Gov. Paterson’s poll ratings may be poor, but that’s no reason for him to try to buy union support with a bill that would destroy jobs.
Alas, that seems to be his thinking in promoting legislation to force developers and landlords at state-assisted projects to pay workers, essentially, union scale.
Salaries at such projects would have to be in line with “prevailing wages” — i.e., union wages. In New York City, that would be a hefty $19.20 an hour — nearly three times the $7.25 minimum wage.
And, again, the bill would cover not just construction workers on a project but also a landlord’s workers far into the future — including “guards, doormen, building cleaners, porters, handymen, janitors, groundskeepers, elevator operators and collectors of garbage.”
Leave no worker behind, it seems, in terms of pay — even if it means leaving far too many of them behind when it comes to jobs.
That’s right: In one fell swoop, the bill would make many projects uneconomical — even with the state assistance (which usually covers just a small portion of the costs, anyway).
Thus, projects — like the those planned for Manhattan’s Hudson Yards and Kennedy Airport’s JetBlue terminal — would likely not get done.
At those sites, it’ll be “good-bye, jobs.”
How ironic: The program that provides the assistance — tax-exempt financing, for example, through a quasi-public Industrial Development Agency — is meant to promote development and create jobs.
But Paterson’s plan would make those developments less affordable for developers — and strangle job growth.
Of course, unions prefer higher wages to more work; they’ve long pushed for such a prevailing-wage bill. Paterson was no doubt looking to throw organized labor a bone, in the hope of winning its support — and never mind the lost jobs.
The good news? He now seems to be backpedaling: He’s reportedly called the plan merely “a working draft” and admitted it would hurt economically hard-hit areas, like upstate New York.
Better he scrap the idea entirely.
Meanwhile, though, the City Council is up to similar mischief: It’s considering a union demand to force a developer at a proposed Bronx project to pay workers an above-market “living wage” rate — estimated at more than $10 an hour.
The developer, Related Cos., wants to build a mall in the old Kingsbridge Armory, creating 1,000 construction jobs, plus 1,200 permanent jobs.
Forget that if the council’s wage provision is forced on Related. The project — and rent for subsequent tenants — would simply become too expensive.
As Related’s Jesse Masyr testified, “Without tenants, there is no financing. Without financing, there is no project and without the project, there are no jobs.”
Or don’t council members care?
The same holds statewide: New York’s economy is bad enough; no need for the gov to kill more jobs — no matter how much union support it wins him.