Rally outside City Hall before a land use committee hearing
Since the recent announcement by Jamestown Properties and partners of a $1 billion investment to rebrand and renovate a massive 16-building complex - which will require a rezoning to permit a hotel and academic facility as well as a public investment of $100 million to improve the surrounding streetscape and infrastructure - there has been a steady stream of media accounts of new tech and commercial tenants drawn to Industry City.
While the successful marketing of an “innovation district” has generated much interest and activity, the city has yet to state its policy on industrial land uses contributing to the real estate uncertainty that is threatening Sunset Park’s industrial small businesses including those in the Industrial Business Zone. Heightening real estate speculation is exemplified by the impending acquisition of the 14-acre, M3-1 zoned Sunset Industrial Park by a real estate investment joint venture, which “immediately after closing on the Property, Savoy/601W will begin the design and approval process to rezone this site and to redevelop it into a large-scale residential community“ thereby increasing the site’s value by more than four or five times the acquisition price of $130 million.
A month ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Sunset Park’s elected officials including City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, Congress Member Nydia Velazquez, State Assembly Member Felix Ortiz, and long-time maritime advocate Congress Member Jerrod Nadler joined federal officials on the Sunset Park waterfront to announce the reactivation of the 72-acre South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT) and its designation as part of America’s Marine Highway System. All speakers lauded reactivating Brooklyn’s working waterfront, the environmental and public health benefits of truck traffic reduction, and the creation of unionized jobs.
When the Mayor was asked to comment on neighboring Industry City’s prior request to use five acres of SBMT for 750 parking spaces to accommodate new tenants and shoppers, he affirmed SBMT would only be used for industrial purposes. While the parking issue appears to have been resolved for the immediate future, a substantive public discussion about the co-existence of an innovation economy district and a traditional maritime-manufacturing hub remain outstanding.
Jamestown Properties specializes in the adaptive reuse of industrial buildings. Its Innovation and Design Building in Boston’s Innovation District is similar to its plans for Industry City. Boston Globe columnist Paul McMorrow in “Old vs. new Seaport needs public debate” argued that for traditional and modern manufacturing sectors to work together, “it will only be after serious coordination, and hard conversations about what industry means in the 21st century.” Although the New York City Council released a comprehensive study of industrial land uses in November 2014, which was followed by a Land Use Committee public hearing in April 2015, Mayor de Blasio and Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen have yet to weigh in on a substantive public conversation about industrial manufacturing and its importance to New York City’s economy.
The City Council report found that the decades-long decline of industrial manufacturing sectors has ended and, in fact, industrial employment grew modestly from 2010 to 2014. Sunset Park is a prime example of this trend. Based on the New York State Department of Labor Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, Sunset Park’s industrial firms increased slightly from 1,138 in 2010 to 1,193 in 2014. The number of employees also grew during this period from 10,651 to 11,614 workers.
Although maligned for creating few jobs, warehouses are an important part of an industrial ecosystem and in Sunset Park warehouses employed 103 workers at an average annual wage of $31,236. Representing a third (33%) of the local employment base, this data underscores how traditional industrial manufacturing sectors continue to anchor Sunset Park’s neighborhood economy. These are jobs that have historically and continue to provide opportunity for working class immigrants and workers of color.
In response to a question posed by a Protect Our Working Waterfront Alliance (POWWA) member, Industry City CEO Andrew Kimball discounted community concerns about gentrification and displacement because contrary to “pushing people out”, he claimed the innovation economy is about “bringing people in.” But the real issue may be who is being brought in.
UCLA geographer Allen Scott argues that innovation districts are enclaves that represent a “privileged foci of production, work, and social life.” A mundane illustration is the branding of Industry City’s Food Hall, which is not called a food court because the term conjures up a shopping mall – the quintessential symbol of mass consumption. Affluent consumers desire a unique experience in “great gathering places,” according to developer/architect Young Woo, who is “curating” a mix of retail tenants in refurbished shipping containers on Manhattan’s Pier 57. Clearly, an innovation economy is not just a reference to a mode of production but connotes a cultural milieu and aesthetic deemed creative, hip, and artisanal.
On the day of the City Council Land Use Committee hearing, POWWA – a citywide alliance which includes UPROSE, Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Teamsters Local 812, Trinity Lutheran Church, and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance – held a rally at City Hall where elected officials and advocates addressed the importance of preserving and protecting industrial jobs for working class New Yorkers. A Crain's article in March indicated that Mayor de Blasio was soon to announce his industrial manufacturing policy but that has yet to happen. In the meantime, the lack of an engaged public conversation about 21st century industry is contributing to speculative real estate activity and rising rents threatening Sunset Park’s viable industrial manufacturing ecosystem.
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Tarry Hum is a professor at the City University of New York and author of Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood: Brooklyn's Sunset Park.
Fight for $15 rally, including the author (photo: Make the Road NY)
I came to this country in 2010 with my two children looking for a better future. My first job was as a cashier at McDonald's at Penn Station, earning the minimum wage of $7.50. Although I was hired as a cashier, management asked me to do other tasks such as food preparation and cleaning the restaurant. Despite all my hard work, the salary was never enough.
When I received my first check, I was shocked: How was I supposed to be able to support my family with a $200 paycheck? I could not help but wonder: Given that McDonald's is one of the richest companies in the world, how they were paying me such a low salary? As a mother, the minimum wage was not paying me enough to cover rent, food, and my family's other expenses. This was true no matter how carefully we spent.
The same is true for thousands and thousands of fast food workers who earn the current minimum wage of $8.75. In the end, I had to leave my job because the salary was not enough, but about 180,000 New Yorkers continue working with these miserable conditions due to a lack of other options.
That's why this week is critical for workers across our state. On Wednesday, we expect that a State Wage Board will make its recommendation for a new minimum wage in the fast food sector. We are hoping that the wage board will step up for workers and provide a much-needed wage increase.
The wage board must show that it has heard the voices of workers like me and thousands more who have spoken at the public hearings and rallies across the state and recommend an increase to $15 per hour as soon as possible. And then New York State's Labor Commissioner, Mario Musolino, must accept the recommendation so that it takes effect.
Large corporations like McDonald's continue to provide poverty wages while earning billions of dollars each year. The vast majority of fast food workers in New York have to rely on government subsidies to sustain their families because of low wages that are not enough to meet basic needs. Many do not earn enough to pay their rent, while others have to walk miles to work because they have no money for a MetroCard, despite working full-time.
We all deserve a fair chance to succeed, not a minimum wage that guarantees our continued poverty. Therefore, we need the whole community to raise its voice for $15 per hour. If you believe in fair wages, join me at the last meeting of the Wage Board this Wednesday, at 2:30pm, at 90 Church Street. And once we get the recommendation that workers across this state deserve, we must all communicate with Commissioner Musolino to demand the wage increase be adopted.
And when we win the fast food fight, let there be no doubt: we will continue the Fight for $15 in Albany to ensure that all workers in all industries get a fair wage. This week will be a critical step in a larger struggle for all of us.
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Paola Angel is a member of Make the Road New York, the largest grassroots community organization in New York offering services and organizing the immigrant community. On Twitter: @maketheroadny
Time Inc joins the NYSE in 2014 (photo: @TimeInc)
Publishing giant Time Inc. has been cutting hundreds of jobs in recent years, but its next round of layoffs come despite significant financial help from New York State taxpayers.
Last year, when it was reported that the recently spun-off company was looking to relocate its midtown headquarters, the state's economic development agency awarded $10 million in grants and tax credits to encourage Time Inc. to move downtown instead of Jersey City.
Companies that benefit from public development subsidies should be required to create new jobs or at least protect existing ones. Time Inc.'s "job retention" grant should ensure that the company will maintain or increase its jobs in the state.
Unfortunately, that requirement doesn't appear to apply to Time Inc.
Documents revealed in a WNYC report show that the company can cut more than 900 jobs – about one-third of its entire New York City workforce – and still keep every penny of public money.
It's not the first time Time Inc. has cut jobs while getting tax breaks. According to research by Good Jobs New York, from 2003 to 2010 Time Inc. benefitted from more than $7 million in incentives through the New York City Industrial Development Agency to retain jobs in the city. Yet during that time, Time Inc. cut over 3,000 jobs. As a penalty, the Agency recaptured $1.4 million and charged Time an additional $187,000.
So what's next for Time Inc. employees? Sadly, there is no indication that the company's management is even remotely serious about keeping jobs in the country, let alone in the Big Apple.
Rather than reinvesting in the state that is backing his company, Time CEO Joe Ripp seems bent on outsourcing everything he can, even prized journalism. Last November, Ripp unilaterally implemented changes to the negotiated working conditions at Time Inc. that would allow the company to send overseas up to 60 full-time journalist positions and about 100 more temporary journalism jobs from its five most prestigious and widely read magazines: TIME, People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and Money. The Manhattan office of the National Labor Relations Board, acting on a charge filed by The NewsGuild of New York, has said it believes the move was illegal and that it plans to issue a complaint against the company by the end of June.
In a 2014 government filing, Ripp told shareholders that the firm "anticipate(s) additional headcount reductions and efficiency measures...including global sourcing of personnel." Subsequently, the march of Time Inc. jobs to low-wage countries, including hundreds held by workers not who are not Guild-represented, is apparently accelerating.
Is this the type of company the public should be subsidizing? State development dollars have poured into media companies recently, helping Buzzfeed and Vice ink deals to expand in new facilities. Those grants may be questionable, too, but at least those companies are growing.
Sadly, over the past decade Time Inc. has been laying off journalists and hollowing out its once industry-leading magazines. The company has rationalized job cuts as a necessary evil, though past cuts to its journalism have failed to turn it around.
Taxpayer dollars should go to create good, living wage jobs. Instead, New Yorkers are again throwing millions at Time Inc. even as it clearly signals it will thank taxpayers with even more layoffs and off-shoring of jobs.
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Elizabeth Bird coordinates Good Jobs New York, a project of Good Jobs First. Bill O'Meara is president of The NewsGuild of New York.