koo (R-Flushing) is ironing out its details.

From the Neighborhood Retail Alliance:

Our own take is that the Parksiders will sit this one out-and given their propinquity to the powers that be in Queens, this is probably a good thing. Taking on the battle against this over development-one that involves a breach of faith by the city and EDC over the original agreement with former council member (and now comptroller) John Liu-will involve bumping ugly with some powerful development proponents; and Parkside's skillful insider status would prove to be as much of a potential drawback as it would be an asset.

Gee, isn't this project being built on land that is currently publicly owned? And isn't the sale price below market rate-an indication of a level of public subsidy? Ipso facto, shouldn't the slated 250,000 sq. ft. of retail space be subject to the same living wage requirement that the folks up at the Kingsbridge Armory insisted on? Hmm.

In addition, the way in which this development is being structured, it could well prove to be a knife in the heart to the area's vibrant, but struggling, small businesses. Why? Because as planner Paul Graziano has pointed out, "The developer will introduce a ‘validation’ system – under which local businesses will likely be forced to pay for at least part of their patrons’ parking fees or lose business to other business areas."

And the parking provided-lower than the number agreed to by Liu-is inadequate for the amount of traffic that Flushing Commons will generate in the already gridlocked downtown. As Garaziano goes on to explain in his fact sheet on the project: "Loss of adequate, competitively-priced parking will very likely lead to serious job losses and small-business closings in Downtown Flushing.

• A ‘validation’ system will amount to a new tax imposed on small business in Flushing, as they will be compelled to subsidize customer/client parking to remain competitive.

• After the sale, as things stand now the developer will legally be entitled to deny parking to local businesses in favor of his own tenants, or charge non-tenants higher rates."

Well I don't know about Parkside, but today at 10:30am is the Borough Board meeting. Should be a fun time for all.

Flushing restaurant workers paid slave wages

From the Daily News:

A Flushing restaurant is in the crosshairs of federal regulators for allegedly firing two waitresses who spoke out about being overworked and underpaid.

The National Labor Relations Board has filed a charge of unfair labor practice against owners of Guang Zhou Restaurant for allegedly discriminating against Li Rong Gao and Xiao Hong Zheng, who said they lost their jobs after attempting to join a union last year.

"I'm not scared to stand up," said Gao, who protested Monday with about 20 supporters in front of the eatery, on 37th Ave.

Gao, 29, and Zheng, 33, said their employer stole their tips and paid them just $400 a month.

"Every day, we worked more than 12 hours, but they didn't pay us overtime," Gao said, adding that they worked six days a week.

The protesters, made up of fellow restaurant employees, nail salon workers and livery cab drivers, chanted "No pay, No way!" and flashed signs that demanded the waitresses be rehired.

"These practices are rampant in Flushing," said Josephine Lee, campaign coordinator for Justice Will Be Served, a group that helps service workers organize against unfair labor practices. "It is daring for two women to come out in the face of all of this."

Group demands living wage for Queens Center workers

From the Village Voice:

As shoppers scurried to snatch up last minute gifts inside the Queens Center Mall, local elected officials and community organizations painted the shopping destination's landlord, Macerich, as the latest Grinch in the ongoing fight for living wages -- just days after the city council rejected a Kingsbridge Armory plan that had no living wage requirement.

Most of the 3,100 retail workers in the sprawling urban mall earn $7.25 an hour.

Standing on a snowy corner of Queens Boulevard, Santa symbolically held gift-wrapped boxes marked "living wages." A menacing green Dr. Seuss character represented the mall owner. Activists from Make the Road New York, a citywide organization focusing on economic justice, demanded that the landlord place a living wage clause in its leases -- which would require stores to pay $10/hour with benefits, or $11.50 without.

Yesterday the group released its Dickensian report, "Queens Center Mall a Poverty Wage Center in Elmhurst," illustrating the travails of low-income New Yorkers and arguing that the millions of dollars in tax abatements received by Macerich should translate into benefits for its employees, including a living wage and the right to unionize. They also beseeched the owner to create community space.

Like many major commercial property owners in New York, Macerich saved $48 million in taxes through the Industrial and Commercial Abatement Program between 2004 and 2009. Make the Road New York predicted that by 2018 those abatements will total $129 million.

Andrew Friedman, the group's co-executive director, said the city shouldn't dole out abatements without requiring a living wage as some municipalities across the nation do.

City Council seeks to force developers to pay a living wage

From the Daily News:

Under a bill introduced Wednesday in the City Council by Oliver Koppell (D-Bronx) and Annabel Palma (D-Bronx), developers and others who benefit from city subsidies for their property deals will have to pay a living wage for the ensuing jobs that are created.

The bill would accomplish by law what community activists and members of the Bronx Council delegation have been trying to impose - for the first time ever in the city - on the Related Companies, the city-chosen developer of the long-vacant Bronx armory.

Backers of the new bill say its passage would avoid future fights like the Kingsbridge Armory battle by making a living wage a citywide mandate rather than targeting one developer as a test case.

A living wage is defined as $10 an hour plus benefits or $11.50 without benefits, as compared to the minimum wage of $7.25.

Those pushing for a living wage, as part of a community benefits agreement with the developer, argued Related was getting "a sweetheart deal" from the city - including $14 million in various tax breaks and exemptions, plus a bargain $5 million purchase price for the city-owned armory.

Such taxpayer-funded largesse should be conditioned on creating more than just marginal-income jobs in the state's poorest borough, according to Bronx officials.

But aides to Mayor Bloomberg and representatives of the Related Companies said a mandated living wage would kill the mall project because potential retail tenants would balk at paying salaries higher than regional competitors.