Two Bronx politicians are picking up the torch from the living wage campaign that was at the heart of last year’s battle over the Kingsbridge Armory.

City Council Members Oliver Koppell and Annabel Palma – both of the Bronx —introduced the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act on May 25, a bill that would require most development projects receiving city subsidies to pay workers eventually employed there a living wage — $10 an hour with benefits or $11.50 an hour without. 

Living wage — $2.75 more than the mandated minimum wage of $7.25 — was a lightning-rod issue last year during the battle over the redevelopment of the Kingsbridge Armory. The City Council voted down plans for a shopping mall at the hulking Kingsbridge Road landmark  in December because The Related Companies would not agree to require retailers to pay a living wage there, despite the fact that the group was slated to receive about $60 million in subsidies.

“Today, we’re showing everyone that this debate is not just about one parochial section of the Bronx. This is a citywide debate,” said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., who joined a bevy of Bronx politicians and leaders — and those from other boroughs — on the steps of City Hall on May 25 in a show of support for the bill.

The new legislation, if passed, would require all projects across the city that receive more than $100,000 in city support to provide living wage jobs.

“This bill simply requires developers who want to come into our communities to agree to give back to our communities,” Palma said.

A similar bill, Intro 18, was introduced by Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito in February and would guarantee wages and benefits to workers in city-subsidized buildings.

Supporters of both bills expect resistance from the Bloomberg administration, as well as business and real estate interest groups, who generally oppose the idea of a living wage requirement on the grounds it could slow or impede economic growth and development.

Steve Malanga, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said he thinks it’s unlikely that retail developers — so often the recipients of subsidies — would agree to pay a living wage when they would not even be coming into certain neighborhoods in the first place without the city’s financial incentives. 

“By adding this [living wage], you might be offsetting the value of that incentive,” he said.

Andrew Brent, a spokesman from the mayor’s office, said they could not comment on the “Fair Wage” bill until a public hearing is held on it. He did, however, say that similar bills, like the one Mark-Viverito proposed in February, would “add costs to the very projects that can least afford them.”

“The whole idea behind a subsidy (be it for affordable housing, in an area we’re trying to spur growth, etc.) is that developers aren’t doing the project without it,” Brent wrote in an e-mail message.

Supporters of the bill, however, argued that the living wage requirement would not apply to affordable housing projects, cultural groups or nonprofits.

Koppell and Palma say they’ve garnered the support of 20 other Council members so far. Also backing the measure are the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) and a number of community organizations, including the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, which was instrumental in last year’s Armory battle, as well as State Senate hopeful Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, who as a leader in the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance helped scuttle the city’s mall plan.
Proponents of the legislation need the backing of 34 Council members in order to override a likely mayoral veto.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has not taken a formal position on the bill yet and is still considering both sides, according to spokeswoman Kim Thai. Quinn voted against the Armory project last year but remained peripheral to the debate.

Debra Smith, a union worker from Concourse Village who attended the rally on May 25, says she’d like to see workers like her daughter — a cashier at JC Penney who barely makes ends meet with her minimum wage job — get a fair wage.

“If you want people to do the job, you have to pay them what they deserve,” she said. “And I think they deserve more than $7 an hour.”