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Community-Based Cooperatives


Omar Freilla is unusual. A person of color under 30 years old, Friella is attempting to start a worker cooperative in New York at a time when community-based cooperatives have been nostalgically relegated to the dustbin of counter-culture experimentation from years gone by.

Freilla's project, for which he recently received a grant from the Open Society Institute, is called the Green Worker Cooperatives and is dedicated to creating worker owned and environmentally friendly manufacturing businesses in the South Bronx. In a worker cooperative, the employees are the owners and receive an equal share of all profits. With its neighborhood base, Green Worker Cooperatives seeks to create local manufacturing jobs through the reselling of salvaged construction materials. Freilla has recently completed a feasibility study and is working on a business plan while searching for warehouse space.

Community development strategies over the past decade have been largely distinguished by their individual-based approach to fighting poverty. The prominence of programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit (a federal income tax credit for low-income people) and the growing popularity of tools like Individual Development Accounts (programs that help people acquire assets using savings accounts and financial incentives) and school vouchers(programs designed to allow students from poor families to attend schools outside their public school system) reflect a social welfare vision in which low-income people are seen more as isolated, entrepreneurial contenders for the American Dream rather than inter-dependent participants in a community-wide, social improvement effort.

Of course, there is no reason for these visions to remain mutually exclusive. But formal, neighborhood-based, cooperative economic development, which is a powerful way for us as New Yorkers to interrupt our respective rat races and find common ground with our neighbors, is hard to find in New York, even in our day-to-day language. These days, when most of us hear the term "co-op" in New York we have visions of yuppie-owned units of real estate. Rarely do we talk or think of co-op or "cooperative" as a social value or a model for how we seek to live and interact with our neighbors.

Service, Not Profit

Cooperatives are first and foremost businesses that are owned and democratically controlled by either the employees or the customers who use the services of that business, as opposed to outside investors. Cooperatives are created to provide a quality, affordable service or product, rather than reap huge profits. In most cases, surplus revenue is returned to the members in proportion to their use of the cooperative, not proportionate to their "investment" or ownership share, according to the National Cooperative Business Association. All community-based cooperatives are driven by a local need to provide access to certain services or generate certain economic activity, although the location of cooperatives in New York often says as much about the left-leaning agenda of the organizers as it does about the income level of the community.

Other than organizations like Cooperative Home Care Associates, a worker-owned home health care agency that currently employs over 700 Black and Latino people (most of whom are formerly public assistance recipients), there were few models of community-based cooperatives in New York that provided Freilla with inspiration.

New Yorkers are probably most familiar with consumer cooperatives such as community development credit unions which provide low-cost financial services and credit to under-banked New Yorkers. If you are fortunate to live in the right neighborhood, you may have also encountered a food coop, like the Park Slope and Flatbush Avenue Food Co-ops in Brooklyn, or the 4th Avenue Food Co-op in Manhattan. Community Supported Agricultureprojects, which are sprinkled sparingly throughout the city, serve as small, more informal associations in which local people come together to buy mostly organic fruits and vegetables from local farmers.

And yes, there are housing cooperatives that actually live up to their names. Housing Development Fund Corporations - or limited-equity coops - offer low-income tenants the ability to come together and execute control over their living conditions.

Challenges

According to Freilla, the Green Worker Cooperatives is an organic outgrowth of the economic conditions in the South Bronx. "Everybody wants a job where they can receive some dignity and exert more responsibility", says Freilla. Not only will local people be assured a living wage at the Green Worker Cooperatives, but training will be "front loaded" so that the skill based attained at Green Worker Cooperative is transferable.

Just the same, it will be important for Freilla to be aware of the challenges he will undoubtedly encounter. Ironically, the biggest hurdle that urban American Coop organizers face is the one feature that makes coops such effective alternatives. Any cooperative operating in New York has to contend with the fact that the sharing of profits, decision making and corporate responsibility is almost antithetical to the way we are used to shopping, consuming and working.

For example, I sometimes hear complaints from members of the Park Slope Food Coop - the longest running food coop in New York City and the largest wholly member-owned and operated food coop in the country - about the work hours that each member is required to contribute. And yet, the strict enforcement of these voluntary work hours is arguably the single most important reason why the Park Slope Food Coop has thrived since 1973. The collective investment of time is the sweat equity that enables the members to enjoy reduced prices on quality, otherwise high-priced, food items and even enjoy perks like free, while-you-shop, daycare.

Many members, no matter how strong their politics, find participation in cooperative institutions akin to walking up a crowded "down" staircase. When I was chairman of the board of the now defunct Central Brooklyn Federal Credit Union, most of my fellow 5000 members were fiercely proud of this Black-run institution, almost nationalistically so. But despite the cultural force that the credit union represented, members often couldn't resist thinking of it as a glorified bank (it didn't help that we were located in a former bank branch and adopted all the visual trappings of a bank). Consequently members often acted like traditional, non-shareholding, bank customers. They didn't realize that when they didn't pay their credit union loan, for instance, they were actually stiffing their neighbors and depriving themselves of financial dividends in the long run. In cooperatives, perhaps more so than any other kind of business, what goes around, comes around.

Democracy and non-hierarchical, collective decision-making can also prove challenging for many corporate-trained principals of cooperative ventures. Different kinds of cooperatives observe widely divergent forms of membership-led government, but universally speaking, when your mind is trained on providing a service it is tempting to make unilateral decisions and rationalize it as efficient business practice.

Freilla has already had to confront the ways in which cooperatives don't fit neatly into our popular imagination. A worker cooperative is neither an advocacy nor traditional service-oriented not-for-profit and while approaching foundations for grants during his start-up phase Freilla discovered that his project confounds program officers using standard funding guidelines. The fact that the Green Worker Cooperative includes training programs and represents a little-understood industry -- sustainable waste management and resale -- makes it that much more difficult to categorize.

One day in the future, when different political and economic conditions hold sway, maybe neighborhood-based cooperatives will be closer to the rule than the exception. Until that day comes, you might want to consider joining or even starting a coop, even if it's a small, informal venture between you and your friends. It may not only offer a more humane way to shop or work, but perhaps a better way to live.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rent Guidelines Board: Will It Hike The Rents?


 Every year, the Rent Guidelines Boarddecides how much to increase rents on rent stabilized apartments, affecting millions of New Yorkers where it matters most: in their wallets. On June 17, the board will make its final decision, after several highly charged public meetings. Nearly half of the people in the city stand to be directly affected by the ultimate decision.

The board's staff prepares detailed studies of landlords' income and expenses, of the mortgage market, of tenants' incomes and affordability of housing.

The final outcome is a reflection of what numbers the board's members thought were most compelling. The nine members include two who represent tenants, two who represent landlords and five who represent the public at large. The public members constitute the swing votes. They include an investment banker, an attorney, a real estate developer, a consultant to non-profit organizations and an architect.

Political intrigue is common. This year, the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents landlords across the city, submitted to the board estimates of costs that tenant groups say are greatly exaggerated.

"There's no economic justification for a rent increase this year," said Michael McKee, associate director of New York State Tenants and Neighbors. "All the data show that landlords are doing extremely well and tenants are suffering. The data don't lie."

The "net operating income" for landlords - that is, their profit - rose by 18 percent from 1989 to 2002. From 2001 to 2002, however, profits declined slightly -- by 0.1 percent. Tenant advocates like to point out that in that same two-year period people's real wages declined, and that New York City has lost almost 200,000 jobs since 2001. The advocates argue that landlords are making decent profits on rent stabilized buildings, while tenants are being squeezed: Slightly less than a quarter of tenants have "severe rent burdens" -- that is, they're spending half or more of their income on rent.

The landlords sees it differently from the tenants.

"The range of guidelines that are proposed just barely touch on what is needed for property owners to stay afloat," said Jack Freund, executive vice president of the Rent Stabilization Association. "People can afford a reasonable rent increase. If you don't provide what owners need to maintain their buildings, you're going to hurt the people you're trying to protect."

Freund dismissed the reported increase in net operating income as well as talk of an affordable housing crisis. "To the extent that there is an affordability issue in the city, that is a government issue," Freund said.

The board's meetings put landlords and tenants within arm's length in the same room. Even if they were at a cocktail party, that would be provocative. But when the subject is money, it is going to become contentious, as was clear at a recent board meeting, where there were hisses, boos, chants and shouts. The chairman of the board, Marvin Markus, lost his gavel trying to pound the meeting back to order. "Calm down, Mr. Chairman!" someone shouted. He threatened to have some people removed, but did not ask police at the doors to carry out the threat.

The already passionate landlord and tenant relationship - the second most important relationship after marriage, some say - is on view at these meetings.

At its May meeting, board members rejected proposals from tenant members for no increase and from owner members for significant increases. For the first time, they set a range for increases on one- and two-year leases of 3 to 5 percent and 4.5 to 7.5 percent respectively. The vote was 5 to 4.

In a recent interview, the board's chairman, Marvin Markus, an investment banker, said the housing situation in New York City was not bleak. He also dismissed the exaggerated numbers submitted by the Rent Stabilization Association.

"Last year, the increases (passed by the board) were not anywhere near what the numbers show," Markus said, referring to the increases in costs that landlords faced.

"I can tell you if it's left to Markus the final will be as high as possible," McKee said. "We don't call him Marvin Mark-up for nothing."

McKee said tenants need to come out if they want to show Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who appoints all of the board's members, that the board's decision could cause him political problems.

"It's not an economic decision - it's a political decision," McKee said. "And there's one person responsible, and that's Mayor Bloomberg."

Joe Lamport is the assistant director of the City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court, a coalition of community housing organizations.

Mobilizing Community Concerns Against Mobile Phone Antennas


 The residents of 33rd Street in Astoria, Queens weren’t looking for trouble. It literally fell into their backyard.

In June of 2003 a curious set of engineering plans floated from the roof of a building and into the backyard of Mario Bazzolo, setting off a chain of events that could have long-term repercussions for the expansion of wireless technology in New York. As fate would have it, Bazzolo, an electrical engineer, immediately recognized what the details of the blueprint represented and in reporting his findings to his neighbors confirmed what some had suspected all along: That recent construction on the roof of 32-42 33rd Street was not the work of a cable television company, as one of the men working on the roof had falsely claimed. The antennae which looked onto surrounding homes and families on this quiet residential street were in fact part of a base station transmitting radio frequency (RF) signals used for mobile phones.

Since that day in June in 2003, the residents living in and around 32-42 33rd Street, organized now as the Astoria Neighborhood Coalition, have been fighting to have these antennae removed. In doing so, they have become lay experts on “non-thermal ionizing radiation” (radiation that does not heat tissue) and have discovered that there are over 200 antennae located within a mile and half radius of their block, primarily on residential buildings. From there they have taken on the wireless phone industry and New York City zoning officials while prompting two legislators to introduce bills that would begin to more closely regulate the mounting of cell phone antennae in New York City neighborhoods and state-wide. Perhaps most importantly, the Astoria Neighborhood Coalition has inspired a growing city-wide effort to rein in what some consider to be the unchecked proliferation of cell phone antennae across the city, and to bring public awareness to potential health risks posed by their radiation emissions.

The cell phone industry, mostly in the form of wireless service providers and communication technology companies, real estate developers, construction companies and others with a vested interest in a multi-billion dollar business, say these fears are unfounded. In extolling the safety of cell phone base stations, they also emphasize the importance of cell phones in times of emergency (almost ten thousand 911 calls are made from wireless phones in New York everyday) and point to American society’s growing reliance on cell phones.

Debating Possible Health Risks

Cell phones started appearing regularly on New York City streets in the early 1990s. Today there are approximately 10.5 million wireless phone subscribers in the city alone. More to the point, there are thousands of cell phone antennae throughout the city, although no one knows the exact number or even how to get an accurate count. Yet while cell phones have become a highly visible and ubiquitous feature of modern life, the mobile phone industry’s rooftop infrastructure remains largely unnoticed by the general public. In fact, there was little evidence that the public cared where cell phone towers were placed until there was political oppositionto recent attempts by Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to rent public school rooftop space to cell phone companies.

Cellular phone facilities typically consist of three primary parts: the antenna, the base station, and the equipment. Antennae send and receive signals to and from cellular phones using RF radiation at frequencies between 800 and 1990 megahertz (MHz) which is greater than most FM radios, cordless telephones, and television broadcasts, but less than microwave oven frequencies.

At the heart of the dispute between organizations like the Astoria Neighborhood Coalition and the New York Wireless Access Coalition, a wireless industry advocacy association, is their interpretation of research that has been done on the safety of these antennae. While the radio frequency used by cell antennas may seem no more dangerous than a microwave oven, it is the constancy of the emissions and the proximity of antennae to humans that has raised questions among scientists and prompted countless health studies. Most of the research done so far is limited and inconclusive at best, neither denying nor concluding that cell phone antennas pose a public health threat. In fact, at a recent City Council hearing, both wireless phone advocates and their detractors quoted excerpts from the same World Health Organization (WHO) fact sheet to champion their cause.

The wireless phone industry, public health officials and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) all point to the fact that there is no smoking antenna, no proof that the radiation produced by cell antenna radio frequencies constitutes a real health risk. As a result, wireless advocates maintain there is no justification for trying to impose regulations on the cell phone industry.

Anti-proliferation organizers and members of the Astoria Neighborhood Coalition acknowledge that cell phones are important mainstays in today’s society, but argue that the need for more scientific research is reason enough to at least monitor cell phone antennae construction. Evie Hantzopoulos, a spokesperson for the Coalition who freely admits to being an avid cell phone user herself, points to the city’s experience with asbestos as a cautionary tale of how medical science is often years behind the growth and use of new technologies, innovations and materials.

The research debate is a highly complicated one, not only because opinions within the scientific community - some of which has been underwritten by the cell phone industry itself - vary greatly, but because no one has yet been able to complete a long term study that accurately simulates real life conditions and antenna exposure.

While Jessica Leighton, the Assistant Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health testified at City Council hearings that antennas were “unlikely” to pose a health risk, she also admitted “it is fair to say that some questions have not been conclusively answered. While more study may be warranted, it would take an enormous amount of time, money and expertise…Entirely different training, expertise and professions are required to evaluate emissions, exposure and health outcomes.” Leighton concluded that “Better studies are based on very large populations, followed for many years into the future… Short-term health studies conducted locally are not likely to shed meaningful light on these issues.”

The Fight In Astoria

In addition to the seemingly divine hand that delivered the errant blueprints to Bazzolo’s doorstep in Astoria, it took a very aggressive community organizing campaign by the coalition for the issue of cell tower proliferation to take on a broader city-wide profile. After learning that the owner of 32-42 33rd Street was renting rooftop space to T-Mobile, residents discovered that the rooftop was accessible to the residents of the building, lacked proper signage and that three of the antennae were openly exposed, within mere feet, to people living in the adjoining building - all in violation of Federal Communications Commission(FCC) guidelines.

In response, the coalition quickly produced a 500 signature petition demanding that the antennae be removed, called on their public officials to get involved and requested an inspection of the base station from the FCC. In the process they also learned that securing the legal right to have the antennae dismantled would not, however, prove to be so easy.

Normally, telecommunication companies are required to apply to the Board of Standards and Appeals and then appear in front of a public hearing before they can build in a residential neighborhood. However in 1998 Deputy Commissioner of Buildings Richard Visconti issued an order that exempted cell phone companies from this long and expensive neighborhood process. Visconti explained his action by saying, “The department recognizes that the cellular telephone has become a prevalent form of communication essential to the public interest. As such, those companies wishing to erect cellular antennae and install related equipment are to be treated with the deference afforded other public utilities.”

As such, cell phone carriers operate under very little control or oversight, not only in New York, but statewide. According to an open letter issued by the Astoria Neighborhood Coalition, “telecommunication companies themselves are not required to inspect or monitor the sites. The FCC issues a blanket license for a geographical area. As long as the company self-certifies that the site meets federal guidelines, they can put up an antenna sites wherever they wish...[N]o agency on the local, state or federal level tracks where these antennae are being sited.”

Because the New York State Public Service Commission is regarded as a competitive market, they do not regulate wireless companies. Furthermore, local and state governments across the country are prohibited from using health concerns as a guiding principle in the zoning of cell phone antennae and base stations because, the FCC reasoned in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, there is no solid evidence linking cell phone technology with heath risks.

In the meantime, the coalition has questioned the validity of the exemption that was granted the wireless phone industry and contemplates a class-action lawsuit. Hantzopoulos asserts that Visconti’s action was “in violation of the New York City Charter” and he “had no authority to issue this exemption”.

The coalition has already been successful in compelling T-Mobile to remove three of the nine antennae, the ones that directly exposed residents in the adjacent building. By the time the FCC arrived in October of 2003 to inspect the site, it represented perhaps an even more significant victory for the coalition: The Queens Chronicle reported it was the first inspection of a New York City cell phone antenna ever conducted by the FCC. What arguably should have been routine, was, in fact, a landmark event for the agency that took months and a great deal of applied political pressure from Queens to achieve. As a result of this experience, Hantzopoulos surmised that when it comes to wireless technology, the “FCC has neither the expertise nor the capacity to ensure public safety”.

Legislative Action

Indeed, the coalition’s allies have proven to be closer to home. A target of the coalition’s advocacy, Astoria City Councilmember Peter Vallone, Jr. has introduced a billthat, if passed, would mandate that the city maintain a list of where cellular phone antennae are erected, thus giving the public the ability to at least track antenna locations. Vallone has called for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to study the long-term effects of living and working near multiple antennae and base stations and has already prompted the City Council Committees on Health and Housing and Buildings to hold hearings in April of 2004 on the proliferation of cell phone antennae.

Astoria Assemblyman Michael Gianaris has been pushed even further in sponsoring Assembly Bill 9897, which is designed to “promote the responsible and efficient placement of wireless facilities in residential areas”. Specifically, the legislation would establish a four-month moratorium on the construction of wireless facilities, allowing time for the establishment of a new siting board that would ensure certain criteria are met before a wireless tower is erected.

Gianaris’ legislation would also mandate a study on the health effects of cell phone tower emissions; require companies to demonstrate the need for each wireless facility; require written notice of the facility to residents living within 500 feet of the proposed tower; call for public hearings on specific construction proposals; and require that cellular phone facilities conform to the aesthetics of the surrounding neighborhood.

The cell phone industry has not taken this lying down. In her testimony before the New York City Council hearings, Laura Altschul, Director of National Siting Policy at T-Mobile USA Communications, said that while these legislative initiatives are “well intentioned, they have the potential…to threaten the city’s wireless communications systems and undermine the advances New York City has made in telecommunications to date.” In addition to emphasizing the important role that cell phones play in originating 911 calls, Altschul argued that the tracking of cell phone antennae could be exploited by terrorists to threaten homeland security.

A Growing Movement

But the protest genie may have already escaped the bottle, both locally and nationally. For instance, several independent grassroots campaigns in San Francisco aimed at halting the placement of wireless antennae in residential areas joined forces in 2000 under the banner of the San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union(SNAFU), a city-wide coalition of individual residents and neighborhood organizations. And taking the lead from the Astoria Neighborhood Coalition, community boards #1 in Queens and #7 and #8 in Manhattan have passed resolutions calling for the study of potential cell antenna health risks, while boards #3 in Manhattan and #10 in Brooklyn have recently placed the matter on their agendas.

In the meantime, with three antennae removed, but six remaining on the roof of 32-42 33rd Street, the Astoria Neighborhood Coalition continues its fight and has become the leading grassroots voice for people across New York desperate for information and advice regarding cell phone antennae. Hantzopoulos says that she and the coalition members have received countless emails and phone calls from people facing their own dilemmas: Co-op boards and landlords wondering whether to accept money from companies seeking to put antennae on their roofs; cancer victims questioning their own close exposures to antennae; residents, grassroots organizations and elected officials considering how to mount their own local anti-antenna campaigns; even a parent trying to decide whether to buy a house on the coalition’s block. “This is going to be a major public health issue in the years to come,” Hantzopoulos said. “The public is just beginning to learn about it and they will be outraged.”

 



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