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June 29, 2011
The Battle for Brooklyn: Deconstructing the Unions
The Icehouse Gang
by Kevin Baker
Unions in this country have historically raised the living standards of all Americans, but they’ve also done much, much more than that. No other major institution—certainly not the business community—has been as consistently altruistic, as supportive of causes that are not directly beneficial to itself, as the labor movement.
...Not so much New York’s construction unions.
Sad to say, much like construction unions all over the United States, and for many decades now, the construction trades here have insisted on blindly supporting pretty much every single building project, no matter how awful an idea it is, and no matter who is going to be hurt by it.
...Is there a project in your neighborhood that’s oversized, woefully ugly, dependent upon tearing down beloved local buildings, or threatening to destroy your community altogether? Don’t worry, New York’s construction unions are in favor of it, just so long as they can spend a few weeks or months flooding your community with workers who mostly don’t live there and won’t have to deal with the consequences.
...By supporting the whole “pro-growth agenda” right down the line; by remaining bastions of white privilege, by pretending that there won’t always be sufficient construction activity in New York if they don’t endorse every single, odious land grab that comes along, the construction trades systematically undermine all attempts at building a better, more just, more sustainable New York.
And in the end, predictably enough, they screw over themselves as much as anyone.
Posted by eric at June 29, 2011 10:00 AM