Requiring developers of city property to guarantee a living wage for retail employees may have seemed far-fetched to some observers six months ago. Not anymore.
At the City Council's hearing on the Related Companies' proposal to turn the Kingsbridge Armory into a giant shopping mall, virtually the entire Zoning and Franchising Subcommittee, grilled company representatives on the living wage issue.
Followed by a crowd of more than 500 people, including activists, politicians, union leaders, local clergy, new moms and a radical marching band, 16-year-old Adolfo Abreu wrapped yellow tape around the Kingsbridge Armory. The message from the northwest Bronx community was simple, clear and written in black letters on the yellow tape, both in English and Spanish: "It's Our Armory."
Hopes faded last week that a revamped Kingsbridge Armory will bring well-paying jobs to one of the poorest neighborhoods in the Bronx.
During a closed-door meeting at the offices of Community Board 7 in Bedford Park, Jesse Masyr, a lawyer for the Armory's designated developer, the Related Companies, told community representatives that the project would not go forward with guarantees for living wage jobs - $10 and hour, plus benefits, as defined by the City Council.
The mall and recreation complex coming to the Kingsbridge Armory will undoubtedly host well-known retail stores and provide more goods to local shoppers, but it is unclear if this kind of new business will provide good jobs for Bronx workers.
Assemblyman Michael Blake is backing a state bill that would mandate the restaurant industry establish a living wage for restaurant workers that predominantly rely on customer tips to make ends meet. The bill has stalled in the Albany Legislature despite a pledge from Governor Andrew Cuomo to see look into it. A portion of Blake’s […]
Bronx State Sen. Jeff Klein announced this morning that he would be introducing a bill in the Senate to raise the state’s minimum wage, another version of which was first introduced in the State Assembly last week by Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Central to the battle over the Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment is the demand by community organizations that retailers pay their workers a "living wage" at the revamped facility. The developer of project, The Related Companies said requiring Armory tenants to pay $10 an hour, plus benefits wouldn't be fair. Job advocates say that's simply not the case.
Breaking Bronx takes a look at the local stories making news, including State Senator Jeff Klein's apparent conflict of interest when it comes to his private law work, PS 48's music makers, the Public Advocate comes out in favor of Living Wage bill and more.
It’s the one-year anniversary of the nearly unanimous City Council vote that scuttled the mayor’s juggernaut to stuff a cookie-cutter mall inside the landmark Kingsbridge Armory. In that time, the city’s two tabloids, the New York Post and the Daily News, have taken every opportunity to whack at Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. for his opposition to the project, which gave the necessary juice to a community and labor-backed effort to defeat it in the City Council. Regular readers know where we stand on this, but as long as the editorial boards of the city dailies continue to harp on this, we are compelled to reiterate our position. For more than a decade, community organizations led by the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition hammered out plans for a remake of the facility that made room for recreation, community programming, small businesses, a movie theater, etc. Related, the city’s chosen developer, never offered details on what it was going to provide except for retail. Despite this and the clear sense that the Armory would be a mall pure and simple, the community’s only firm request in the end was that people had to be paid a living wage, particularly when the developer was going to receive over $70 million in taxpayer subsidies to remake a public landmark. It was hardly an outlandish request. Several other municipalities have enacted wage guarantees on development projects benefiting from taxpayer subsidies.
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