CityHallNews.com

Making Hudson Yards Work for All Workers
By Michael Fishman and William C. Thompson, Jr.

The mayor should be congratulated for his vision and leadership in trying to transform the 45-block area known as Hudson Yards into a compelling, mixed-use urban community of the future, replete with thousands of new jobs. Unless attention is paid to the project’s impact on the entire workforce, however, an unintended consequence of the development could be to exacerbate the disparity between high-end salaries and low-wage jobs in New York City.

While the city, through projects like Hudson Yards, excels at attracting finance, media, management and other high-end jobs, all too often the service jobs created pay far too little to raise a family and get by. As the city’s high-end job base has grown, so has the number of service worker jobs. Yet, most workers – whether they are building security, cleaners, restaurant or retail workers – have been forced to endure wage stagnation and living standards squeezed by rising costs.

The growing gap in personal income – one in four jobs already pays only a poverty wage – is reaching epic proportions and creating an affordability crisis. The mayor himself, in his State of the City address, said, “New York’s future depends on our ability to make sure that middle and working class families can afford to live here.”

Moving forward, taxpayer investment in infrastructure that enables the city to capture more high-end job growth should be coupled with measures to ensure that service workers are paid enough to at least survive in New York City. Embracing this principle is the key to making an increasingly globalized economy work for all New Yorkers.

In that light, the city’s Industrial Development Agency (IDA) missed a golden opportunity last month when it authorized a far-reaching $2 billion tax incentive program designed in part to entice developers to build out the Hudson Yards neighborhood.

In approving the measure, the IDA could have ensured that jobs created in the Hudson Yards pay family-supporting wages by requiring interested developers to commit to paying living wages to service workers as a condition for receiving considerable, IDA-approved tax breaks.

To be sure, it is promising to see things moving forward on Manhattan’s Far West Side. Equally encouraging, the Javits Convention Center expansion recently got underway and plans for the Moynihan Station are being finalized. In addition, the city seems poised to soon be moving on the No. 7 subway extension to 34th Street and 11th Avenue as well as the parks and other improvements that will make the Hudson Yards the world’s first 21st century office district.

All of these developments will create new opportunities in the service sector, but that is just half the battle. We also must ensure these jobs allow these workers to support their families.

As the latest chapter in New York City’s historic urban re-development, Hudson Yards still presents us with a much-needed opportunity to start bridging – or at least to stem – the widening personal income gap that, left alone, threatens to exacerbate the problem of affordability that is confronting a growing number of New Yorkers.

We call on the Bloomberg administration to seize this opportunity – before it is too late – to ensure fair, livable wages for service workers at the new Hudson Yards. To turn this disturbing trend around, the city should build policy provisions into its tax incentive-based development plan that will raise the wage floor and spur investments in worker training and better opportunities.

Michael Fishman is the president of SEIU Local 32BJ. William C. Thompson, Jr. is the comptroller of New York City, serving his second term in the position.