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November 4, 2011
CBAs: Public Power, Shared Prosperity
Policy Shop
by Jack Temple
Are Community Benefits Agreements the tonic for the nation's increasing economic disparity?
Take, for example, the new accountable development movement. As I've written before, this movement -- largely led by communuity organizing groups and labor unions -- aims to combat urban inequality and promote fair local economic development. While this movement has deployed a range of tactics and strategies, one in particuar -- the negotiation of Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) -- has succeeded in extracting serious amounts of cash from corporations and developers to support living wage jobs, affordable housing, and worker training in over 15 major cities in the United States.
He must not have seen the Atlantic Yards CBA.
Oh, wait...
To be sure, the record for CBAs is not perfect: the conditions set out by the CBA for the Atlantic Yards Project in Brooklyn, NY have remained unmet largely because the community organizations that were signatories to the agreement have benefited financially from the developer and have declined to pursue legal action.
Posted by eric at November 4, 2011 11:15 AM