Inflatable rats, symbols of union protest, placed outside the Barclays Center

Last week, the District Council of Carpenters began protesting outside the Barclays Center, calling attention to low compensation for part-time workers who convert the arena from basketball facility to concert spaces and other functions.

Yesterday, they brought two inflatable rats, the first right in front of the old Ebbets Field flagpole, the second on Flatbush Avenue. (All photos by Norman Oder/AYR.)

The workers say they get far less compensation than full-time workers at Madison Square Garden; Crain's reported that the part-time wages are competitive. They handed out leaflets to passers-by and received some honks in support from drivers.

Also, a rep told me yesterday that the vote to decertify the SEIU local--which was overwhelmingly in favor but reportedly too few workers to reach a majority--is now before the National Labor Relations Board.

The Carpenters, of course, were vigorous supporters of Atlantic Yards. Now the union is calling Forest City Ratner and the Barclays Center "rotten to the core."

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Daily News: arena conversion workers seek to de-certify union, complain about part-time status, say MSG pay is better

The comparison between the Barclays Center and Cablevision's Madison Square Garden--already more complicated than Public Advocate Bill de Blasio thinks--just got a little more complicated as the Daily News reports, 120 Barclays Center workers plan vote to stop paying dues to their union, SEIU 32BJ, the first step in expected move to de-certify.

The Barclays Center has 120 workers--all part-time--whose job it is to convert the arena from a basketball court to concert hall to other functions. They get only $14/hour and, according to the Daily News, must work some four years before they can get health benefits.

By contrast, Madison Square Garden employes six to 15 full-time carpenters--not sure why this number is so vague--and 20 to 40 part-timers. The full-timers earn $46/hour. It's not clear what the part-timers earn. But the difference is enough to raise hackles. The Daily News reports:

As a result, the workers plan to vote Wednesday to stop paying dues to their union, SEIU 32BJ. That’s the first step in an expected move to de-certify.
“We feel we’ve been misrepresented by them,” said construction worker Micah Wheeler, 40.

While the workers say they want to join the New York City District Council of Carpenters, which represents the MSG workers,  a 32BJ spokeswoman says "we are confident these issues will be resolved” and a Forest City spokesman says "conversion jobs are by their very nature part-time” and they "do not get involved in internal union elections.”

No labor testimony at hearing

Crain's Insider reported:

On Wednesday evening, Empire State Development, the state's economic development agency, is holding a court-ordered hearing to take comments on its environmental impact study for Phase 2 of the Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards development.
The New York City Building Trades Council, the building trades' umbrella labor group, was expected to offer supportive testimony for the Brooklyn project. But its president, Gary LaBarbera, wrote in an email to his council's executive board Wednesday morning that those plans were off. It was apparently because of a simmering dispute between his group, the building workers union 32BJ, and Forest City Ratner.
"There remains a labor dispute involving the New York City District Council of Carpenters and representation of employees in the trades at the Barclays Center," wrote Mr. LaBarbera in the email, which was forwarded to The Insider. "A link to an article in the Daily News that describes the issue is provided below. Under these circumstances, the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York will not be testifying at this evening's public hearing on the Atlantic Yards SEIS."

Note that the hearing is on the scope for a study, not the results of the study. So labor testimony may not be crucial.

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Questions for the modular press conference: how do plans for affordable housing and union jobs compare to earlier Atlantic Yards promises?

Tomorrow, at a press conference, a host of people will celebrate the groundbreaking for the first tower at Atlantic Yards--a 32-story, 363-unit B2, which should be the world's tallest modular building.

Officials expected include Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Borough President Marty Markowitz, Forest City Ratner CEO Bruce Ratner, Forest City Enterprises CEO David LaRue, Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York President Gary LaBarbera, Skanska USA Building CEO William Flemming, and Bertha Lewis--the latter whose affiliation isn't billed, but who signed the May 2005 Affordable Housing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Forest City as the leader of New York ACORN.

At the groundbreaking, Forest City will display one of the 930 modules used to create the apartments, "50 percent of which will be affordable," according to a press notice.

50 percent affordable

But what does 50 percent affordable mean, and how does that comport with initial promises?

As I reported in August for the Brooklyn Bureau, the housing MOU promised not only that 50 percent of the rentals would be affordable but that 50 percent of the latter, in square footage, would be devoted to two- and three-bedroom units.

At other points, Lewis and Forest City claimed not that half the affordable square footage, but that half the affordable units would be two- or three-bedroom.

Instead, as Forest City said in a recent presentation (excerpt above), 20% of affordable units will be two-bedroom units, with no three-bedroom units.

Why so few? Because the city offers subsidy per unit, not per bedroom, and it costs Forest City more to build larger units. Also, the city and Forest City's Community Benefits Agreement partners have pushed back only partially, accepting a deviation from the pledge.
So, one lingering question: will Forest City fulfill the pledge in future towers?

Skew toward higher incomes

Also, as I reported in August, the two-bedroom units are not distributed evenly across the five affordable "bands," two of which are low-income, three moderate- and middle-income:

But Tower 2's skew toward higher incomes remains. Of the 36 subsidized two-bedroom units, nine would be occupied by low-income families, five would be set aside for renters of moderate-income, five for the first middle-income band and 17 would be subsidized for the highest affordable “band,” with monthly rents, of $2,740 today (plus electric), and surely higher when the building opens in a year or two.
While that’s some discount off market—new two-bedroom, two-bath high-rise apartments in nearby downtown Brooklyn cost $3,300-plus—that's too much for “the missing class” of people just above poverty, as well as those below the line who rallied with ACORN for Atlantic Yards.

That configuration may have been tweaked--no one's said so--but, if so, likely not significantly.

So, another lingering question: In the future, will the larger apartments be distributed evenly?

Construction jobs

There will be 125 union workers and 25 supervisors at the factory, according to Forest City Ratner. About 40% of the labor force should work onsite.

The rough math suggests 250 workers over 18 months, assuming they work steadily, though that's not assured. If so, that's 375 job-years to build 363 units, plus the jobs associated with trucking and other support services.

That suggests fewer than 7,000 job-years (not counting trucking, etc.) to build the 6,430 apartments planned. (That doesn't count the unbuilt office tower.)

Still, Forest City said the number of man-hours to build the first tower will be approximately the same as conventional construction, but wouldn't answer a question about a similar calculation: the number of job-years involved.

Will construction match the 15,000 and 17,000 jobs (actually, job-years) once promised for the project? They should show us the math for both the original and current calculation.

The Times reported:

Under the new agreement, Mr. La Barbera said union factory workers would earn $55,000 a year, 25 percent less than the average union construction worker. But, he said, the trade-off is that the factory worker will work steady hours throughout the year, regardless of the weather.

That still doesn't answer the question: does that mean the same amount of job-years for the project?

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