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January 6, 2009
WINTER IN AMERICA...how construction workers should respond to the meltdown
A call for construction workers to unite with tenants, and the rest of the working class
IndyMedia.org
by Gregory A. Butler
Union carpenter/writer Gregory Butler calls upon workers in the building trades to resist a push by contractors for deep wage-and-benefit concessions, and presents a novel affordable-housing plan.
In New York City, we have an easy answer before us – all those abandoned buildings stopped in mid build because the banks cut off the developer’s credit line!
We should demand that the City of New York use eminent domain to seize those abandoned buildings, use public funds to finish building them and turn them over to the New York City Housing Authority to serve as low income housing.
Suddenly dropping thousands of low income units into the housing market will serve to pull down overall rents, opening up housing opportunities for the middle income population.
What about Atlantic Yards, which is pledged to use union labor?
One thing we should absolutely NOT do anymore is to totally subordinate ourselves and our unions to the contractors, the developers and their trade associations.
Louis Colletti is not our friend – neither is Donald Trump – or Larry Silverstein – or Steve Ross – or Bruce Ratner – or any of the other developers… they are our class enemies, the people we have to struggle against to get what we need, both narrowly as construction workers and more broadly as part of the working class.
We and our unions need to stop being shills for their narrow commercial interests and their taxpayer subsidized megadevelopments!
Atlantic Yards Report, Militant union carpenter: unions shouldn't compromise with contractors or support Atlantic Yards
Norman Oder provides some context, and cites some of Butler's earlier writings.
Butler wrote critically in September 2008 about a lack of union militancy:
Although New York developers, building owners, not for profit community groups and governmental entities continued to increase their use of non union contractors over the next decade - and as wages and working conditions sharply deteriorated for those non union tradespeople, the unions made very sparing use of their members power on the jobsites.
...For instance, only 2 union rallies were held in all of Brooklyn (New York City’s most populous borough) during this decaded - and one of them - the larger of the two events - was to support developer Bruce Ratner’s deeply unpopular Atlantic Yards luxury housing/office building/New York Nets basketball arena project in Prospect Heights.
Later, he added:
The general response of the Building Trades has been to tag along behind the bosses - symbolized in New York by all the rallies that have been held to promote unpopular megadevelopment plans - like the Johnson family’s Hudson Yards Stadium for the Jets on the West Side of Manhattan or the Atlantic Yards stadium/office building/luxury hirise development that billionare developer Bruce Ratner and centimillionare music producer Jay-Z want to build in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at January 6, 2009 10:15 AM