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Opinion

Infrastructure Implementation: Apprenticeship Programs are Vital to Building New York Back Better


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Construction workers (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)


With the federal infrastructure bill now law, New York is primed to receive more than $100 billion in direct investment in public works projects across the state, inclusive of upgrades to mass transit systems, roads, highways, and bridges, and other essential and critical elements of New York’s future.

The diverse array of infrastructure projects soon to break ground statewide also comes with a greater demand for skilled work – work that members of the unionized construction industry are equipped and eager to take on. But the unprecedented scale of the work at hand will also require countless new skilled, union workers. Yet again, the federal infrastructure law meets the mark: with tens of billions of dollars worth of investment in workforce development infrastructure and worker protection, along with the creation of 1 to 2 million new registered apprenticeship slots.

These millions of new apprenticeship slots are an excellent way to top off National Apprenticeship Week -- which happens to be this week – as well as a reminder of the importance of pre-apprentice and direct-entry programs to the future of our workforce. 

Pre-apprentice, apprentice, and direct-entry programs have become a centerpiece of the unionized construction industry. These programs provide opportunity for entry-level workers to receive job and safety training both on-site and in the classroom that prepare individuals for the worksite and incentivize long-term commitments between employees and employers. Not only that, but these programs elevate the importance of diversity in the workforce and ensure a ready, safe and productive workforce for years to come. 

Over the past few decades, the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York has committed itself to connecting tens of thousands of New Yorkers – particularly New Yorkers from historically marginalized communities – to the unionized construction industry through our best-in-class pre-apprenticeship and direct-entry programs, including The Edward J. Malloy Initiative for Construction Skills, NY Helmets to Hardhats, Nontraditional Employment for Women, and Pathways to Apprenticeship. These programs work with distinct populations – from veterans to those who are formerly incarcerated – helping to not only place them in a job but to help them build their own middle-class career.

Just this past year, the New York City Building Trades launched a first-of-its-kind apprenticeship program called the Apprenticeship Readiness Collective (ARC), which is dedicated to connecting individuals from the city’s historically marginalized communities to opportunities with our pre-apprenticeship and direct-entry programs. Since its inception, the ARC has been working with city government to lead outreach and recruitment efforts aimed at workers from areas where at least 15% of the neighborhood lives below the federal poverty line.

We know firsthand – and thousands of New Yorkers in the unionized construction industry do as well – the exceptional opportunity generated by pre-apprentice, apprentice, and direct-entry programs. We’ve seen the lives of countless individuals changed for the better due to the career pathways created by these programs, and with the large-scale investment in apprenticeship programs from the federal government, that’s certain to be the case for tens of thousands more – and we’ll all be better off for it.

This generational investment in apprenticeships will strengthen the pipeline for more women and people of color to access these workforce development opportunities and ensure the infrastructure we build as a result of the federal infrastructure plan is best-in-class. With the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Plan set to create and save more than 15 million jobs over the next decade, and increase the share of infrastructure jobs from 11 to 14% of all jobs nationwide, the opportunity to build and grow the middle class in a historic fashion is at our fingertips.

National Apprenticeship Week is an important reminder of the critical role that these programs play in our economy and in jumpstarting middle-class careers. As we begin to build back New York, and the nation, it’ll be the unionized tradesmen and tradeswomen – many of whom were once pre-apprentices and apprentices – leading the way forward.

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Gary LaBarbera is the President of the 100,000 member Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. On Twitter @NYCBldgTrades.

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Finally, a CUNY Budget Request We Can Support


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BMCC (photo: @CUNY)


The relationship between the CUNY Board of Trustees and the city and state governments that fund the university is complicated. Appointed by the same elected officials from whom the institution requests funding, the Board of Trustees often fails to ask for the budget the University really needs. Last year they didn’t even request money to cover fringe benefits, a basic cost of operations.

This year, however, is different. The Board is finally listening to the students, faculty, staff, and other advocates who have said that the University, which is essential to reducing racialized income inequality and building a strong middle class in our city, needs more funding if it is to effectively meet its mission.

The Board’s request for $313 million more from Albany in the upcoming budget represents a 16% increase over the current state budget. The request for an increase of $103 million from New York City amounts to a 20% bump. Fully funding the total request would allow CUNY to hire over a thousand full-time faculty, and invest in mental health services, student wellness, and childcare centers.

This total requested increase of $416 million reflects the pent-up need caused by years of public disinvestment. Between 2008 and 2021, per-student state funding for CUNY senior colleges decreased by 18%, when adjusted for inflation. The previous state administration regularly refused to pay for raises for public workers, leaving entities like CUNY to rob Peter to pay Paul, cannibalizing programs, maintenance and operations in order to pay for contractual raises.

The request is also an acknowledgement of CUNY’s potential to help create a more equitable future for the people of our state.

The Trustees know that CUNY is underfunded. They have seized this unique political moment for the good of the students and communities that CUNY serves, pressing also for more funding to pay for community college and critically-needed capital upgrades. The request notes that "CUNY colleges have had to defer routine maintenance for years because of fiscal pressures. The result has led to facility degradation in the near term and significantly increased facility operating and routine maintenance expenses." 

Over the years, the University has responded to government underfunding by reducing the number of full-time faculty, depending more and more on underpaid part-time adjuncts, and increasing tuition. This year’s budget request would change that, allowing the University to address its shortage of full-time faculty while providing “a defined career pathway for part-time teaching faculty.”

Critics of this budget request note that CUNY enrollments are down, like they are at colleges throughout the country. This misses two important points. First, this budget request is not just about funding for this year – it’s about reversing decades of underfunding at CUNY.

Second, that critique misunderstands the ebb and flow of college enrollment. Research shows that college enrollments in the U.S. typically increase during a recession. Enrollment at CUNY increased 11% between the fall semesters of 2007 and 2009 during the Great Recession. It increased 7% between fall 2000 and fall 2002 during the Recession of 2001. There is usually a delay between the start of a recession and the college enrollment rush. COVID-19 is no doubt a complicating factor, but CUNY is wise to be ready for a similar increase with this recession. The University needs to be ready for when more New Yorkers turn to it for a new career, new skills, and better chance at life.

I am excited that the CUNY Board of Trustees has come to Albany and New York City Hall with a budget request that can begin to meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands of students, many of them students of color, who rely on a CUNY education as a way to enter the middle class. After years of underfunding for CUNY, there is much ground to make up and import work to do in the next budget season. 

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State Senator John Liu represents parts of Queens and is the chair of the Senate Committee on New York City Education. On Twitter @liunewyork.

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New York City’s Next Big Chance to Help Save Itself and the Planet


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The #GasFreeNYC push (photo: @weact4ej)


It’s hard to wrap one’s head around, but the city’s future existence is in serious danger as more climate pollution spews into the atmosphere. Simply put: with over 500 miles of coastline and the subway and utilities underground, there may be no way for New York City to survive substantially higher sea levels. To save our city, and so many other precious places, every government, worldwide, needs to take action to slash climate pollution. 

Fortunately, the New York City Council is considering ending gas in new construction and gut renovations, as several large West Coast cities have already done. This vital bill, Intro. 2317, is prime-sponsored by Council Member Alicka Ampry-Samuel and supported by 23 other co-sponsors and Speaker Corey Johnson. 

While the climate emergency is a crisis, it’s also an opportunity to build a healthier, safer and more fair society. Ending gas in new construction and gut renovations would help both slash climate-heating pollution and fight inequality. 

Banning gas would create jobs in clean energy, as developers would build to higher energy efficiency standards and install electric-powered heat pumps, boosting employment in design, construction, and electrical work, creating good new jobs in clean energy. Building on the massive job creation of NYC’s Local Law 97, which requires large buildings to slash their climate-heating pollution, it would further New York City’s economic development as a leader in green buildings.

Passing a gas ban would also prevent deadly air pollution. RMI and university researchers estimate that such air pollution from combusting fossil fuels to power, heat, and cool the city’s 1 million buildings causes about 1,000 New Yorkers’ deaths per year. 

Moreover, the quality of air that people breathe is unequal: Black and Latino New Yorkers breathe dirtier air because of increased air pollution in neighborhoods segregated by society’s many inequalities. New Yorkers could also rest a little easier knowing that their building wouldn’t catch fire, explode, or asphyxiate them because of a gas leak. 

The benefits of ending fossil fuel dependency are clear. Thankfully, it is also practical and affordable because advancing technology and economies of scale have slashed costs. Construction costs are now about equal. And energy efficient new buildings minimize utility bills because energy use is so much lower than in wasteful, drafty older buildings.

We have identified almost 80 building projects of all sizes and uses that demonstrate fossil free development. Take Alloy’s 100 Flatbush Avenue. It’s a 44-story tower currently under construction. When completed, it will be the tallest fossil free building in the U.S., following the path-breaking world’s tallest fossil free super-high energy efficiency building, a 26-story residence at Cornell Technion on Roosevelt Island.

RiseBoro, a social services and affordable housing provider, is also demonstrating in the real world that it can deliver low energy bills to low-income seniors in its HUD-supported housing, without fossil fuels. RiseBoro is now building a nine-story, 164-unit affordable building in Inwood for low-income seniors. RiseBoro will guarantee low, affordable energy bills for residents because it will be energy-efficient and use heat-pump technology. All of RiseBoro’s future development will be fossil-free.

These and other developments show the practical, affordable nature of the bill’s requirements, which should apply to new permit applications starting in one or at most two years. Other cities have applied their requirements in one year. The City Council bill’s current timeline is two years.

Mayor de Blasio -- who to his credit has supported banning gas, which has helped advance the issue -- has so far been vague about the timeline on which he believes requirements should take hold on new permit applications. 

The Real Estate Board of New York, Exxon, and the American Petroleum Institute are among those lobbying hard against the bill. They can be counted on to try and weaken the bill’s timeline, if they can’t stop it altogether. As we push for this bill’s passage before the end of the year, when the terms of this mayor and City Council class will end, the key negotiation will be over the bill’s timeline.

One of the mayor’s top climate appointees, Office of Sustainability Director Ben Furnas, pointed out in a Gotham Gazette interview that a 2025 timeline - four years away - would match the International Energy Agency’s advocacy for ban on sales of new fossil fuel boilers worldwide by or in 2025. That’s one critical minimal condition, worldwide, to avoid blowing past “red lines” on climate.

It’s clear that New York City must act more quickly. A ban by all governments across the globe clearly won’t happen by 2025, especially if wealthy cities like New York refuse to go faster. Indeed, a slower timeline by the City of New York than other cities that have already passed gas bans could be detrimental if other cities, pressed by their respective developer lobbies, incorrectly concluded requirements should be delayed. 

Each year about 2,500 new buildings are built in New York City. Right now, New York City consumes about a whopping 5% of all gas used in buildings nationwide. It’s time to wean ourselves from an addiction to fossil fuels. 

New York should build a fairer and safer society. Passing a gas ban on new construction and gut renovations will be a major advancement. Similar to when New York City committed to divest several of its pension funds from fossil fuels in 2018, the bill’s enactment will help spark further action worldwide. This bill heads to a public hearing on November 17. After the hearing, the City Council should swiftly enact it.

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Pete Sikora is the Climate & Inequality Campaigns Director for New York Communities for Change. On Twitter @PeteSikora1.

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