Unions and the City: Negotiating Urban Change 9781501712692

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UNIONS AND THE CITY

UNIONS AND THE CITY Negotiating Urban Change Edited by Ian Thomas MacDonald

ILR PRESS AN IMPRINT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS   ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 2017 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2017 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: MacDonald, Ian Thomas, 1980-­editor. | Container of (work):   MacDonald, Ian Thomas, 1980-­­Labor strategy and the politics of elite division. Title: Unions and the city : negotiating urban change / edited by Ian Thomas  MacDonald. Description: Ithaca : ILR Press, an imprint of Cornell University Press, 2017. |   Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016037421 (print) | LCCN 2016045168 (ebook) |   ISBN 9781501706547 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501706820 (pbk. : alk.   paper) | ISBN 9781501712685 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501712692 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: ­Labor unions—­New York (State)—­New York. | ­Labor unions—­   Ontario—­Toronto. | ­Labor movement—­New York (State)—­New York. |  ­Labor movement—­Ontario—­Toronto. | Community development, Urban—­   New York (State)—­New York. | Community development, Urban—­Ontario—  ­Toronto. | Sociology, Urban—­New York (State)—­New York. | Sociology,   Urban—­Ontario—­Toronto. Classification: LCC HD6519.N5 U55 2017 (print) | LCC HD6519.N5 (ebook) |   DDC 331.8809713/541—­dc23 LC rec­ord available at https://­lccn​.­loc​.­gov​/­2016037421 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent pos­si­ble in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-­based, low-­VOC inks and acid-­free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-­free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www​.­cornellpress​.­cornell​.­edu.

Contents

List of Figures Acknowl­edgments List of Acronyms

vii ix xi

Introduction. The Urbanization of Union Strategy and Strug­gle Ian Thomas MacDonald Par t 1. ­LABOR AND THE HOSPITABLE CITY Ian Thomas MacDonald

1

27

1. ­Labor Strategy and the Politics of Elite Division

in Midtown Manhattan Ian Thomas MacDonald

31

2. Or­ga­nized ­Labor and Casino Politics in Toronto

Steven Tufts Par t 2. LABOR AND THE CREATIVE CITY Maria Figueroa, Lois S. Gray, and Thorben Wieditz

53

75

3. New York Film Production Unions Enter the Po­liti­cal

Arena in Search of Tax Subsidies Maria Figueroa and Lois S. Gray

79

4. Film Unions’ Strug­gle to Defend Studio Space in Toronto

Thorben Wieditz Par t 3. LABOR AND THE SUSTAINABLE CITY James Nugent

102

121

5. Building a Green New York: Construction Unions

and Community Alliances Maria Figueroa

125

6. Struggling for Good Green Jobs in Toronto’s

Deindustrializing Suburbs James Nugent

146

vi Contents

Par t 4. ­LABOR AND THE CARING CITY Simon Black

167

7. Creating a City for Workers: Union Strategies

on Child Care in New York City Susanna F. Schaller, K. C. Wagner, and Mildred E. Warner

171

8. In Defense of “Gold-­Plated” Child Care:

Union Strug­gles to Preserve Quality Care and Quality Care Work in Toronto Simon Black

189

Conclusion Ian Thomas MacDonald

208

Notes References List of Contributors Index

221 227 243 245

Figures

Figure 1.1. Union density across ­hotel formats in New York, 1985–2013  37 Figure 2.1. Proposed OLG central Ontario locations  61 Figure 2.2. Local 75 casino campaign leaflet  67 Figure 3.1. New York State employment in film and TV production (number of jobs)  92 Figure 3.2. Racial and ethnic composition of the film and TV production workforce, by selected occupation, New York State, 2000 and 2010  97 Figure 3.3. Gender composition of the film and TV production workforce, by selected occupation, New York State, 2000 and 2010  98 Figure 4.1. Toronto’s existing and proposed film studio space  106

vii

Acknowl­e dgments

Unions and the City is the result of a collaborative research proj­ect, and like all collaborations, ours has called on the generosity, assistance, and goodwill of many ­people. I would like to thank my coauthors for placing their confidence in the proj­ect, as well as for their openness in working as a team. I would like to thank Lois Gray in par­tic­u­lar for encouraging the proj­ect when it was just a notion, and for seeing it through to a successful finale. A book such as this—­presenting the work of academics and ­labor researchers that is grounded in the experiences of local ­labor activists and leaders—­could not have been written without the institutional support of a place like the Cornell Worker Institute in New York City. Neither would the proj­ect have been pos­si­ble without the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the guidance of Luc Lebrun. Additional funding was provided by the Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation et le travail (CRIMT) at the Université de Montréal. The proj­ect was ­housed at the CITY Institute at York University, Toronto, where Roger Keil, Sara Macdonald, and Adam Charnaw graciously oversaw its administration. On behalf of my co-­authors I would like to thank the ­labor activists and leaders in Toronto and New York who agreed to participate in our research. For my understanding of local ­labor and New York City politics, I owe a large debt to my students at the Murphy Institute, the Brooklyn College Center for Worker Education, and the City College Center for Worker Education. Our seminar discussions have found their way into this volume uncited. Previous versions of the chapters ­were presented at the meetings of the ­Labor and Employment Research Association (LERA), the Canadian Association for Work and ­Labour Studies (CAWLS), the United Association for ­Labor Education (UALE), CRIMT, and the American Association of Geographers (AAG). The manuscript was substantially improved by the suggestions of the anonymous reviewers as well as the sound and supportive advice of Frances Benson and Gregor Murray. I would like to thank the copyeditors, Guillaume Plourde, Lee Kuhnle, and my parents, Les and Gwen, for their assistance in preparing the manuscript, and my partner, Lou, for love and encouragement throughout.

ix

Acronyms

ACS Administration of ­Children’s Ser­v ices ARRA American Recovery and Reinvestment Act BPI Building Per­for­mance Institute BWI Brooklyn Workforce Innovations CAW Canadian Auto Workers CBO Community Benefits Organ­ization CDBG Community Development Block Grant CEC Community Environmental Center CRE Commercial Real Estate Sector CUPE Canadian Union of Public Employees CWA Community Workforce Agreement CWF Center for Working Families DCP Department of City Planning DGA Directors Guild of Amer­i­ca ECE Early Child Care and Education ERA Economic Research Association ETCC East Toronto Community Coalition FDK Full-­Day Kindergarten FLIC Film Liaison Industry Committee GJ/GNY Green Jobs/Green New York GTA Greater Toronto Area HOME Home Investment Partnerships HTC ­Hotel Trades Council IATSE International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees IBEW International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers IBT International Brotherhood of Teamsters IUOE International Union of Operating Engineers LEROF Laborers’ Eastern Region Organ­izing Fund LEED Leadership in Energy and Design LIUNA Laborers International Union of North Amer­i­ca LPCs Learn-­Play Centres MDCA Mount Dennis Community Association MOFTB Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting MPAA Motion Picture Association of Amer­i­ca xi

xii Acronyms

NBCCC NDLON NYPA NYSERDA OCBCC OLG OMB OMERS PLA REBNY RGGI RRIF SAG-­AFTRA

Northwest Bronx Community Clergy Co­ali­tion National Day Laborer Organ­izing Network New York Production Alliance New York State Energy Research and Development Authority Ontario Co­ali­tion for Better Child Care Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation Ontario Municipal Board Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System Proj­ect ­Labor Agreement Real Estate Board of New York Regional Green­house Gas Initiative Residential Retrofit Investment Fund Screen Actors Guild–­American Federation of Tele­v i­sion & Radio Artists SARS Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome SEIU Ser­v ice Employees International Union TCBCC Toronto Co­ali­tion for Better Child Care TDRs Transferable Development Rights TEDCO Toronto Economic Development Corporations TFS Toronto Film Studios UNITE ­HERE Merger of Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) and ­Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (­HERE) UPK Universal Pre-­Kindergarten WAP Weatherization Assistance Program WGA Writers Guild of Amer­i­ca

Introduction

THE URBANIZATION OF UNION STRATEGY AND STRUG­G LE Ian Thomas MacDonald

This book is about ­unions and the city. It was written by a team of researchers who believe that building socially just cities w ­ ill require the renewal of our ­labor movements, and that the renewal of ­labor can be built in the course of the workplace and broader social strug­gles that are currently taking place in major North American cities. Many in l­ abor studies have come to see our cities and suburbs as ­great laboratories of ­labor renewal. The relevance of this perspective can be glimpsed in the importance of resisting the dismantling of public education to the fate of a teacher strike in Chicago, for instance, or in the equally surprising success of citywide minimum wage campaigns across the United States. But t­ hese inspiring moments only hint at or­ga­nized ­labor’s daily engagement with the life of the city, which we have found to be broader, deeper, and more complex than is commonly recognized. If we are right to believe that the ­future of the ­labor movement is an urban one, ­union activists and staffers, urban policymakers, elected officials, and members of the public alike w ­ ill require a fuller understanding of what impels ­unions to become involved in urban policy issues, what ­dilemmas structure the choices u ­ nions make, and what impact u ­ nions have on the lives of urban residents, beyond their members. This book contributes to that understanding in the hope that it may serve as a roadmap t­ oward both a stronger ­labor movement and a socially just urbanism. No contribution to ­labor studies ­today can avoid beginning with the question of ­labor’s continued social relevance. Indeed, it may be more relevant to discuss the consequences of or­ga­nized ­labor’s absence from our economy and politics than to search out the consequences of its activities. Most optimistically, l­abor 1

2

INTRODUCTION 

movements in the United States and Canada might be described as being at an impasse. Spirited local strug­gles have blunted the worst attacks on ­labor standards while failing to inspire a broader fightback. Innovative u ­ nion campaigns have succeeded in or­ga­niz­ing workers in par­tic­u­lar workplaces, but t­ hese are not generalized across l­ abor markets. Attempts to fend off legislative assaults on l­ abor rights fall short as often as they prevail. Union repre­sen­ta­tion in the United States now sits close to what is likely a floor of 6.6 ­percent of private-­sector employment and just over 11 ­percent when the public sector is factored in. The equivalent rates in Canada are 14 ­percent in the private sector and 27 ­percent overall, levels which have declined since their high point in the 1980s, and especially so in terms of private-­sector employment. Still, u ­ nions represent 14.8 million workers in the United States and 4.8 million in Canada. It remains the case that ­unions continue to act in ways that shape the experience and practices of large numbers of working p ­ eople and the industries in which they work, as well as the po­liti­cal communities in which they live. It is not now, and has never been, fash­ion­able in the social sciences to recognize that ­unions have this importance. ­There are a number of ­causes, both external and internal, to explain why ­labor has been so weakened. But the obsolescence of conflict is not one of them. It is rather the case that a g­ reat many of the social strug­gles we see t­ oday—­and are sure to see more of in the f­ uture—do not express themselves primarily in the workplace. They are sparked by cuts to public ser­v ices and the privatization of public education, racist policing and immigration policies, gentrification, precarious work lives and degraded l­abor markets, a rise in university fees, and crushing levels of consumer debt. T ­ hese strug­gles express themselves in the public sphere, and they are typically initiated and led by young ­people and racialized and i­ mmigrant workers who find themselves excluded from stable, decently paid employment in the firms, industries, and occupations most likely to be associated with u ­ nion repre­sen­ta­tion. No one familiar with l­ abor history would doubt that the fate of the ­labor movement is linked to strug­gles which, born of dispossession, are strug­gles of the working class (Fletcher and Gapasin 2009). Geographers would add to this that or­ga­nized ­labor and the new urban movements are now more likely to be struggling in the same places over the same issues. Consider the economic location of ­unionized workers in the United States. A quick survey of U.S. ­union membership shows that the majority are located in branches of the economy at one or more remove from domestic industrial production, formerly the profit center of the U.S. economy. In the private sector, the highest ­union density rates are not in manufacturing (10 ­percent), but in transportation (20 ­percent), utilities (25 ­percent), and construction (14 ­percent)— industries in which workers “build the city where they trade.” Furthermore, the



The Urbanization of Union Strategy

3

l­abor movement is overwhelmingly composed of members in service-­sector occupations rather than materials extraction and pro­cessing. Education, health care, sales and office, transportation, and even private security occupations are all more impor­tant sources of ­union employment than production occupations. As of 2009, half of all ­union members ­were located in the public sector, with two-­ thirds working for local governments providing front-­line ser­v ices necessary for the reproduction of urban society. Without them, the cities which, we are told, are the engines of the new economy would not function. To characterize this as a “postindustrial” rather than an “urban” l­abor movement puts the emphasis on what l­abor used to produce and fails to identify what it is concretely that ­union members produce ­today. One consequence of this shift in economic location is that l­ abor ­unions ­remain, by a significant margin, the largest membership-­based organ­izations in major North American cities, and often very power­ful local po­liti­cal actors. ­Another is that ­unionized workers are likely to work in sectors that are regulated or operated by the city governments that find themselves the targets of urban social movements making claims for public ser­vices, employment standards, and civil rights. It is this geo­graph­i­cal overlap that gives rise to the hope in l­ abor studies that l­ abor’s impasse might be broken by developing creative strategies that connect existing l­abor ­union or­ga­ni­za­tion and resources to the spark of urban social movements and the regulatory powers of local government (Turner and Cornfield 2007; Dean and Reynolds 2009). The ­union strategies discussed in this book represent a creative response within the ­labor movement to the unraveling of an employment relations system inherited from past ­labor strug­gles, Fordist production, and Keynesian macroeconomic management. This system had sought to create a contained field of ­labor relations, separate and insulated to a degree from the extra-­workplace economic, ­social, and po­liti­cal relations that an earlier trade u ­ nionism had at times challenged. If in 1948 Arthur Ross could confidently state that “the ­union at work is the ­union negotiating the contract” (1948, 9), this was in large mea­sure ­because ­union activity could thrive when protected within that defined field. For de­cades now, t­ hese institutional supports have been eroded to the point where u ­ nions can no longer take for granted a protected sphere of contract negotiation and enforcement. ­These institutional supports must be re-­created by the ­unions themselves in a piecemeal fashion. The u ­ nion at work ­today is the ­union attempting to reproduce the bargaining relationship and even the continued employment of its members—­the employment contract itself—as a condition of collective bargaining. As ­unions have declined in terms of their l­abor market coverage, they have expanded the scope of their activities to take on roles previously assumed by governments and even corporations.

4

INTRODUCTION 

­Labor ­unions are organ­izations formed by workers to accomplish a common purpose. They ­were formed in the workplace where workers’ power is at its greatest potential extent. Existing l­abor laws in North Amer­i­ca so constrain the right to use this power, however, that workers, as a collective, enjoy fewer rights in the workplace than they may claim as citizens of a demo­cratic society (Geoghegan 2014). The reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the firm and the degradation of l­abor markets have further weakened ­labor’s workplace capacities (Weil 2014). The recognition that or­ga­nized ­labor can no longer be successful when action is confined to the workplace encourages u ­ nions to pursue strategies that link workplace or­ga­ni­za­tion to extra-­workplace relations where they may find additional sources of power and greater liberty of action. This more po­liti­cal form of l­abor action—­the ­union member mobilized as a demo­cratic citizen (Murray and Verge 1994)—­opens up a variety of pos­si­ble strategies. In linking other spheres of social life to the workplace, ­unions transgress the bound­aries that defined the postwar employment relations system and begin charting an arena of ­labor strug­gle and strategy that is specifically urban. We commonly use the term urban as a shorthand for a kind of life that cities make pos­si­ ble. More usefully, the urban can refer to the concentration of the separate spheres of social life and ways of being in one place. The ­labor strategies discussed in this book are urban in this sense. They are urban ­because they take place in cities and suburbs. But they are also urban in that they link together the separate spheres of the everyday lives of the ­people they seek to or­ga­nize (the workplace, the community, the home, the streets, and the public sphere) and the dif­fer­ent ways in which ­people experience their class position (gendered, raced, citizenship status, high ­skill/low skill, producer, and consumer). In pursuing t­ hese strategies, u ­ nions are behaving in ways that have been championed by the “social u ­ nionism” strand in the l­abor renewal lit­er­a­ture: they are extending their representative function both to nonunionized workers and to the many ways in which their members are not just workers but social actors with a plurality of needs and identities (Frege and Kelly 2004). At the same time, ­unions are negotiating how cities evolve and how they are governed and lived by their residents, including, of course, not only ­union members but also the growing ranks of unor­ga­nized and precarious workers. Working-­class formation in the United States has been urban, not just workplace-­based, as Ira Katznelson (1981) and o ­ thers have argued persuasively. The importance of this perspective has only been confirmed by recent transformations in capitalism, as we discuss below. The implication is that when ­unions challenge and negotiate urban change, they are intervening in the formation of a new urban working class. ­Labor’s urban strategies discussed in this book assume a common form. They seek to forge alliances with local employers and community organ­izations around



The Urbanization of Union Strategy

5

public policy issues, mobilize u ­ nion members as demo­cratic citizens to move t­ hese issues forward with local elected officials, and fi­nally bring this leverage to bear on the reregulation of the workplace. Within this prevailing form, we have noted a number of recurring ele­ments that are combined in creative ways that are specific to each case. ­These ele­ments are: (1) the po­liti­cal mobilization of ­union members as worker-­citizens and residents with a plurality of needs and identities not simply reducible to the workplace; (2) the formation of complex l­ abor-­inclusive co­ali­tions that cross class divisions, including not only community organ­izations but also local firms and even real estate developers; (3) the exploitation of divisions between dominant economic and po­liti­cal actors, including between developers and wealthy and m ­ iddle-­class residents; and (4) the creative use of the regulatory powers of local government to defend l­abor standards and sustain or­ ga­niz­ing campaigns. Urban space concentrates ­these actors and encourages both conflict and forms of cooperation between them. The ­unions we are studying have learned to navigate on this terrain with varying degrees of effectiveness. We are not primarily interested in looking at how ­labor strategies evolve in a par­tic­u­lar city, defined by its ­labor history, economic structure, and culturally specific way of d ­ oing politics. We are interested in the possibilities for l­ abor renewal in the roles u ­ nions have carved out for themselves in the transformation of the city. Framing the research this way is useful b ­ ecause it generates questions that lead to new understandings and gets us thinking about the strategic possibilities for ­labor, hopefully in productive ways. It was to address some of ­these questions that a team of ­labor studies researchers and ­labor geographers formed in early 2012. Our first task was to build a common research agenda on “­labor’s urban strategies” informed by the dif­fer­ent ways l­abor studies, geographers, and urban studies scholars have approached the question.

­L abor in the City  A number of books published in ­labor studies over the past de­cade have made a strong case that when or­ga­niz­ing workers, ­unions should consider the city or metropolitan region, and not just the workplace, as the appropriate terrain. Other contributions on new forms of ­labor or­ga­niz­ing and policy advocacy concern ­labor in the city even if they are framed as national studies. A variety of ­factors have been advanced in support of this perspective. Unlike the heartlands of industrial l­ abor, undone by globalization and the threat of capital flight, the new ser­vice economy is place-­bound and cannot easily avoid ­unionization and regulation by local ­labor. When Colin Clark and other Keynesian economists devised the standard industrial classification system in the immediate

6

INTRODUCTION 

postwar period, the point was to classify l­abor by its geo­graph­i­cal location to better coordinate national economic development. Primary industries w ­ ere located close to raw materials, while manufacturing was thought to exhibit a more dispersed locational pattern. Ser­v ices ­were urban, the delivery of ser­v ices being increasingly the “principal function of cities” (Clark 1945, 97). Ser­vices now make up approximately 80 ­percent of Canadian and U.S. GDP and a similar proportion of employment. ­Because ser­v ices rely on face-­to-­face interaction in the production pro­cess and in delivery, product markets tend to overlap in scale with ­labor markets. It is common in ­labor studies for service-­sector industries to be referred to as “place-­bound,” with the implication that wages can be taken out of competition in metropolitan areas without triggering capital flight or employer threats of relocation (Cornfield 2007; Alberti, Holgate, and Turner 2014). The old industrial ­unions, including the autoworkers and steelworkers, have for some time been moving into the city to or­ga­nize “every­thing that ­doesn’t move.” B ­ ecause ser­v ice industries are characterized by high levels of subcontracting, particularly at the bottom of the value chain, service-­sector or­ga­niz­ing must take a sectoral approach, targeting employers through strategic campaigns, and might rely on regulation of local ­labor markets alongside workplace-­based or­ga­niz­ing. Cities concentrate actors that ­either facilitate or form a base for innovative ­labor or­ga­niz­ing. Historically in North Amer­i­ca, earlier waves of u ­ nion or­ga­niz­ing relied on forms of solidarity and orga­nizational resources that immigrant workers had built in the ethnic enclave neighborhoods of the major industrial cities. Ruth Milkman argues in LA Story: Immigrant Workers and the ­Future of ­Labor (2006) that recent immigrants, who have settled in the major gateway cities and found employment in degraded ­labor markets, are open to ­unionization and benefit from the kinds of networks and community resources that are necessary to sustain ­labor campaigns in a tough environment. The form of l­ abor or­ga­niz­ing that she identifies with Los Angeles, the “LA model,” relies on the repertoires of both immigrant worker centers and the old AFL craft ­unions, which had long ago learned how to or­ga­nize outside the framework of the National ­Labor Relations Board. While Los Angeles might lead the United States in low-­wage employment growth, and the city counts the highest proportion of immigrant residents, t­ hese ­labor market shifts are found to some extent across large North American cities. Grassroots strategic or­ga­niz­ing among immigrant workers along the lines of the LA model has spread as well. A cross-­national comparison of immigrant worker or­ga­niz­ing in major cities finds that “a geo­graph­i­cal approach to ­union or­ga­niz­ ing appears more effective for immigrant workers than campaigns targeted at one com­pany, allowing for greater pressure on employers within certain market segments—­despite workers’ high mobility and dispersion across work sites” (Alberti, Holgate, and Turner 2014, 117).



The Urbanization of Union Strategy

7

­Labor in the New Urban Battlegrounds: Local Solidarity in a Global Economy (Turner and Cornfield 2007) was pioneering in arguing that the city has become the “chief arena in which con­temporary initiatives to revitalize the l­abor movement in the ser­v ice economy occur” (250). For ­these authors, this is ­because the city allows ­unions to act more like social movements by facilitating the formation of ­labor-­inclusive co­ali­tions. Associating community with non-­class identity, Cornfield argues that ­labor-­inclusive co­ali­tions allow ­unions to advocate and mobilize an increasingly diverse membership in a po­liti­cal era defined by the ascendance of identity politics (2007, 243). In their city cases, “urban ­labor revitalization” is most likely to emerge in the “frontier cities,” where progressive local ­labor leaderships form equal partnerships with community organ­izations based largely in immigrant communities. ­Others have emphasized the class nature of community strug­gles in arguing that ­labor revitalization must be urban and place-­ based (Dean and Reynolds 2009; Fletcher and Gapasin 2009). The case studies in New ­Labor in New York: Precarious Workers and the F ­ uture of the L ­ abor Movement (Milkman and Ott 2014) explore how worker centers, freed from the constraints of Wagner Act trade ­unionism, might be better suited to overcome ­these dichotomies of class and identity that l­abor–­community co­ali­tions often seem to reinforce as much as dissolve. Worker centers are an urban phenomenon, concentrated in large cities in proximity to the immigrant workers they seek to or­ga­ nize (Fine 2006). Wage stagnation and ­labor market polarization in the new ser­vice economy drive income in­equality, potentially turning large cities into crucibles of ­labor revitalization. Increasing income in­equality is a feature of current capitalism, and income in­equality is increasing most rapidly in large cities. ­Labor studies has been heavi­ly influenced by the global city hypothesis, which relates l­abor market polarization to the rise of finance and producer ser­v ices (finance, law, accounting, insurance) in the centers of the world economy. Polarization occurs as the consumption of highly paid employees in producer ser­v ices drives employment demand for low-­skill/low-­wage consumer ser­vices (Sassen 2001). The ­labor-­in-­the-­city books have argued that ­these shifts may drive urban ­labor revitalization, if in dif­fer­ent ways. Kim Moody (2007) highlights the extractive and speculative nature of finance and real estate and their contradictory relation to workers in the public sector and low-­wage ser­v ices, both struggling to survive rampant gentrification on stagnating wages. Class conflicts that are building up “below the skyline” may lead to a broader challenge to the new capitalism. Amy Dean and David Reynolds (2009) underline how growing income in­equality may be driving l­ abor activism in the U.S. West Coast centers of the knowledge economy, beyond global cities. In emphasizing the contribution of public and social infrastructure to the success of new economy sectors, they argue that t­ here is still a potential for

8

INTRODUCTION 

l­abor to bargain for a progressive equity component to business-­led regional policymaking.

Unions as Urban Actors ­ hese contributions help us understand how cities contextualize and facilitate T forms of l­abor or­ga­niz­ing and policy advocacy, and they provide explanations for why ­unions are drawn ­toward urban strategies. They tend to be optimistic about the prospects for ­labor renewal through the kinds of social movement strategies that urban space makes pos­si­ble. However, in order to appreciate both the potential and the limitations of urban strategies for ­labor revitalization, we need to place u ­ nions within a broader understanding of how cities are ­shaped by economic logics and actors that are considerably more power­ful than l­ abor organ­ izations and their allies. ­Labor studies must reckon with the city not only as a container that makes certain actions pos­si­ble, but also as a space that reflects and reproduces forms of exclusion and domination that ­labor must challenge if it is to shift the distribution of power in our society t­ oward working ­people. Major North American cities, for example, are largely or­ga­nized to provide the social and physical infrastructures required for firms to compete in the world economy, to ensure the reproduction of a l­ abor force of vari­ous qualities, to provide consumption-­oriented environments for the realization of profit, and to police ­those who are excluded from ­these environments. ­These policies remain dominant even when they lead to the dispossession, disenfranchisement, and re­ sis­tance of working-­class communities. Both employment and urban space in North Amer­i­ca are highly segregated by race, and the separation between “work” and “home” remains a gendered one, with work performed by w ­ omen in ­either space being undervalued. And so when or­ga­nized ­labor engages in urban politics and strug­gles, the choices that it makes ­matter greatly to workers’ abilities to live and raise families in place, and, crucially for l­abor renewal, to form the kinds of communities that can sustain collective action. ­Here we are following in the footsteps of ­labor geographers who have insisted that economic landscapes are ­shaped not only by business investment decisions, but that workers also have an interest in shaping the landscape of capitalism in order to secure employment in par­tic­u­lar places or ensure that neighborhoods remain ­v iable and affordable (Herod 1997). This insight is valuable ­because it is empowering: the decisions and actions of working p ­ eople and their institutions ­matter to how society is or­ga­nized. It is also impor­tant to recognize that ­labor’s agency is still pres­ent in cases where it is exercised in support of local employers or urban policies promoted by probusiness po­liti­cal elites. This can entail defending



The Urbanization of Union Strategy

9

standards in one location at the expense of trade ­unionists in other locations, or unor­ga­nized workers in the same location. ­These “geo­graph­i­cal dilemmas” haunt a ­labor movement that was built by folding par­tic­u­lar interests into a conception of the common good, and which represents, if nothing ­else, solidarity between workers over space (Castree et al. 2004). ­There is some irony that l­abor’s agency was being reasserted in theory while in actuality ­labor continued to suffer defeat and marginalization. What could it possibly mean t­ oday to insist that workers play an impor­tant role in shaping how cities change and are experienced by their residents? How could ­labor’s role as urban actors be evaluated in a meaningful way when ­unions are so heavi­ly conditioned and constrained, when the very right of workers to associate is ­under attack? As l­abor researchers, we understand that to study l­abor strategy without coming to terms with t­ hese constraints would be a pointless task. Recent contributions to l­abor geography agree, and call for reintegrating the analy­sis of l­abor activity within larger social structures, including the economic landscapes over which workers have very l­ ittle control (Coe and Jordhus-­Lier 2011; Mitchell 2011). How do t­ hese insights inform our perspective on l­abor in the city? Consider three axes of research that follow from a more geo­graph­i­cal perspective on u ­ nions as urban actors.

Unions and Sector-­Based Economic Development Urban economies are less place-­bound than is sometimes assumed. Cities compete for capital investment and high-­skilled workers, especially in new-­economy sectors, by mobilizing the regulatory and policy capacities of local government around an urban growth strategy (Jessop 1997). ­These strategies generally ­promote the interests of one sector against another in urban policy and planning conflicts. ­These growth strategies ­will be familiar through buzzwords that may originate as more or less critical concepts in urban studies but, as with “the creative city,” gain notoriety when used in the rhe­toric of urban boosters, from entrepreneurial intellectuals and journalists to elected officials. We use t­hese concepts advisedly, not b ­ ecause we accept the claims that are made in their ­favor—­that re­orienting cities to support privileged economic sectors ­w ill lead to balanced economic growth and more livable cities—­but ­because of their importance to urban politics and discourse. Urban growth strategies are typically championed by real estate developers, who anticipate the needs of the most profitable sectors of the local economy and can be relied on to represent t­ hese sectors’ interests through the city building agendas of local governments. High-­skill/high-­wage sectors like finance, information technology, biotechnology, and the creative industries are especially prized due

10

INTRODUCTION 

to their positive effects on local consumption, the tax base, and property values. Profitable low-­wage sectors that are export-­oriented, such as hospitality, are promoted for the same reasons. At their core, ­these strategies are about extracting rent from urban land. Often, they pit development capital against residential communities that may not want their communities to be s­ haped in the interests of business. It is too often said that we live in a period of “deregulated capitalism,” where “regulation” refers implicitly to government interventions in the market intended to restrain the power of business, protect workers and consumers, and legitimize the role of u ­ nions. Revisionist economic historians have argued to the contrary that economic regulation in North Amer­i­ca has principally been concerned with fostering corporate capitalism (Kolko 1967; Naylor 1975). Urban historians have traced the origins of land use zoning in the United States to attempts by property ­owners to defend the value of their holdings from the consequences of their own individual, profit-­maximizing be­hav­ior (Reps 1965). The wealthiest districts of a city are invariably the most regulated, while poorer areas are left to the vagaries of the market (Angotti 2008). Public health, housing regulation, and policing powers of local government are historically rooted in the social consequences of highly unequal urban spaces produced by industrialization (Boyer 1983). The same local powers are used to manage the inequalities that are produced ­today in postindustrial cities. The inevitable entwining of regulation and the market economy is paradoxical only if one assumes a conflict-­and contradiction-­free capitalism. Urban and ­labor scholars know this to be a warrantless assumption. While urban planning can have antimarket connotations, urban planning in the current context of North American urbanism largely refers to proj­ect financing and site-­specific amendments to land use regulations and the tax code to ­attract the kinds of firms, visitors, and high-­income workers that promise the highest financial return to power­ful local actors. As Susan Fainstein has written, this “new definition of planning as the pro­cess by which the government enables the private sector to invest profitably in urban space undermines an earlier, conservative perspective wherein government was viewed as antagonistic to business. The earlier construction of urban prob­lems as defined by poverty and inner city decline has been reconstituted in terms of competitiveness and fiscal solvency” (1991, 25). Planning for profit is still planning, an intentional act that reveals state power. “Surely the ingenious devices by which city planners attract funds and leverage development indicate their capability to affect the course of events” (31). It is impor­tant to insist on this point b ­ ecause the dominant f­ ree-­market rhe­ toric hides from view both the planning and policy options that are available in managing urban economies, and the essentially po­liti­cal dynamics that select which options ­will be pursued. ­There are trade-­offs ­here with implications for



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t­ hose who are not involved in making the decisions. For example, a dominant approach to local economic development in North American cities relies on tax incentives and subsidies to attract inward investment by reducing business costs relative to other locations. Property, payroll, and corporate income tax incentive programs devised in the 1970s to retain industrial employment in rust-­belt cities have been generalized across dif­fer­ent sectors to now include highly profitable firms and industries, including banking, high tech, and entertainment. T ­ hese business tax incentives are in addition to the common use of tax abatement urban development policies employed across North Amer­i­ca. A strategy of competing for business investment by cutting locational costs may offer initial “first-­mover” advantages to a city, but as ­these tools become generalized across jurisdictions and are incorporated within firm investment decision making, locational advantages fall back on stronger forms of competition such as deep l­abor markets, quality infrastructure, and public services—­all of which require social coordination, public spending, and taxation (Storper and Walker 1989). Instead of a necessary cost to be minimized as much as pos­si­ble, urban space can be envisioned as an investment platform for higher value-­added activities. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was criticized for arguing in ­favor of what he coined the “luxury city” strategy—­a higher-­cost city that “competes” for business investment by facilitating high value-­added production, rather than by offering a low-­cost location for generic production (Brash 2011). The reference was po­liti­cally tone deaf, coming from a billionaire mayor in a city facing a housing affordability crisis, and the term was never repeated by Bloomberg or any other elected official. But it should be recognized that this strategy holds significant appeal for producer interests in the city beyond the real estate industry and its obvious desire to rationalize high rents. It could also appeal to public-­sector ­unions as a means of securing alliances with local firms in f­ avor of a selective reinvestment in physical and social infrastructure, for instance, or private-­sector ­unions representing workers in high-­skill/high-­wage industries where a “strong” form of competition prevails. Even within the terms of ­these competitiveness-­oriented strategies, ­there are opportunities to shift the distribution of public ser­v ices, taxation, and employment from one sector or location to another in ways that align with u ­ nion goals. Private-­sector ­unions with large urban memberships have sought new sources of or­ga­niz­ing and bargaining leverage in the regulatory functions of local government, especially land use regulation, and the importance of tax abatements and productive state investments in local economic development strategies (Tufts 2007). In the public sector, u ­ nions seek to build competitive-­corporatist co­ali­ tions by promoting “high-­road” practices that overlap with the shared concerns of local government and locally dependent firms in workforce development and

12

INTRODUCTION 

increased inward investment. T ­ hese are v­ iable strategies b ­ ecause government regulation of urban economies remains pervasive, and b ­ ecause this regulation is subject to the ways in which liberal democracy elicits consent from the governed. Unions are able to push t­ hese strategies forward po­liti­cally by turning their orga­ nizational capacities ­toward electoral mobilization in get-­out-­the-­vote campaigns and lobbying activities; in championing the demands of community, resident, or advocate organ­izations; and in sponsoring policy-­oriented research. A sector-­based framing of ­union strategy focuses our attention on the expanded scope of u ­ nion action ­under current capitalism. Just as corporations step forward in the public discourse as “job creators,” they have largely a­ dopted zero employment-­growth strategies, relying instead on part-­time contracts, con­sul­ tants, subcontracting, and employment agencies to expand production. Now it is ­unions that are demanding, negotiating, and mobilizing for employment as intently as they used to bargain for better wages and benefit standards. In a world turned upside down, ­unions have stepped into the role of good job creators, a role that is both more social and more entrepreneurial than traditional business ­unionism. This role calls for a greater effectiveness in mobilizing allies and nonunion workers, while it also has the potential to trigger a number of “geo­graph­ i­cal dilemmas”—­favoring one group of workers over another in all of the ways in which workers are segregated and sorted in urban space. The class content of ­these strategies ­will depend greatly on the sector and the decisions that ­unions and other urban actors make. It should not be assumed that a strategy conceived to defend or create good jobs and reproduce bargaining relations between ­unions and employers ­will also unite a fragmented working class or that it expresses a working-­ class agenda that bridges the “city trenches” that Katznelson identified over thirty years ago, and which remain very relevant t­ oday.

Unions and Urban Politics If urban politics is the politics of co­ali­tion formation, “community” organ­izations (­whether understood in identity or class terms) are not necessarily the most relevant urban actors with which ­unions may find common ground. Urban politics is also a growth politics that ­favors actors and policies promising greater investment and employment—­typically large employers and real estate developers who form a stable “growth regime” beyond the vicissitudes of electoral politics (Molotch 1976; Stone 1989). ­Middle-­class homeowners form an effective electoral base for ­these regimes ­because they are susceptible to thinking of their interests, for the purposes of municipal politics, insofar as they are property ­owners and taxpayers. “Urban” does bring to mind a progressive space for po­liti­cal action, especially perhaps in the United States, where the po­liti­cal right is well entrenched



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in rural districts and state­houses, while pro-­urban federal policies ­were sustained for de­cades ­under the New Deal state. A decline in federal support for cities has made them more “entrepreneurial” (Harvey 1989), strengthening the po­liti­cal power of the growth interests and encouraging other urban actors, including ­labor, to frame their preferred policies in terms of economic competitiveness. Unions act on an urban po­liti­cal terrain defined by the conflicts and compromises that arise among residents, popu­lar movements, and growth interests. They could seek to resolve ­these conflicts along class lines, but for a variety of reasons do not necessarily do so. The place of ­unions in urban politics has received scant attention ­until relatively recently (Sites 2007; Savage 2014). This is curious given the pride of place given to critical po­liti­cal economy and the generally progressive po­liti­cal bent of scholars who are interested in local politics. An influential account of urban po­liti­cal economy briefly notes the building trades’ notorious support for “value-­ free” urban development and argues that ­labor’s inability to control the distribution of investment makes of them “­little more than one more instrument to be used by elites in competing growth machines” (Logan and Molotch 2007, 82). ­There is a widely held assumption—­exploited by the populist right—­that ­labor politics are particularist, determined by a concern to promote and protect employment for their own members. ­There is a kernel of truth to this perspective, which is partly grounded in the real­ity that ­unions are representative workplace institutions that articulate the concerns of their members and that lack the po­ liti­cal and economic power to advance an agenda that is inclusive of all workers (Ness 2001, 21). Unions in proj­ect-­based economic sectors like construction and entertainment have always been concerned to maintain employment levels. This is nevertheless a partial, one-­sided view. ­There are circumstances in which employment-­seeking, union-­backed public policy aligns rather well with a broader working-­class agenda. Unions in the public sector in par­tic­u­lar are concerned with improving the quality and quantity of work in ways that can align with the needs of public ser­v ice recipients, who may not have the po­liti­cal clout to defend ser­ vices on which they depend. Public-­sector ­unions are “state builders” (Johnston 1994), perhaps even the last effective defenders of welfare, public health, and education ser­vices (Piven and Cloward 1979). Renewal strategies for public-­sector ­labor would find ways of expanding access to ­these ser­vices in tandem with ­union membership roles and a burnished social legitimacy. Public-­sector ­union involvement in politics is controversial, and the scope of public-­sector collective bargaining has been very narrowly defined, precisely to block public-­sector ­labor strategies of this sort. Public-­sector ­unions may work around t­ hese limits by providing community and advocacy organ­izations with the po­liti­cal, financial, and orga­nizational resources to advance a public sector–­led social justice agenda. They

14

INTRODUCTION 

may advance u ­ nion employment goals in the policymaking pro­cess while choosing to remain unacknowledged legislators. ­Labor-­backed job growth policies in the private sector involve a more complex pro­cess of urban alliance formation. ­Labor co­ali­tions with equity-­seeking community organ­izations and marginalized workers are vital since urban policymaking is likely to impose a legitimacy test on public support for job creation in gendered and racially segregated l­ abor markets. Nonunionized and/or marginalized workers may have their own employment or neighborhood priorities that conflict with l­abor’s high-­road vision for their community. Public opposition to unwanted development can arise from dif­fer­ent class positions in urban space, and this opposition may or may not be consistent with the kind of employment growth favored by ­unions. Proj­ect-­and policy-­specific alliances may involve, in addition, mobilizing industrial fractions of capital against commercial and financial fractions, or making even finer po­liti­cal distinctions among local firms or between local firms and multinational corporations. For l­abor, the po­liti­cally effective co­ali­tion in any one instance is likely to be cross-­class in nature, and may or may not promote an urban social justice agenda that has been linked to l­abor renewal. Logan and Molotch ­were too dismissive of private-­sector ­labor in assigning it such a passive role in the growth regime. ­There is no question that ­labor is a subordinate actor, weakened by its inability to control investment. But individual ­unions can leverage their limited resources by exploiting conflicts within growth regimes, if not between them. Large corporations and real estate developers may be united on the big questions of urban governance, but they compete at a more local level to secure the conditions of profitability in their respective sectors, or to gain narrower firm advantages at par­tic­u­lar sites. In this context, public decisions are crucial in determining both the aggregate level of rent, as well as which plots of land ­will command the highest prices. This often leads to conflict over the regulation of land and the direction of public investment or subsidies. This economic competition precipitates po­liti­cal conflict as a result of the broader alliances that form, drawing in subordinate actors and noneconomic elites, to push policy through the legislative or regulatory pro­cess. With their capacity to mobilize large urban memberships and grant social legitimacy to elite-­led proj­ ects, u ­ nions can place themselves in a swing-­vote or veto position in certain urban policy and planning decisions. Fi­nally, it would be shortsighted to reduce l­ abor’s po­liti­cal role in urban space to questions of employment. Unions have institutional goals that are distinct from their representative function. They compete to become the dominant worker or­ ga­ni­za­tion in their sector, and may make po­liti­cal calculations that further this goal. They also have long-­standing relations with par­tic­u­lar community organ­



The Urbanization of Union Strategy

15

izations, advocates, public servants, and local councillors that must be maintained in the face of more short-­term calculations. Unions may also act po­liti­cally to represent their members as workers beyond the workplace or to address gendered needs they have at work in ways that lead to urban policy innovation. As any ­union staffer can attest, workers still look to their ­unions to represent their interests and resolve prob­lems, ­whether ­these are subject to collective bargaining or not. Unions can play a role in socializing and politicizing any number of issues that are not directly related to employment. Only the narrowest of trade ­union politics can ignore everyday life beyond the workplace, and then at some cost to its relevance as a working-­class institution.

Unions and Spatial Justice Urban po­liti­cal economy directs our attention to how the po­liti­cal role of real estate and the economic importance of rent relate to urban ­labor strategies. The rise of in­equality in large cities is not driven solely by l­abor market polarization associated with postindustrial capitalism, although that is a very impor­tant dynamic. In­e­qual­ity is also being driven by public policy decisions that make large cities less affordable and less welcoming places for poor and working-­class residents, or drive out the industries that employ blue-­collar workers. The new u ­ nion activism in major urban centers is driven both by wage stagnation in the ser­v ice economy and by rising urban cost structures. In cities where or­ga­nized ­labor has achieved some mea­sure of po­liti­cal power and policy influence, u ­ nions may find themselves in the role of effectively contesting urban in­equality. At other times, they may find themselves in a more contradictory or mediating role. How u ­ nion actors position their organ­izations with re­spect to rising urban inequalities w ­ ill greatly depend on how they choose to advance workplace goals through urban policy and planning, which co­ali­tions they judge to be the most po­liti­cally effective in advancing t­ hose goals, and how they decide to balance immediate with longer-­term positional goals. Economic development in North American cities is largely concerned with promoting high-­skill/high-­wage sectors. This involves incentivizing business investment and attracting the kinds of workers ­these sectors employ by attending to their quality-­of-­life concerns. Land use planning is a key tool, used to transform neighborhoods to suit the imputed tastes, fears, and prejudices of the “creative class.” Density limits and use restrictions are liberalized in deindustrializing, poorer, and more racially diverse areas of the city, channeling development pressures to ­these areas. The cultures and institutions of poor and working-­class populations—­ the highly segregated public housing and public schools in particular—­are barriers to be overcome. State-­led gentrification redistributes wealth upward and expels

16

INTRODUCTION 

workers outward, only to then selectively reintegrate them “depending on the needs of production and consumption” (Debord 2000 [1968]). Real estate–­led policies are thought to undermine economic competitiveness only when they begin to make it difficult for local employers to find qualified workers at competitive wages. This constant churning and upward drift of urban land prices plays havoc with employment stability and may, in some sectors, be just as damaging to u ­ nion employment levels as an appreciation of the exchange rate or the signing of a new international trade agreement. Industrial and public-­sector ­unions in major urban centers are often in the position of having to intervene in planning disputes to save their factory or hospital from condo conversion or another more profitable use that a developer has identified. Other u ­ nions may be drawn to such “site fights” as a means of embedding ­union goals in the land use planning pro­cess (Tufts 2010). Service-­sector ­unions have learned how to secure complex restrictions on the business models and l­abor relations practices of firms that ­w ill eventually occupy the space developers wish to build. The range of concessions available to ­labor and community groups is ­shaped by how much land value is likely to be unlocked by the rezoning pro­cess. The amount of value released is determined by the rent gap, the difference between current ground rent and the potential ground rent ­under a changed use or zoning (Smith 1984). The wider the rent gap, the greater the leverage l­ abor–­community co­ali­tions bring to bear against developers, and the higher the value of concessions they are likely to extract. The ­union’s leverage is greater if its members are residentially located along the advancing edge of the development frontier, and the rent gap is widest when neighborhoods that have under­gone long periods of disinvestment are transformed into luxury-­oriented spaces. While the value of concessions extracted from developers can vary according to the po­liti­cal leverage of the co­ali­tion, and the distribution of this value can be shifted among co­ali­tion partners in the form of subsidized housing or higher wages, any strategy that seeks to maximize developer concessions cannot at the same time seek to prevent gentrification. ­There are choices and trade-­offs involved in t­ hese strategies, and the result in some cases may be a form of “negotiated gentrification” (MacDonald 2011). We know from l­ abor history that ­unions are formed not only in the workplace but from working-­class communities in which social networks and forms of solidarity create a capacity and a willingness to engage in risky collective action. Organ­izing requires time and energy that are not spent commuting to far-­flung employment or in domestic ­labor, and social ­unionism requires that workers and community allies share local space in which to assem­ble, that they continue to demand the right to shape that space, and that they have an effective po­liti­cal right to do so. It becomes highly relevant for the f­ uture of the l­abor movement to in-



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quire w ­ hether ­labor strategies produce urban spaces that foster ­these cultures and capacities.

Research Design This more geo­graph­i­cal perspective on u ­ nions as urban actors defined our ­research program in distinct ways. First, l­ abor strategies have been contextualized within a sectoral framing. This focus on sector allows for a more realistic way of evaluating the importance of ­labor relative to more power­ful actors. It captures how ­union strategies are ­shaped and limited by competitive pressures and logics that are beyond the control of individual ­unions. This approach also helps to avoid a normative bias t­oward an analytical focus on ­labor strategies that are associated with l­abor revitalization. We share the normative bias of much of the l­ abor renewal lit­er­a­ture, but our concern in this book is with capturing what u ­ nions are ­doing in urban space, not with what we think they should be d ­ oing. The sectoral approach identifies a relevant sector in which ­labor is a consequential actor and asks what role ­unions are playing in shaping policies and planning decisions intended to promote that sector. We inquire into what impels ­unions to play this role, ­whether it be firm, ­labor market, or urban restructuring, or institutional f­ actors that are internal to ­unions. Sectors ­were selected on the basis of the following criteria: the sector is the subject of a development strategy through which claims are made on public resources and regulation and are justified by increased employment, balanced economic growth, ecological sustainability, or some other social good; ­unions represent a significant proportion of the workforce employed and take an active role in the regulation of their sector; and a focus on private for-­profit sectors is balanced by a public-­sector case. ­These criteria suggested the following four sectors: the hospitality industry, the film industry, green building and manufacturing, and child care. In an urban public policy context, ­these sectors are discursively represented in terms of promoting the “hospitable city,” the “creative city,” the “sustainable city,” and the “caring city.” The case studies are or­ga­nized within sections, each headed by a brief discussion of the sector growth strategy and how dominant u ­ nions position themselves within the regulation of their sector. We begin with sectors that are profit-­led and move to sectors in which social considerations, such as ecol­ogy and racial and gender equality, take on greater importance. ­Labor becomes more central in t­ hese latter sectors, and l­abor strategy becomes correspondingly more ambitious in terms of pushing up against the limits of urban growth strategies.

18

INTRODUCTION 

Second, we have evaluated ­labor strategy on two levels. On one level, we are concerned to know if l­abor has achieved its institutional goals, defined as or­ga­ niz­ing new workers, defending wage and benefit standards, employment levels, or increased po­liti­cal power and social legitimacy. Do l­ abor’s urban strategies work in their own terms to reproduce the ­union and the bargaining relationship? If so, this can well be counted as a success in countries in which the ­future of ­unions is very much in question. At the same time, it is increasingly difficult to see how the pursuit of such goals by individual ­unions could lead to a revitalization of the ­labor movement. The gap between the capacities of the existing ­unions and the scale of resources that would be required has simply become too large (Clawson 2003; Dubofsky 2013). We can, however, expect u ­ nions to build working-­class capacities and promote urban agendas and social justice movements that have the potential to shift power in our socie­ties ­toward working p ­ eople. This leads us to evaluate l­abor strategy by the effect ­unions have on urban change. Are the ­labor strategies we identify through our sectoral framework building working-­class capacities out of the fragmented ways in which class is experienced in urban space? Are they helping to create the kinds of neighborhoods, employment opportunities, and public ser­ vices that benefit an urban working class regardless of u ­ nion membership? Do they help to build the social and po­liti­cal capacity of working-­class residents to have a say in how their cities and neighborhoods change? Separating the institutional from the social outcomes of ­union action opens up the possibility that ­labor strategy may succeed on one level and not on another. Indeed, ­there may be trade-­offs ­here between institutional goals and the kinds of class-­wide strategies that are required for ­labor renewal, and our analy­ sis remains open to recognizing and exploring the reasons for this. Given that support for sector development ­will place ­unions in sometimes conciliatory and at other times conflictual positions vis-­à-­v is other urban actors, tensions and contradictions ­will appear at vari­ous moments. For instance, how do u ­ nions reconcile the interests of their members as urban producers with the plural and potentially conflicting interests and identities they hold as urban residents? How do ­unions advance public policies designed to further the collective workplace interests of their members in ways that converge with t­ hose of nonunionized workers and members of working-­class communities? And what happens if they diverge? Most importantly for the ­future of the l­abor movement, how can ­unions form alliances with local firms and growth-­oriented urban regimes without confronting the geo­graph­i­cal dilemmas that pit workers in one place or scale against ­those in another, often with zero-­sum outcomes? Is it even pos­si­ble to do so? Third, we have narrowed our focus to the dominant global cities of the United States and Canada, both impor­tant centers of ­labor strength, in order to bring



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out the relationships that we are interested in studying. No two cities are alike, and it ­will be said that New York City in par­tic­u­lar is exceptional, from a national U.S. perspective, as a citadel of l­abor strength. Nevertheless, we see the same urban ­labor strategies at work in Toronto as in New York, with similar outcomes, and we expect that direct comparisons can be made from our findings to ­labor in other large North American cities. Some of the strategies that we are concerned with ­will be less relevant to smaller urban centers and not relevant to or­ga­niz­ing in rural areas. Some ­will only work at the top of the urban hierarchy, and ­will work better in the urban center and less well on the urban periphery. New York City and Toronto can be placed in the same urban category for purposes of comparison. They are comparable to each other in terms of their economic structure as postindustrial, global cities, in terms of their primacy within each nation’s urban system, and in the significance of or­ga­nized ­labor in local politics and urban life. They have similar ­union density rates—­around 20 percent—­and may be classified as “­union towns,” in which ­labor maintains insider po­liti­cal relationships with officeholders. In New York, service-­sector ­unions with memberships in the tens of thousands dwarf community organ­izations, and the central ­labor council plays a less effective coordinating role than in Toronto, where ­labor is somewhat more reliant on community alliances and the l­abor council is often involved in local ­union campaigns. Although t­ here are differences in the nature of our urban spaces, Canadian urbanism is not of a dif­fer­ent type than American urbanism. Canadian cities receive even less in the way of federal support than their U.S. counter­parts. Nearly absent from the constitution, they are “creatures of the provinces,” with weak mayors and ­little in the way of taxation powers. Toronto enjoys more autonomy and fiscal capacity than other Canadian cities, but less than New York and other large U.S. cities. Most significantly for our research, the province retains ultimate authority over local land use decisions and funds a broader array of public ser­ vices than what is available in U.S. cities, including New York. As is true in the United States, policy options in Canadian cities are constrained by the bond market, the bond rating agencies, and the investment decisions of private corporations (Hackworth 2007). Now in the fourth gentrification de­cade, the cores of both cities are higher income and predominantly white. This high-­income residential core is surrounded by deindustrializing, lower income and racially mixed inner suburbs, and a suburban periphery sprouting new downtowns which is less exclusive and more ethnically diverse in Toronto’s case (Hulchanski 2010 ; Boudreau, Keil, and Young 2009). In terms of their po­liti­cal cultures, New York and Toronto are more alike than many other pos­si­ble U.S.–­Canadian city comparisons, and are perhaps more similar now than they have been historically. New York City’s l­abor movement was

20

INTRODUCTION 

impressively unique in the richness and breadth of its po­liti­cal, cultural, and education institutions, in the close if conflictive ties between city ­unions and the po­ liti­cal left, and in the influence it exerted in municipal politics, first through a series of third-­party formations and subsequently in the postwar era through liberal–­labor co­ali­tions within the local Demo­cratic Party (Freeman 2001). The ­labor movement left its mark in a city welfare state verging on a social-­democratic model, one that was exceptional in the country to the extent that it performed “non-­common” municipal government functions such as health care, mass transit, ­free higher education, and public housing (Fuchs 1992; Abu-­Lughod 1999). From a national Canadian perspective, Toronto does not rise above the rest as a ­union town or social-­democratic exception. Historically, it has been a more conservative place. On visiting the city in 1858, Charles Dickens wrote home that “the wild and rabid Toryism of Toronto is, I speak frankly, appalling.” Social democracy was built at the provincial level in Ontario on the strength of power­ful industrial, resource-­based, and public-­sector ­unions. Toronto has become an impor­tant center of ­labor power based in the public sector, broadly in the private ser­v ices sector, and in a diverse industrial sector, which, unlike in New York, retains a toehold in the inner suburbs. The dominant public culture in Toronto is social liberalism, and the po­liti­cal and economic elites remain largely white Anglo-­Saxon Protestant, even as it has become the world’s most multicultural of cities. Ours is not a study of the difference social democracy makes. In some sectors, such as film and green jobs, the urban context of our study is similar enough for the individual chapters to complement one another by focusing on dif­fer­ent dimensions of l­ abor strategy, encompassing urban planning and economic development policy. In child care, differences in national po­liti­cal culture and institutions do come to the fore and become key f­ actors explaining why u ­ nions select some strategies over ­others. Previous research has associated l­ abor renewal with “frontier cities” rather than the “­union towns,” with their well-­entrenched ­union leaderships and power­ful insider relationships (Hauptmeier and Turner 2007). The lit­er­a­ture is divided on ­whether differences in urban structure and size ­matter to urban ­labor revitalization. Turner and Cornfield (2007, 11–12) find no explanatory relevance in the global city or the economic makeup of cities to ­labor innovation in their study, while Adler, Tapia, and Turner (2014) and Milkman and Ott (2014) emphasize how global cities sharpen class divisions and therefore also the prospects for ­labor activism. We find that the size and urban density of cities ­matters significantly to the success of urban ­labor strategy. This is due to the way in which ­labor has come to rely on a multiplicity of dif­fer­ent actors and plays off contradictions or forms of



The Urbanization of Union Strategy

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coordination that are more pres­ent in dense urban space. For example, ­labor’s rent gap strategies are only pos­si­ble in large cities, and they work best in downtown locations, which are more heavi­ly regulated and where the largest profits are to be made, as is revealed in our hospitable city cases. Tax-­incentive employment strategies are weak forms of competition that succeed best in defending employment levels in the context of deep l­abor pools and the kinds of public investments that rely on the tax base of large cities, as revealed in our creative city cases. ­Labor–­community co­ali­tions rely on a diversity of community and advocacy organ­izations that are better or­ga­nized in central cities than in suburban and inner-­suburban locations, as revealed in our caring city cases. Our study is of u ­ nion towns and global cities. This unique pairing is designed to reveal the forms of conflict and compromise that occur between strong ­labor ­unions and dominant economic actors and logics. T ­ hese conflicts and compromises also occur in smaller urban centers and in larger cities where l­ abor is weaker, but they may be less in evidence in ­these places. Evaluating the difference that ­labor makes in the transformation of neighborhoods and cities is an inherently difficult task, largely b ­ ecause ­labor is almost always acting as a part of large and complex co­ali­tions that involve dif­fer­ent class actors. Narrowing our study to ­union towns where it is pos­si­ble to trace decisions back to po­liti­cally power­ful ­unions makes this task easier. Our findings ­will be relevant beyond our cases ­because of the way New York and Toronto accentuate relationships between ­labor and other dominant urban actors and logics that must be better understood if we are to evaluate the prospects for l­abor renewal in large North American cities. If we are more cautious about ­these prospects, it is partly ­because we are looking at cities in which ­labor is strong enough to make the compromises and alliances with dominant class actors and logics that are stronger still. ­These strategies may succeed in achieving trade ­union goals and stabilizing the existing organ­izations, without leading to any breakthroughs in rebuilding or expanding ­labor strength. They may be ­labors of Sisyphus. In this re­spect, our cases speak to the much more general phenomenon of the impasse of ­labor strategy across North Amer­i­ca.

Case Studies We begin the volume with ­labor in the hospitable city, a city that aggressively promotes itself to attract high-­spending visitors, and especially the “high rollers” among them. UNITE H ­ ERE, the major ­union in the hospitality and gaming sector, has pioneered urban strategies involving l­abor–­community co­ali­tions and innovative use of local land use and zoning policies to defend bargaining regimes

22

INTRODUCTION 

in the context of a rapid expansion of ­hotel capacity in major urban markets. The ­union is representative of l­ abor’s turn to more entrepreneurial strategies that seek to define a place for the ­union in workforce development, the promotion of tourism-­related infrastructure, and place-­promotion strategies in furtherance of high-­road employment practices (Tufts 2010). In this section, ­labor innovation flows north, with Canadian locals borrowing from the strategic repertoire of the U.S.-­based International. The chapters discuss the ­union’s role in two urban planning decisions. Ian MacDonald’s chapter discusses a campaign by the New York ­hotel workers to ensure new ­hotels built in East Midtown ­will employ ­unionized ­labor and continue to offer decent wages and benefits. This case shows how the ­union was successful in defending high-­road employment standards by playing off a territorial conflict within the “1 ­percent” and in making innovative use of the city’s land use review regulations. Steven Tufts’ chapter discusses ­labor’s role in a public ­battle over the siting of a casino in Toronto, which played out among dif­fer­ent levels of government, real estate developers, casino corporations, and anti-­casino community groups. The pro-­casino position a­ dopted by UNITE ­HERE Local 75, the largest ­union representing ­hotel workers in the city, was complicated by tensions this position created with community allies and was constrained by the u ­ nion’s role in sector regulation across North Amer­i­ca. Both chapters show how ­these ­unions have developed sophisticated ways of navigating elite divisions in urban space. Although we see a greater reliance on community co­ ali­tions in this sector, with hospitality workers often sharing local space and experiences of workplace gender and racial segmentation with lower-­income city residents, ­these chapters also reveal geo­graph­i­cal dilemmas at work between sectional and general interests at the local scale, between l­ abor and community, and between vari­ous scales of ­union or­ga­ni­za­tion. Our creative city section reveals urban ­labor strategy at its most aggressive and successful in immediate trade u ­ nion terms. In the film industry, u ­ nion innovation flows from north to south. The payroll tax incentives that have now been generalized across North Amer­i­ca ­were pioneered in Vancouver, British Columbia, in the 1990s as part of a larger sector development strategy of drawing “runaway” productions from Los Angeles. Seeking to maximize employment, Vancouver-­based film ­union lobbying for provincial film production tax concessions was paired with concessions on continental wage schedules and work rules to reinforce other locational advantages, including an advantageous exchange rate (Coe 2001). The strategy was initially successful in raising the local level of inward investment and employment. But of course the Californian ­unions responded in kind with their own tax inducement strategy in Sacramento, other states followed suit, and in 2002 film ­unions in New York began lobbying at both the state and city levels of government for their own tax credits, escalating from



The Urbanization of Union Strategy

23

a 10 to 30 ­percent rebate on payroll taxes. Upping the stakes in what is now a global ­battle for Hollywood big-­budget productions, with the studios playing ­unions and governments against each other, Toronto has subsidized the construction of massive state-­of-­the-­art studio infrastructure. This high-­cost investment has renewed the city’s prior attractiveness based on a developed ­labor pool, generous payroll tax incentives already in place at the provincial level, and streetscapes that might stand in for any North American city. Maria Figueroa and Lois Gray’s chapter explains how ­labor’s preference for tax incentives is conditioned by the highly concentrated owner­ship structure, flexible production system, and fragmented bargaining relations that characterize the film industry. ­Labor’s preference for a tax incentive–­based approach in New York encouraged greater coordination between local film u ­ nions, policymakers, employers, and local studios, and was successful in generating employment in the specific context of the city’s deep talent and qualified ­labor pool. Figueroa and Gray also show how the strategy induced tensions among local film u ­ nions over the distribution of tax benefits within the sector, and between film ­unions and representatives of low-­income urban residents, who find themselves subsidizing a high-­skill/high-­wage industry from which they are largely excluded. A similar tension emerged in Toronto, where film workers sharing local space with lower-­ income residents found themselves positioned as gentrifiers in their campaign to save studio space from being redeveloped for big-­box retail. Thorben Wieditz’s chapter considers the urban planning dimension of l­abor strategy in a case in which local film u ­ nions mobilized to defend low-­cost studio space at risk of being lost as an unintended consequence of the city’s real estate–­led policies. ­Here we see the contradictions of the luxury city strategy for ­labor in a high-­skill/high-­ wage sector. While ­labor’s campaign has so far proven successful in securing employment in this par­tic­u­lar case, the campaign reinforced a competitive creative city discourse that is at odds with industrial employment retention efforts in a rapidly gentrifying city. In both New York and Toronto, short-­term employment goals ­were secured and new po­liti­cal capacities ­were forged. But this was accomplished at the expense of broader class alliances that ­w ill become more impor­ tant as the big studios consolidate bargaining power over film workers, in part as a result of proliferating local competitiveness strategies. Our third section, ­labor in the sustainable city, discusses u ­ nion strategy at its most ambitiously entrepreneurial and, to date, least successful in narrow trade ­union terms. Attempts to ground capital in “green” sectors that are u ­ nionized and pay decent wages, all while remediating ecological damage, push up against the limits of ­labor’s agency. ­These are typically very complex “market-­making” strategies that seek to or­ga­nize workers by midwifing the industries that ­will employ them. They require working in urban co­ali­tions with low-­income communities to

24

INTRODUCTION 

oversee worker training programs; the use of land use policy to retain industrial employment land or strengthen commercial and residential building codes, sometimes in the teeth of real estate opposition; securing financing from higher levels of government; or­ga­niz­ing a local customer base or securing export markets; and, fi­nally, finding an investor who is willing to be an urban industrial employer, or creating an or­ga­ni­za­tion that w ­ ill act as one for the purposes of collective bargaining. Unions thus take on much, if not all, of the responsibility for bringing the dif­fer­ent moments of the production pro­cess together in a given space. James Nugent’s chapter discusses the difficulties of attempting this in a deindustrialized low-­income neighborhood in Toronto’s inner suburbs. H ­ ere, a resident or­ga­ni­za­tion backed by the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union (now UNIFOR), the Steelworkers, and the local l­abor council sought revitalization through green manufacturing, rather than a ­future of gentrification and big-­box retail employment envisioned by developers and the city. Nugent traces the evolution of the campaign from a focus on industrial heritage preservation to green jobs, and ultimately a broader antipoverty campaign that incorporated gender, race, and ecol­ogy. Although the campaign failed to attract a private-­sector firm to invest in the site, the co­ali­tion managed to overcome some of the dilemmas that ­labor has faced in similar site fights in the city, such as a trade-­off between employment retention and gentrification, and between low-­ wage versus high-­wage sector development. Maria Figueroa’s chapter on l­abor’s green jobs strategy in New York shifts to a public policy focus, with a discussion of two energy retrofit initiatives: the city-­and real estate–­led PlaNYC policy for retrofitting Manhattan’s commercial office space, and the Laborers (LIUNA)-­ sponsored Green Jobs/Green New York weatherization initiative covering residential property in the city and the state. Figueroa discusses how the entrepreneurial orientation and reliance on local po­liti­cal power that characterize construction ­union strategy relate to the market-­segmented and contract-­based production system in the industry. In the highly competitive and mostly nonunion residential property sector, a familiar tension between affordability for working-­ class consumers and ­union concerns with ­labor standards emerged as the federal stimulus funds used to finance retrofitting work w ­ ere scaled back. Retrofitting the commercial real estate sector would have overcome this dilemma and resulted in a much greater generation of employment, but for the opposition of building ­owners to a provision mandating that prob­lems identified in energy audits be addressed. Despite the enormous potential of a green jobs strategy to address employment disparities, revive neighborhoods without gentrification, and launch economic recovery while mitigating ecological damage, l­abor’s vision of a sustainable city seemingly cannot prevail when it confronts the entrenched power of real estate and finance in the global city.



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Our final section on child care and l­abor in the caring city pushes our use of the sector growth strategy concept to its breaking point. Child care is not in itself a profitable endeavor, and often not even a paid one. But the provision of affordable, quality child care does increase female ­labor market participation rates, and has been related to better educational outcomes and workplace productivity, both of which are determinant of inward investment and economic growth (Warner 2006). Unions, advocates, and working-­class families have other reasons to support better child care policy, including the promotion of gender equality, improvement in the quality of home and work life, and the narrowing of education achievement gaps that appear in early childhood development. If government behaved like the private businesses we are told they must emulate, Toronto and New York, along with higher levels of government, would surely invest in universally accessible, high-­quality child care. Moving child care policy t­ oward this goal has in fact been a hard strug­gle that relies heavi­ly on the strategies both of ­unions representing child care workers and of ­unions acting to address the child care needs of their members. In an era of permanent austerity, child care policies that are ­labor market–­enhancing represent a rare opening for an expansion of the social wage. The chapter by Susanna Schaller, K. C. Wagner, and Mildred Warner addresses the duality of l­ abor strategy in this sector with one case study of u ­ nions campaigning to expand their members’ access to child care benefits, paired with a second case study of a ­union or­ga­niz­ing campaign that combined direct or­ga­niz­ing of child care providers with public policy development. The chapter tells the story of how a highly feminized ­union representing health care workers won child care benefits in collective bargaining, subsequently campaigned as part of a multiunion co­ali­tion to reframe public subsidies for child care as a worker rather than a welfare benefit, and expanded access to child care for low-­and ­middle-­income wage earners. The second case follows a United Federation of Teachers (UFT)–­driven ­labor–­community campaign to or­ga­nize home-­based child care providers, which represent a low-­wage segment of the child care workforce that has emerged in the context of privatization and voucherization. Public policy supports, including recognition of the bargaining unit by executive order, relied on the ­union’s po­liti­cal muscle upstate, as well as an urban public policy focus on closing an educational achievement gap facing c­ hildren from marginalized and low-­income families. The child care sector in Toronto is similarly segmented between home-­based, private care and a relatively larger public center-­based system that is nevertheless facing bud­get cuts and privatization. In Canada, public-­sector ­unions have strongly opposed the neoliberal agenda of shifting care work to private, for-­profit centers and the home, and have not sought to or­ga­nize this latter segment of the child care workforce, as the UFT has done in New York, for fear of “formalizing

26

INTRODUCTION 

the informal.” They are keeping their eyes on the prize: a universal public system funded by higher levels of government on the Quebec model. Simon Black’s chapter focuses on Canadian Union of Public Employee (CUPE) strug­gles to defend the strategically impor­tant and higher-­quality, but more expensive, public system in two campaigns—­a successful strug­gle to defend centers in the City of Toronto and a second, unsuccessful effort in a rapidly growing suburb of the city. In both cases, the ­union played a ­behind-­the-­scenes supportive role, while parents and public advocates took the lead. Black’s analy­sis suggests that success in the City of Toronto case relied on divisions within the local government and the fact that the child care fight was part of a much larger mobilization against austerity. In the suburbs, a more isolated local u ­ nion proved unable to c­ ounter neoliberal arguments that “gold-­plated” public child care was good for ­unions but unaffordable for low-­income families. Most, if not all, of our cases feature ­unions fighting defensive ­battles in an urban context that is full of contradictions. Urban space offers allies and po­liti­cal leverage to u ­ nions, even as it creates tensions and fractures that u ­ nions do not necessarily intend or foresee. Often, ­labor strategies succeed in trade ­union terms without pointing the way to the renewal that l­ abor movements in North Amer­i­ca desperately need. Is reproduction in place the best that can be hoped for? Can we nevertheless treat t­ hese strategies as promising experiments, and identify the ele­ ments that can be synthesized in an alternative approach that better reconciles workplace and residential interests, and the immediate short-­term horizon with a longer perspective on rebuilding ­labor? ­These questions ­will be addressed in the conclusion.

Part 1

­ ABOR AND THE L HOSPITABLE CITY Ian Thomas MacDonald

In the postindustrial city, leisure, the repre­sen­ta­tion of place, and the experience of the city may be counted among its leading exports. As the product is, in a real sense, the city itself, urban space is constantly being reworked by urban boosters to capture an increasing share of the world tourism market, renewing the product through investments in cultural, leisure and mobility infrastructure, aggressive place promotion, and careful brand management (Fainstein and Judd 1999; Gotham 2007; Greenberg 2008). The commercial real estate industry has for de­cades aggressively promoted urban tourism as an economic growth strategy, justifying public supports for ­hotel and tourism infrastructure development as necessary for generating urban employment and anchoring downtown “urban renewal” (Merrifield 2002). Commercial real estate’s vision of a “hospitable city” concerned with the consumption experiences of the leisure class (Bell 2007) has not taken hold unopposed. As Worpole (1991, 138) observes, “one person’s leisure is for many ­others low-­paid, part-­time and casual work.” Hospitality differs from other sectors trumpeted by urban growth regimes in paying low or median wages and requiring ­little in the way of credentials for entry-­level positions. Employers draw on the more marginalized sectors of metropolitan l­abor markets, and the l­abor pro­cess is highly segmented, gendered, and racialized between “front of h ­ ouse” and “back of ­house” operations, where the pay is lower, work offers l­ittle autonomy, and ­career opportunities are few (Jayaraman 2013; Tufts 2003). ­Hotel workers’ ­unions have led power­ful campaigns for improved wages and working conditions by linking workplace or­ga­niz­ing against exploitative employment practices with community 27

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PART 1

opposition to unwanted h ­ otel and tourism-­related development. Pioneered in Los Angeles in the early 1990s and since generalized across major cities in North Amer­i­ca, ­these ­labor-­led community co­ali­tions advance a vision of the hospitable city that prioritizes stable employment, decent wages, and ­union repre­sen­ta­ tion, framed if pos­si­ble in terms of socio-­spatial justice (Soja 2010). In the cases presented in the following chapters, h ­ otel ­unions in New York played an impor­tant role in determining ­whether restrictive zoning would be lifted in East Midtown to incentivize the redevelopment of commercial office space, and in Toronto in w ­ hether the city would allow the establishment of a large downtown casino. In both cases, real estate developers ­behind ­these proj­ects ran up against significant public opposition. H ­ otel ­unions engaged ­these development fights through cross-­class alliances to better position the u ­ nion in the pursuit of its high-­road dream in Toronto, and to defend a high-­road ­hotel industry u ­ nder competitive pressure, as in New York. Both u ­ nions can claim that they transform employment into good jobs, carving out a “high-­road” ­hotel sector within the larger hospitality industry. In ­these cities ­unionization rates are unusually high, around 70 ­percent, in the large full-­service ­hotels primarily located downtown. Union wages raise pay and benefits significantly above hospitality industry norms, such that u ­ nionized ­hotel workers are among the few members of the working class who may still afford to live in the city that they help to produce and sell to the world. However, neither of ­these cases is a straightforward example of a ­union aligning with communities against unwanted development and low-­road employers. In New York, the h ­ otel ­union ultimately sided with well-­heeled community organ­ izations and power­ful media outlets opposed to the rezoning b ­ ecause it furthered the ­union’s broader, citywide campaign against nonunion h ­ otel operators. This stance positioned the u ­ nion against the expansion of a sector—­commercial office space—­that could just as well be considered a high-­road sector generating ­union employment from the perspective of the building trades and building ser­ vice workers, whose u ­ nions lobbied in f­ avor of the proj­ect. In Toronto, the main ­hotel and gaming u ­ nion was strongly supportive of a downtown casino and aligned with the building trades and one faction of casino development capital against a loose co­ali­tion of downtown ­middle-­class homeowners, a rival faction of real estate capital, and the municipal workers’ u ­ nion. ­Here again, the planning conflict opposed competing visions of high-­road economic development, with the h ­ otel and gaming workers ­union in the difficult position of arguing that gaming work can be high-­road if it is u ­ nionized and socially responsible. If u ­ nionized, gaming and associated ­hotel work can offer stable and decently paid employment for workers lacking the professional credentials that are required in high-­skill/high-­ wage postindustrial sectors.



Labor and the Hospitable City

29

As Tufts argues in his chapter, ­union efforts to promote their respective sectors as high-­road are not motivated simply by the need to generate u ­ nion employment. Unions are also concerned with institutional goals, such as the need to reproduce relations with employers and local government, maintain relations with community organ­izations, and assert their dominant role as worker representatives vis-­à-­v is rival u ­ nions in the sector. In Toronto, Local 75 is less dominant in the hospitality sector, is more reliant on community support, and has built up less power within the local government relative to the H ­ otel Trades Council in New York. In Toronto, this institutional real­ity explains some of the weakness in ­union strategy, in par­tic­u­lar the constraints that ­were placed on ­union tactics by the cross-­class nature of the pro-­casino co­ali­tion. A divided ­labor movement further limited the ability of the u ­ nion to advance a class-­based argument in ­favor of a casino. While l­ abor was similarly divided in the New York case, the ­hotel ­union has a commanding presence in the sector, is a po­liti­cal power­house unto itself, and was better placed to maneuver between rival co­ali­tions to play the decisive role in defeating the rezoning. MacDonald argues that, h ­ ere again, the overriding concern of ­labor strategy was less about employment than reproducing the ­union’s relationship with ­unionized employers and bolstering its credibility with real estate developers and the local government. The differing fortunes of t­hese two campaigns—­relatively successful in New York and unsuccessful in Toronto—­reveal some limitations of the high-­road strategy for l­abor in the city. In the ­labor studies lit­er­a­ture, the high-­road/low-­road distinction presumes that a choice is to be made and that ­labor’s agency is impor­ tant in shifting industries and urban economies from one to the other. In New York, a ­union that is strongly embedded in the workplace and that wields significant po­liti­cal power in the city only just managed to defend the high-­road sector. ­There is as yet ­little to show from its strategy in terms of or­ga­niz­ing new workers or extending the high-­road sector to include more firms. In Toronto, in the context of a fragmented l­abor movement and h ­ otel bargaining regime, a po­liti­cally weaker ­union proved unable to achieve its goals. To the extent that the high-­road strategy was successful in New York, it worked defensively as a rationale for public policies required to reproduce class compromises that w ­ ere already in place as a result of previous rounds of strug­gle. Along with ­these institutional-­level differences, our cases highlight an urban-­ geographical variable that determines the viability of ­labor strategy in land use planning disputes. Joining ­these disputes, ­labor seeks assurance on the part of some factions of real estate capital that ­future commercial tenants ­will engage in firm-­level high-­road industrial relations practices in exchange for ­union support. This support allows the developer to make profits by closing a rent gap. A rent gap represents the difference between the a­ ctual rent that a land parcel commands

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PART 1

versus its potential rent u ­ nder its “highest and best” use (Smith 1996). Closing rent gaps is the source of developer profit, and drives investment in the industry. ­Because changing land use often must pass through a public review pro­cess, real estate developers may find po­liti­cally influential u ­ nions to be a significant irritant, or they may find ­union support to be of significant value. If u ­ nions can mediate public support for closing rent gaps, they can bring real estate developers, and the commercial tenants ­behind them, to the negotiating t­ able. Rent gaps are most significant in large cities, in downtown locations, and on the “development frontier,” where developers target low-­income residential or industrial space for displacement by higher-­income uses. ­Labor land use strategies ­will work best in ­these places. In Toronto, Tufts shows that Local 75’s leverage over gaming capital was stronger downtown than in the inner-­suburban alternate locations, where the rent gap was lower. However, gaming capital was in a weaker position relative to other profitable and more or­ga­nized and established real estate interests, and this partly explains why casino-­backed real estate lost out at the site. In New York, u ­ nion strategy exploiting rent gaps works in places like East Midtown and deindustrialized neighborhoods undergoing tourism-­led gentrification, but does not work in outlying urban areas where rents and rent gaps are much lower. What works in one place may not in another. A ­labor renewal strategy that exploits rent gaps, divisions between real estate developers, and territorial conflicts within the “1 ­percent” may be v­ iable in global cities. If t­ hese strategies are not v­ iable in the smaller regional centers and urban peripheries, w ­ ill the benefits of ­labor or­ga­niz­ing trickle down to ­these places, or leapfrog over them (Tufts 2007)? In arbitrating over the closing of rent gaps in a place like East Midtown, ­labor strategy divides the 1 ­percent along a residential versus commercial axis. When the strategy is employed in working-­class areas of the city, however, this same strategy divides the working class itself along a residential versus workplace axis (MacDonald 2011). As for the high road, capturing surplus profits by competing on “value,” differentiation, and innovation presumes that most firms in the market w ­ ill not successfully differentiate, or innovate, and w ­ ill continue to compete on price. The surplus profits that high-­road firms capture represent, ­after all, a larger share of the ­whole. What, then, of workers in ­these low-­road firms? ­Labor strategies that work only at the top of the urban hierarchy, drive divisions within communities, or play one sector off against another cannot, by their very nature, develop the capacities of the entire working class. Yet broad working-­class strategies are exactly what are required to transform a con­temporary urbanism characterized by increased social polarization and fragmentation.

1 ­ ABOR STRATEGY AND THE POLITICS L OF ELITE DIVISION IN MIDTOWN MANHATTAN Ian Thomas MacDonald

In April 2013, the New York City Department of City Planning initiated a public review pro­cess to rezone a seventy-­three-­block area of Midtown Manhattan around G ­ rand Central Station, known in planning documents and real estate parlance as East Midtown. The proposal sought to lift existing restrictions on building density in order to spur development of new commercial office space along the iconic ave­nues of corporate Amer­i­ca, thus “ensur[ing] the area’s f­uture as a world-­class business district and major job generator for New York City” (Department of City Planning 2013a). The city argued that this new development was crucial to ensure that East Midtown, hampered in attracting new corporate tenants by aging building stock and outdated office layouts, would remain a premier headquarters location commanding the highest commercial rents in the city. This rezoning would be the last such effort ­under an administration which had rezoned an astonishing one-­third of the city’s entire territory. With only months left in Michael Bloomberg’s term in office, the pressure was on to secure one last amendment to the city’s zoning text if new glass boxes and spires w ­ ere to rise along Park Ave­nue. It was safely assumed that no successor to Bloomberg would be as inclined to ­favor real estate interests in the transformation of the city. When first proposed, the rezoning of East Midtown appeared to be a done deal. The power­ful Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) was ­behind it. The Department of City Planning (DCP) had successfully seen through 123 rezonings since Bloomberg took office in 2002 and made the East Midtown proposal its uppermost priority. The redevelopment of East Midtown was widely perceived as a legacy issue for the mayor, and few doubted his administration’s ability to 31

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see it through. But as the proposal was rushed through public review in the summer and fall of 2013, broad-­based opposition arose from local community boards, city council members, architects, urban planners, churches, transit advocates, preservationists, ­labor ­unions, good governance groups, and property o ­ wners. Some opposed the plan outright. ­Others who had not been consulted at the outset sought to have their concerns addressed in amendments to be included in the final text. This opposition proved insurmountable, and in the final month of his term in office the mayor withdrew the proposal from consideration by the City Council, where it would certainly have met with defeat. This chapter approaches the contentious politics of rezoning East Midtown from the perspective of the ­union most actively involved in the pro­cess and, of all the groups arrayed against the proposal, the most responsible for seeing it defeated. In this case, the New York ­Hotel Trades Council (HTC) represents a large majority of ­hotel workers in the city, including most of the 7,500 workers employed in East Midtown h ­ otels. With 35,000 members across the metropolitan area, the HTC is not a large u ­ nion by New York City standards. Nevertheless, it has become one of the city’s most effective po­liti­cally. Its ability to derail a proj­ ect on the scale of the East Midtown rezoning reaffirmed its reputation as a rising power in real estate development circles and local politics more generally. The urban agency of the ­Hotel Trades Council is strongly rooted in the ­union’s role in workplace regulation. For this ­union, urban politics is concentrated ­labor economics. And yet a full accounting of ­labor’s role in negotiating urban change is not reducible to a narrowly defined workplace strug­gle. The ­union’s intervention in East Midtown formed part of a broader campaign to block ­hotel development in a sector that is increasingly fragmented by ser­vice format, and, most worrisome, witnessing a rapid growth of h ­ otels providing few ser­v ices and competing on price, leading to strong employer opposition to ­unionization. The limited-­service ­hotel provides a place to sleep with minimal concierge ser­v ices, room ser­vice, bar and restaurant space, and typically no meeting or entertainment facilities. Traditionally considered a roadside, suburban h ­ otel format, limited-­ service ­hotels are growing rapidly in downtown urban areas across the United States, including downtown Manhattan (McMullen-­Coyne 2004). They typically operate ­under brands such as Best Western, Comfort Inn, and Holiday Inn Express. Union strategy is to block the growth of this low-­service, largely nonunion sector, steering ­hotel operators to pay uniformly high wages and benefits and thus away from a form of competition that relies on lower ­labor costs. The ­union seeks to accomplish this by inserting “special permit” language into the city’s zoning text as districts are rezoned one by one. In singling out ­hotel development for an additional round of public review, special permits create a po­liti­cal structure for

­Labor Strategy and the Politics of Elite Divisio

33

­ nion leverage over ­future business investment and industrial relations practices. u They establish a steering mechanism which, the ­union hopes, ­will see the ­unionized hospitality industry through the gales of creative destruction that are continually reshaping the city. As is typical of high-­road strategies, the HTC’s special permit campaign aligns the ­union with certain factions of local capital against o ­ thers. Blocking low-­road ­hotel development in what remains the center of the city’s hospitality industry—­ where the low road is defined as providing few ser­v ices, competing on price, and strongly opposed to unionization—­aligns the ­union with the established ­unionized ­hotel operators, who do not wish to compete on price with low-­cost competitors. A special permit regime is a form of supply management that benefits ­unionized ­hotel operators, even as it restricts them from operating nonunion. The ­Hotel Association might not welcome forms of regulation that tie its members’ hands and increase ­union power, but ­there are overlapping interests ­here in controlling market access and defending room rates. With re­spect to real estate capital, the u ­ nion is not in princi­ple opposed to real estate development that ensures Manhattan’s business districts remain centers of global capitalism and spaces of luxury consumption. In East Midtown, it is precisely the economic centrality of the place that sustains the level of ser­v ice, and also the wages, of h ­ otel workers. Furthermore, some of the biggest players in the ­unionized ­hotel industry are also power­ful members of the real estate community, and so are “good employers” from the u ­ nion’s perspective. On a more strategic level, the special permit campaign ultimately hinges on the u ­ nion’s ability to strike agreements with par­tic­u­lar developers and real estate factions. The ability of the ­union to strike ­these deals depends entirely on an implicit threat to keep open rent gaps, which real estate developers seek to close and profit from. Since closing rent gaps often requires regulatory changes that pass through City Council, ­union strategy ultimately relies on its urban po­liti­cal power. Depending on the course of negotiations, the u ­ nion can use this power e­ ither to support or to oppose real estate interests. If the parties do not come to agreement, as was the case ­here, ­labor and real estate ­will clash. The ­union was not in princi­ple opposed to the Bloomberg administration’s proposed rezoning of East Midtown. And the ­union’s opposition to the incursion of budget-­priced, low-­amenity, and antiunion h ­ otels in the area is not inconsistent with the city’s desire for more gleaming, high-­rent office space. The ­union was legitimately concerned about the possibility of limited-­service ­hotels gaining ground in the district, as they have around Times Square further west or in Midtown south. The rezoning of East Midtown was to cover seventy-­three blocks, including lower-­rent locations off the iconic ave­nues. The possibility of full-­service ­unionized

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­ otels reopening nonunion ­after redevelopment was not a concern, as the ­union h has strong successor language in the contract. It was impor­tant for the ­union to gain special permit language in this rezoning to mark ground and establish a pre­ce­dent that could be applied to districts further south and west. ­Because the city’s vision did not include any mechanism to review ­hotel development on City Council, the u ­ nion found itself aligned with local residents and citywide groups that ­were more fundamentally opposed to the kind of development that real estate interests wanted. The creative destruction of a place like East Midtown is bound to divide po­liti­cally power­ful actors in the city, even if, as in this case, the real estate clans ­were united. ­Because forces on ­either side of the ­battle became evenly matched as opposition to the rezoning gathered momentum, the ­hotel workers found themselves in a position to tip the scales. As the city did not fi­nally include special permits in the rezoning, the ­union deci­ded to keep the rent gap open, denying real estate developers the ability to move forward with their proj­ects. Real estate insiders credit the ­union with effectively vetoing the rezoning (Bagli 2013; Geiger 2013a; New York Daily News 2013). The ­union thereby succeeded in maintaining a certain stability in ­labor relations in the district and effectively established that its interests must be taken into account when the rezoning is revisited ­under the de Blasio administration. The ­hotel workers succeeded in having special permits included in past rezonings throughout the city, and the u ­ nion is now in a stronger position to further its campaign. The effectiveness of special permits in steering ­labor relations in the hospitality sector over the long term remains to be seen, however. This case is highly informative about the motivations that lead ser­v ice sector ­unions like the New York ­hotel workers to engage in land use planning, and the conditions that determine the success of t­ hese interventions. This chapter follows the logic of the ­union’s special permit campaign, from ­labor–­management relations to or­ga­niz­ing strategy to po­liti­cal mobilization. The chapter then turns to an analy­sis of how the field of contention around the East Midtown proposal created the conditions that allowed the h ­ otel workers to play a decisive role in the outcome. It concludes with an evaluation of the ­union’s campaign and ­labor’s urban agency more broadly. This chapter builds on earlier research on the ­union’s or­ga­niz­ing and urban planning interventions (MacDonald 2011). Original research on this case was conducted throughout 2013, involving in-­depth interviews with key participants (N = 8), including trade ­union staff, urban planning professionals, community representatives, and activists, along with urban planning documents, media reports, and observations at public hearings and events.

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A High-­R oad Sector ­u nder Pressure The HTC is the envy of hospitality u ­ nionism in North Amer­i­ca. In 2012, ­union negotiators signed a seven-­year, industrywide agreement with the ­Hotel Association of New York City. The agreement covered 21,000 workers in 142 ­hotels and set the pattern for “me too” contracts covering a further 3,000 workers in the city’s hospitality sector. U ­ nder the new agreement, the room attendants and front desk staff, who make up the bulk of the u ­ nion’s membership, would see their wages rise 29 ­percent from an average of $26 an hour, in yearly increments of 3.5 to 4 ­percent. Employer contributions to health benefits ­were increased and secured with tighter contract language, and ­union or­ga­niz­ing and successor rights ­were similarly strengthened. ­There ­were no concessions. In its coverage of the agreement, the New York Times wrote that the contract was “so beneficial to workers that it seems born from an earlier era” (McGeehan 2012). Unsurprisingly given the era we do live in, the membership ratified the agreement by an overwhelming margin. Such unusually strong contract terms reflect a highly profitable and rapidly growing industry. The New York ­hotel building cycle, beginning in 2006 and extending throughout the recession and weak recovery, is the largest in the United States and the largest in the city’s history. The ­union is strongly placed in the current cycle to bargain over the distribution of ­hotel revenues. The ­Hotel Trades Council was formed in 1938 at the initiative of the H ­ otel and Restaurant Workers as a joint board to collectively bargain on behalf of eleven (now nine) local ­unions with members working in the core of the city’s hospitality industry—­full-­ service ­hotels located in Midtown Manhattan, which typically offer a full complement of food, beverage, business, fitness, and concierge ser­v ices ­under one roof. The HTC negotiates citywide contracts with the ­Hotel Association of New York, an industry group whose primary purpose is to engage in collective bargaining on behalf of over seventy-­nine ­hotel ­owners and operators located in the city, overwhelmingly in Manhattan. Unionized h ­ otel ­owners and operators that are not a part of the employer association agree to the terms of the industry contract. A long-­serving impartial arbiter has been designated by the two sides to decide grievances and other disputes between the parties, including ­those beyond the scope of the contract. In an illustration of Wright’s concept of “positive class compromise,” in which “both parties can improve their position through vari­ous forms of active, mutual cooperation” (2000, 958), the stability of the city’s ­hotel bargaining regime is premised on a number of advantages that accrue to the H ­ otel Association from ­hotel workers’ high degree of associational power. This power is manifest in both the ­union’s capacity to regulate l­ abor markets and, in the sphere of urban politics

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and regulation, its ability to regulate the industry as a w ­ hole in ways that also benefit the major ­unionized employers. For example, employee turnover is very low, at 3 to 4 ­percent—­half the rate of nonunion front line positions. Health costs are controlled and benefits effectively delivered within a joint industry/union–­ managed health network, which avoids the cost escalation associated with the dominant HMO health care model. A union-­run Industry Training Program socializes the costs of workforce development within the sector, overcoming collective agency dilemmas that might other­w ise result in underinvestment in skills. The association further benefits from the rationalization of compensation practices, while intense mediation ensures a disciplined workforce and smooth operation. Fi­nally, the association benefits from the u ­ nion’s use of its po­liti­cal influence at both the local and state levels of government to regulate the industry in ways that align with the interests of the established h ­ otel ­owners and operators, particularly in the domain of supportive public policies and, as we s­ hall see below, in supply management. For all of t­ hese reasons, the ­Hotel Association has “no intention,” in the estimation of the agreement’s long-­standing arbitrator, of challenging the bargaining relationship itself. The ­union’s ability to regulate the industry requires that it maintain a high level of ­union density in the sector, where density is defined as the proportion of ­hotel workers who are ­union members. ­Because the hospitality sector is fragmented by ser­v ice level and geography, it makes sense to break down the overall density figure by market segment. As of 2012, the ­union claimed a density figure of 76 ­percent across all formats, down from 98 ­percent in 1985 and 85 ­percent as recently as 2006. Prior to the 2006 building cycle, the ­union claimed a ­union density rate of 95 ­percent of the full-­service segment. The ­union’s stronghold remains in the full-­service and luxury Manhattan ­hotels, in which the ­union now claims a repre­sen­ta­tion rate of 80 ­percent. In Midtown Manhattan, u ­ nion density in the full-­service ­hotels is still estimated to be 90 ­percent. Density is declining b ­ ecause the u ­ nion is unable to or­ga­nize new h ­ otels at a rate commensurate with existing levels of u ­ nion repre­sen­ta­tion. Consider ­hotels opened in 2009 as a representative case. New York & Com­pany data, as corrected by the author for sites that ­were ­later converted to other uses or never opened, identifies twenty-­nine new ­hotels across all formats that opened their doors in 2009. ­These ­hotels represent an addition of 5,075 rooms to the city’s ­hotel stock. As of 2013, the u ­ nion had or­ga­nized only ten of t­hese properties, representing 42 ­percent of new supply. Of the total addition to h ­ otel room stock, 3,399 rooms fall in the highly u ­ nionized full-­service or luxury format. Of this category, the ­union had by 2013 or­ga­nized 63 ­percent of 2009 new supply. Of full-­service Midtown ­hotels—­the ­union’s stronghold—­only 52 ­percent of new supply has been or­ga­nized. Across all formats in Midtown (bud­get, limited-­service, full-­service,

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37

Full service Midtown

2006 Full service New York City

2012 2019

All formats New York City

New build (2009–2013) 0

20

40

60

80

100

FIGURE 1.1.  Union density across ­hotel formats in New York, 1985–2013

and luxury), the ­union had by 2013 succeeded in or­ga­niz­ing only 35 ­percent of the 2009 new supply (see figure 1.1). This success rate is far too low to maintain the level of u ­ nion repre­sen­ta­tion. Holding constant both the rate of new h ­ otel room supply and the u ­ nion’s success rate, the u ­ nion’s overall density rate w ­ ill decline from 76 to 66 ­percent by the expiration of the current agreement in 2019. Such a level of ­union repre­sen­ta­tion would be considered entirely respectable in many sectors of the U.S. economy. The prob­lem, however, is that as ­union density continues to decline, the ­union ­will become increasingly unable to strike positive-­sum compromises with employers, precipitating firm exit from the bargaining regime and a hardening in the employers’ bargaining stance. The growth of a nonunion industry ­will begin to weigh on contract gains and perhaps imperil the stability of the industrywide bargaining regime. The u ­ nion’s strike threat ­will be diminished. High-­road industries with large ­union wage premiums and “strong” forms of competition, based on quality, innovation, and high-­performance work practices, are understood to be susceptible to unraveling as low-­cost competitors are drawn to the sector (Storper and Walker 1989; Gough 2004). This is why the ­union identifies declining density rates as its most significant challenge, and or­ga­niz­ing new ­hotels as its uppermost priority. Two competitive pressures are most salient in this regard: the rise of limited-­ service ­hotels and the geo­graph­i­cal spread of the industry to new areas of the city. Limited-­service formats have been slowly establishing a presence in the city over the past two de­cades. From 1990 to 2009, limited ser­vice has been the fastest growing segment in the Manhattan ­hotel market. In the current development cycle, beginning in 2006 and extending through the recession to 2012, limited ser­v ice exploded. Limited-­service ­hotels have higher profit margins than full-­service, and they provide a platform for the further penetration of the city’s h ­ otel market by the large national ­hotel operating chains. Limited-­service properties are typically developed and owned by new players in the city’s h ­ otel industry, including

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foreign investors and recent entrants in commercial real estate, who are not members of the ­Hotel Association and have no relationship with the ­union. Limited-­ service developer/operators typically use nonunion ­labor in construction and seek to operate nonunion, with wages for room attendants set as low as $8 an hour, without benefits or job security. The ­union estimates that approximately 85 ­percent of new ­hotel supply in the New York metropolitan region is some form of limited ser­vice (Neil Kwatra, former Director of Po­liti­cal and Strategic Affairs, HTC, interview). Second, the bargaining regime is challenged by a geo­graph­i­cal shift in the industry that is closely related to building cycles and neighborhood transitions. The current h ­ otel building cycle is characterized by a geo­graph­i­cal extension of the hospitality industry into postindustrial and “neighborhood” New York. In the outer boroughs, limited-­service ­hotels have appeared in unlikely locations, such as Gowanus and Long Island City, where the ­union has no established presence. In Manhattan, boutique and limited-­service ­hotels are appearing in former manufacturing areas with rapidly improving reputations and new realtor-­inspired names such as Hudson Square and Tribeca North. ­Hotels are a preferred investment vehicle in real estate due to restrictions in such areas on residential construction and limited demand for commercial office space beyond the existing central business districts (Simeon Bankoff, Executive Director, Historic Districts Council, interview). ­Hotel development in the city is subject to less stringent regulation. ­Hotels can usually be built “as of right” u ­ nder most zoning restrictions, including areas zoned for light manufacturing, and require no public investments in local infrastructure such as transit or education. For ­these reasons, such areas tend to attract real estate investors who are new to the hospitality industry, who have no experience working with ­unions, and who are likely to be antiunion.

Urban Innovations in Union Organ­i zing Strategies ­ here are three ave­nues available to the ­union for or­ga­niz­ing new members. The T industrywide agreement provides for card check neutrality in properties that are opened by members of the ­Hotel Association or are covered by the industrywide agreement—­the “successor clause.” When a ­union ­hotel opens, manages, or purchases another ­hotel, management must provide the ­union with a list of employees and their addresses, and must promise not to campaign against the u ­ nion. The arbitrator is sometimes called on to interpret practices covered u ­ nder this agreement. The vast majority of new u ­ nion workplaces are or­ga­nized through this mechanism, at a rate of roughly one per month. An increasing number of

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new ­hotels opening in the city are not owned or managed by u ­ nionized employers, however. In ­these cases, the ­union does attempt to certify a bargaining unit through a National ­Labor Relations Board–­supervised election. The ­union estimates its win rate in t­ hese elections at 50 ­percent (Josh Gold, Po­liti­cal Director, HTC, interview). This may seem surprisingly low considering the enormous benefits to workers of voting in the u ­ nion. But employers strongly resist u ­ nionization and avail themselves of all the ­union suppression tactics allowed ­under existing ­labor law. Of the ten ­hotels opened in 2009, the ­union has or­ga­nized only one by 2013: the boutique “hipster” ACE ­hotel on 29th Street, run by a ­hotel entrepreneur and “cultural engineer” from Seattle, was or­ga­nized through an NLRB election. ACE ­hotel management hired antiunion con­sul­tants, intimidated ­union supporters, and hired eighty new staff on top of the original workforce of forty. The campaign took a year and a half, with another six months to negotiate a first contract, which ultimately covered only fifty workers. HTC organizers cite the case when explaining to members that the NLRB pro­cess is broken and that other or­ga­niz­ing strategies must be employed. The third ave­nue forms part of a broader strategy of using public policy and regulation to shape the development of the industry in ways that expand the ­unionized sector and block nonunion growth. A variety of public policies and regulatory pro­cesses at both the local and state levels bear on real estate development in the city, and on ­hotel construction, operations, and financing in par­ tic­u­lar. Leverage is brought to bear through regulation to prevent undesirable ­hotel development or to pressure ­hotel ­owners to sign card check neutrality agreements. The u ­ nion’s regulatory strategy enjoys passive support from the ­Hotel Association, which shares the u ­ nion’s concern with the growing low-­wage segment of the local market. The association can rely on the effectiveness of the ­union to lead ­these efforts ­because the ­union has the orga­nizational capacity to elect state and municipal politicians, the motivation to defend the bargaining regime, and the legitimacy to argue that supportive public policy is required to defend “­middle-­class” jobs in New York. The principal reason for the association agreeing to the uncommonly long seven-­year agreement in February 2012 was to give the ­union time to focus its efforts on sector regulation at a time of rapid change in the industry. The ­union moved forward with a land use regulation strategy as it became clear in late 2008 that the ­hotel building boom in the city would include many properties not covered by the successor clause of the industrywide agreement, and that attempts to or­ga­nize ­these noncovered properties w ­ ere failing. Union staff became experts on the city’s zoning regulations, gaining an appreciation of how outdated zoning regulations w ­ ere encouraging the growth of the hospitality industry in former manufacturing districts, and how the city’s 1961 zoning regulations ­were

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being revised piecemeal to track the interests of the real estate industry. Rezoning land use must pass through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). The u ­ nion uses any and all public leverage over h ­ otel development. But ULURP is the most salient source of leverage, and it has become the Archimedean point of the ­union’s land use strategy. The ­union’s new-­build or­ga­niz­ing strategy is currently focused on a special permit campaign to have language inserted into the city’s zoning text that singles out ­hotel development specifically. A special permit is a discretionary action by the City Planning Commission to modify the existing land use or other regulations when certain findings specified in the zoning text are met. Applications for special permits must go through the full ULURP pro­cess, with final approval granted by City Council. The special permit language the ­union has drafted removes the as-­of-­right designation that is accorded h ­ otels ­under most zoning designations. For constitutional reasons, the policy rationale for special permits must concern the preservation of neighborhood character or the achievement of some public good, such as residential building goals. While defending m ­ iddle-­class jobs is surely a public good, local governments are preempted in the ­matter of regulating ­labor relations by state and federal levels of government. In lobbying for ­these special permits, u ­ nion staff speak the language of good urban planning. ­Hotels are associated with a variety of noxious local effects: large numbers of tourists and visitors pack the sidewalks, deliveries are made at all hours, bars and restaurants are noisy and may crowd out local ser­v ices, tall ­hotel spires may be out of context with the street wall, and so on. But in community board and planning commission meetings, u ­ nion members and staff do speak to the importance of union-­scale wages and benefits to the city’s economy and to its workers. Special permits meet the u ­ nion’s regulatory goals in two ways. The first is supply management. The general effect of special permitting ­will be to discourage ­hotel development in areas of the city that would other­w ise see rapid growth. Given the ­union’s clout on City Council, it is unlikely that limited-­service ­hotel developers would be granted a permit. The special permits can be used to slow the rise of a format that puts pressure on ­hotel revenues in the ­unionized sector and that is strongly opposed to u ­ nionization. Second, in the case of boutique or full-­service ­hotels, the ­union can hold up the granting of a special permit u ­ ntil a card check neutrality agreement has been signed with the developers. The ­union has succeeded in securing special permit language in three rezonings to date: Tribeca North, Hudson Square, and the Fur District. All are formerly light manufacturing areas on the borders of heavi­ly touristed areas of the city. In Tribeca North and Hudson Square, existing residents inhabiting loft conversions ­were generally open to the ­union’s urban critique of new ­hotel development.

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REBNY was strongly opposed, an opposition that had less to do with any concern for the prospect of limited-­service ­hotel development—­limited-­service ­hotels are built by small-­scale developers with ­little po­liti­cal clout in the city—­than with a “disturbing pre­ce­dent being set for the administration of the City’s Zoning Resolution, where uses that are generally compatible [i.e., h ­ otels] are channeled into an administrative review pro­cess rather than allowing them on an as-­of-­right basis” (cited in Brown 2010). In general, the real estate industry seeks to reduce, not increase, the level of public review over development. The ability of the ­union to have the permitting language inserted into ­these rezonings speaks to its growing po­liti­cal power in the city. With three pre­ce­dents ­under its ­belt, the ­union has since moved to have special permit language inserted in all new rezonings that could potentially encourage new ­hotel development in the city. The most significant campaign to date was to have special permit language inserted into the rezoning of East Midtown.

The Politics of Rezoning East Midtown The proposed rezoning of East Midtown encompasses an area bounded by 39th Street to the south, East 57th Street to the north, Fifth Ave­nue to the west, and Lexington Ave­nue to the east. The district contains the city’s most prestigious business addresses and commands its highest commercial rents. The area’s 70 million square feet of office space h ­ ouse the headquarters of fourteen Fortune 500 companies, including major industrial conglomerates, media companies, real estate firms, hedge funds, and banks, and employs more than 200,000 ­people. The district ­rose to prominence with the opening one hundred years ago of G ­ rand Central Station, and remains among the best connected to the city’s transit system, with seven subway lines serving the area, including the heavi­ly trafficked Lexington lines. Architecturally, the district is known for its blocks of office and apartment buildings in the City Beautiful style, the Chrysler Building, and for its early modernist office towers, most significantly the Skidmore, the Owings and Merrill–­ designed Lever House, and Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building. The district’s current zoning regulations date from 1982, when the city placed a restrictive limit of 12 to 15 FAR (floor-­to-­area ratio) on new development, intending to shift development pressures west to revive the area around Times Square. Very ­little new building has occurred in East Midtown in consequence, as developers claim that it does not pay to demolish buildings exceeding 15 FAR that ­were grandfathered u ­ nder the 1982 zoning. The existing building stock averages seventy years old and is characterized by low floor-­to-­ceiling heights and

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outdated floor plans which, it is argued, no longer meet the Class A office demands of corporate tenants (Department of City Planning 2013a). The city’s proposal would allow larger office towers than are currently permitted to rise along Park Ave­nue and in and around G ­ rand Central Station. The proposed actions include an amendment to the zoning text and map. The existing FAR would be retained, but developers of qualifying sites would be allowed to build up to 21.6 FAR and as high as 30 FAR around the station, by buying transferable development rights, or “air rights,” e­ ither from the city or from o ­ wners of landmarked properties in the district. Air rights would be set by the city at a price of $250 per square foot. The proceeds to the city would be managed by a board of mayoral appointees and would be used to invest in area-­wide transit and pedestrian infrastructure. The proceeds to landmarked buildings are intended to pay for maintenance and to compensate o ­ wners for restricting their development rights. ­Under current regulations, developers must go through a formal public review pro­cess before using air rights to exceed zoned densities. The proposal removes this requirement. Fi­nally a “sunrise” provision provides that no building permits would be issued ­under the new zoning ­until July 1, 2017. This provision is intended to prevent a glut of office space when the World Trade Center downtown and the Hudson Yards development in West Midtown—in which the city is heavi­ly invested as bondholder—­are still in development and struggling to find tenants. The city estimates that the new East Midtown zoning w ­ ill incentivize developers to replace 10 million square feet of space and add a further 4.5 million (Department of City Planning 2013a). The DCP deposited the plan in late April 2013, starting the clock on the public review pro­cess ­after what the city characterized as “two years of analy­sis” and “extensive and active consultation with stakeholders” (Department of City Planning 2013a). The DCP held a series of public meetings throughout the spring and early summer, attended by community members, u ­ nions, urban planners, and public interest groups. By July, Community Boards 5 and 6 had rejected the application. Community Board decisions, however, are nonbinding. The DCP made slight revisions to the original plan on July 17, most of which reflected developer interests, and this version was accepted with further revisions of minor importance by the office of the borough president on July 31. Hearings w ­ ere held by City Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises on October 22. The application was to be considered by City Council by the end of November, but was withdrawn on November 12 as a face-­saving mea­sure when it was made clear that the proposal did not have the support e­ ither of the local council member or the council chair. What had appeared an unstoppable proj­ect was, in fact, stopped.

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Capital United REBNY was the driving force ­behind the rezoning, presenting a common front among real estate interests during the public review pro­cess. While REBNY members compete with one another for tenants, financing, and investment opportunities, they are united in ­favor of liberalizing zoning restrictions and other supportive public policies. They see themselves as engaged in a long war with t­ hose who would retain what public oversight over development currently exists. Even so, a rezoning in one district w ­ ill benefit some developers over o ­ thers. The East Midtown rezoning stood to benefit S&L Green, the largest commercial office developer in the city, along with Vornado Realty Trust and Boston Properties (Levitt 2012). Hudson Yards, on the other hand, is a Related Com­pany and Brookfield proj­ect, while the World Trade Center downtown is Silverstein. But if t­ here ­were any concerns about competition for tenants from East Midtown undermining the financing of ­these proj­ects, none of the interested developers gave voice to them publicly. Hudson Yards is set to add 17 million square feet of office space, against East Midtown’s 4.5. Real estate analysts confidently predict demand for up to 50 million square feet of office space in the city over the next two de­cades, and the sunrise provision would have further reduced competition among districts. Besides developers, the rezoning stood to benefit large property o ­ wners in the district, foremost among them Argent Ventures, owner of 1.3 million square feet of development rights above ­Grand Central Station. The rezoning would have lifted restrictions on the use of t­ hese rights by raising as-­of-­right densities around ­Grand Central Station and allowing for the sale of development rights across a wider area. Developers have an interest in low and, above all, predictable prices for ­these rights, while their ­owners seek higher prices and the freedom to charge what the market ­will bear. The value of transferable development rights (TDRs) would have been set in the text of the rezoning at $250 per square foot, whereas the ­owners believed they could be worth several times as much (Geiger 2013a). For Argent Ventures, the value of their development rights could range from $375 million to $1.3 billion depending on the TDR price set by the city. Disputes over the pricing of development rights became of wider public interest during the public review, b ­ ecause the sale of city-­owned development rights ­were to be used to fund needed transit and public realm improvements. Public advocates w ­ ere de facto aligned with the private o ­ wners of development rights in arguing that the city had set the price too low. REBNY cited job generation figures and the need to remain competitive with other global cities as reasons the public should support the rezoning. ­These are standard growth regime arguments, and the usual growth regime members ­were

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aligned with REBNY on East Midtown. T ­ hese included the Partnership for New York City (representing the largest corporations in the city), the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, the Building Congress, and the Building Trades Employers’ Association, all of which lobbied the city in ­favor of the mayor’s proposal. At the same time, REBNY was aware that, ­after years of bruising ­battles over development u ­ nder the Bloomberg administration and with Occupy Wall Street having galvanized opposition to rising in­equality in the city, the rezoning would face an indifferent if not hostile public reception. Clearly, t­here was a po­liti­cal shift taking place in the city.

Elite Divisions The city’s proposal elicited the strongest opposition among community boards and preservationists. The community boards most affected by the rezoning represent businesses, institutions, and high-­income residents in the neighborhoods of New York’s 1 ­percent just to the north of East Midtown along Park and Madison Ave­nues. The city’s community boards vary in terms of resources and capacities. Community Boards 4, 5, and 6 are unusually well or­ga­nized and funded. Late in 2012, they formed a Tri-­Board Taskforce to study the proposal and agree on a common platform. Their opposition cited a lack of upfront investments in the public realm, and transit infrastructure in par­tic­u­lar. The city’s TDR scheme was dismissed as a “fire sale” that would shortchange the public. Further, the community boards feared the rezoning would encourage the destruction of historically significant buildings, overshadow public space, and block sight lines to the Chrysler building. “From the beginning, the community boards and other civic organ­izations have been active and engaged participants in crafting a plan for the ­future of East Midtown. However, the City has ignored our concerns, choosing instead to cater to the desires of a few real estate interests through back room deals, which ultimately leads to a shortsighted plan” (Tri-­Board Task Force 2013). Of the twelve community boards in Manhattan, seven voted to reject the rezoning. As expected, the strongest criticism of the rezoning came from the city’s preservationist groups. The most influential of t­hese, the Municipal Art Society (MAS), incubated many of the other preservationist groups and government agencies, including the City Planning Commission itself, and includes REBNY and prominent developers among its stakeholders. Even they strug­gled to gain any purchase over the city’s proposal. While joining the community boards in co­ali­ tion against the city’s proposal, the Landmark Conservancy and Historic Districts Council moved si­mul­ta­neously with MAS to have a number of buildings in the district landmarked by the city, including a number of u ­ nionized ­hotels.

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REBNY argued that landmarking ­these buildings would defeat the purpose of the rezoning, as it would become very difficult to assem­ble sites for redevelopment, and more generally that the preservationists w ­ ere “landmarking away the city’s ­future” (REBNY 2013). MAS eventually came around to supporting the rezoning, but community boards and the other preservationist groups stood fast. Unmoved by Global City competitiveness arguments, they value the city as it is. “Every­one says we should be Shanghai. I think we should be New York” (Peg Breen New York Landmarks Conservancy, press conference). Opposition to the rezoning also cut through the urban planning, economics, and architecture professions. Leading urban gurus argued ­either side of the case in dueling op-­eds. Writing in support of the city’s plan in the Daily News, urban economist Edward Glaeser argued that “[b]uilding up is the best way for New York to ­house the new businesses that bring jobs,” and that even if “scrappy startups” cannot afford the new office space, construction ­will increase supply and lower prices across the city (Glaeser 2012). Richard Florida cautioned against the city’s proposal in the Wall Street Journal on creative city grounds. The innovation that drives economic growth relies not on “crude density achieved by districts packed with taller and taller buildings,” but on pedestrian-­level fortuitous interactions among a diversity of ­people. New York’s “hubs of innovation ­aren’t the ­great skyscraper districts that ­house established corporate and financial headquarters, media empires and wealthy ­people . . . ​[but rather are] anchored in mid-­rise, mixed-­use neighborhoods like the Flatiron District, Midtown South, Chelsea and TriBeCa” (Florida 2013). The New York Times ran several editorials and op-­eds against the city’s proposal, including one by its architecture critic Michael Kimmelman (“The Plan to Swallow Midtown”) and another by Robert Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture, in which the city’s plan is characterized as being “all about real estate and not about place-­making” (Stern 2013).

­Labor Strategy All of this represented a substantial opposition of influential groups and elite opinion to the city’s plan and to the real estate interests that stood ­behind it. The contentious politics of rezoning East Midtown did not fall along class lines, but rather cut through the city’s elite. In some ways, this was a classic case of urban conflict between rentier interests in the exchange-­value dimension of urban space and community interests in its use value (Logan and Molotch 2007)—­with the twist that, in this case, the chorus of community opposition “sings with a strong upper-­class accent.”1 This conflict between use and exchange value formed the main axis of contention. On another level, conflict took the form of bargaining over distributional shares in the enormous sums of money that the rezoning would

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create, seemingly out of thin air. Or­ga­nized ­labor as a ­whole found itself balanced between ­these oppositions, and ultimately on opposing sides of the conflict. ­Labor’s concern with the implications of rezoning for workplace relations has no constitutional standing in land use planning. This is especially true of service-­ sector workers’ u ­ nions, which are concerned with the uses to which the new buildings are put, the ser­v ice format, and the industrial relations practices that ­will be observed by end users of the space—­concerns that go beyond the limited regulatory powers of local government. The building trades’ concerns with securing employment for their members are more consistent with the capacity of local planning authorities to determine the volume of new construction, regardless of which firms ultimately occupy the space. The building trades did not waver in their support for the rezoning, and they lobbied in its ­favor throughout the public review. The ability of service-­sector ­unions to influence urban planning outcomes ultimately depends on their po­liti­cal influence with local representatives on committees with regulatory power. This influence comes into play in cases where growth interests find significant opposition to their proj­ects or are internally divided. In the case of East Midtown, both real estate and community boards found themselves vying for the support of service-­sector ­unions, the ­hotel workers in par­tic­u­lar. In short, the contentious nature of the proposal empowered l­abor to play a deciding role. The HTC may be smaller than the teachers and hospital workers u ­ nions, but its strength lies in its ability to mobilize a very diverse membership, which forms a part of class-­and ethnically based voting blocs. Eighty-­six ­percent of its members live in the city: 42 ­percent in Queens and 25 ­percent in Brooklyn. Seventy-­one ­percent are foreign born (the most significant countries being the Dominican Republic, China, and Jamaica). This gives it a real po­liti­cal advantage over the building trades. The u ­ nion encourages its members to become involved in community planning, boasting eight members on community boards, including one member on Community Board 5 in East Midtown. More impressively, the ­union has built up a po­liti­cal action network—­H.E.A.T., or ­Hotel Employees Action Team—­capable of mobilizing 1,500 members for street actions with allies or canvassing for union-­endorsed candidates. The network organizes po­liti­cal leaders in ­every workplace who have some involvement in their local communities, ­whether on the PTA or in a church group or sports team. It exists alongside, but does not replace or duplicate, the shop steward system. Candidates for local office who support special permits for h ­ otel development—­including, of relevance to this case, Mayor Bloomberg in 2009, council member Garodnick, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in 2012—­receive with the u ­ nion’s endorsement a sophisticated and disciplined get-­out-­the-­vote operation. The ­union

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has mobilized this network to ensure a high degree of participation at each of the public events held in the review of the East Midtown re-­zoning. The City Planning Commission’s August 7 hearing on East Midtown had to shift venues to accommodate hundreds of blue-­shirted HTC members, a number of whom had taken time off work to attend. Elite groups in the city do not have anything resembling this kind of on-­the-­ground po­liti­cal capacity. The ­hotel workers’ support for the rezoning was courted early by REBNY. Its new leadership recognized that ­labor support would be “critical” to the success of the public review, “­because ­we’re not a sympathetic audience by ourselves, but where we can show ­we’re part of a bigger picture, where ­we’ll raise all ships, we pres­ent a much stronger face” (cited in Trethefen 2013). REBNY formed a Co­ali­ tion for a 21st ­Century Midtown, which included the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, REBNY, the Building Trades Employers’ Association, the Building Trades Congress, the HTC, and SEIU 32 BJ, representing building ser­v ice workers. Through this novel employer–­real estate–­labor grouping, the HTC and other ­unions ­were to lend their support for a “globally competitive Midtown” in exchange for REBNY’s endorsement of special permits for the h ­ otel workers and prevailing wages for the building ser­v ice workers. The co­ali­tion was formed to ­counter the threat to development opportunities posed by preservationist groups in par­tic­u­lar. Indeed, the only action the co­ali­ tion engaged in was to release a report produced by urban planning con­sul­tants reviewing (and rejecting) ­every single one of the buildings that preservationist groups had moved for landmark designation. Icons, Placeholders and Leftovers variously described ­these landmark candidates as “stumpy,” “good but not ­great,” “forgettable,” and “old-­fashioned,” concluding that none of them “rise to the level of special.” Henry James’s, Dorothy Parker’s, and even Leon Trotsky’s writings on New York ­were marshalled to justify a continuous destruction and re-­creation of the skyline which uniquely defines the city as “the fullest expression of our modern age” (CivicVisions 2013). The list of refusés included six ­union ­hotels. Preservation is a double-­edged sword for the HTC. It may be the case that the tourism industry in New York is reliant on the city’s heritage. But preserving heritage in no way ensures that jobs in the tourism sector ­w ill be good jobs. The ­union is concerned with protecting the level of ser­v ice and l­abor relations practices that ensure a decent livelihood for their members—­neither of which is ensured by landmark designation ­under the city’s planning code (Gold interview). On the contrary, landmark designation has been used in the past by ­hotel ­owners to ease the profit-­driven repurposing of their properties to residential uses. The residential conversions of the Adderton and Babington H ­ otels are two recent cases of opportunistic preservation resulting in the loss of well-­paying ­hotel jobs. In other cases, such as the campaign to save the Plaza H ­ otel, the u ­ nion

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has mobilized to preserve the city’s architectural heritage in a bid to limit job destruction (Bankoff interview). The HTC’s bargaining position on East Midtown evolved as the pro­cess unfolded. The HTC was at first “generally in f­avor of the rezoning. Naturally, we support a globally competitive business center b ­ ecause the h ­ otels serve this clientele. You want world-­class ­hotels in a world-­class business district” (Gold interview). Restrictions on the use of the space would be required to secure the ­union’s support, however, since “[w]ithout a special permit pro­cess, the area could be overrun by limited-­service ­hotels with low-­wage jobs, not the world class h ­ otels a world class central business district deserves” (cited in ­Hotel Voice 2013a). Appearing to respond to u ­ nion concerns, the city’s July 17 “A text” amendments to the zoning application included special permits for ­hotels. The wording used approximated the language that the ­union had secured in earlier rezonings. The proposed language restricted new ­hotel development to a maximum use of 20 ­percent of the floor area of a new development. “The remainder of the new building could be developed as ­hotel only through a Special Permit pro­cess (full ULURP) that determined such a use did not conflict with the goals of a predominantly office district” (Department of City Planning 2013b). This amendment would, in addition, “allow development on sites that now include a h ­ otel use to have the opportunity to fully rebuild their ­hotel space on site,” exempt from the 20 ­percent limitation. In his review of the city’s proposal, including t­ hese “A text” amendments, Manhattan Borough President Stringer recommended that the rezoning proceed, provided it continued to include the ­hotel special permit, along with other specific recommendations. The inclusion of ­hotel permit language in ­these amendments and recommendations is noteworthy since none of the community board or preservationist concerns ­were addressed at this stage of review. Aside from the h ­ otel special permits, the only revisions to the city’s plan to this date registered the lobbying of the real estate industry. The inclusion of special permits was intended to bring the HTC on board. This is indicative of the u ­ nion’s lobbying power relative to other opponents of the city’s plan. However, the u ­ nion judged that the wording of the text was not strong enough and maintained its opposition to the rezoning. In the summer of 2013, the u ­ nion joined a second cross-­class co­ali­tion, this one with community boards, local businesses, and preservationists opposed to the rezoning of East Midtown. The co­ali­tion listed ten reasons for their opposition, including inadequate public support, a lack of public benefit, its encouragement of the destruction of “landmark-­quality” buildings, its vague plan for improvements to the public realm, a lack of transparent pro­cess, and a failure to “generate good paying jobs with benefits.” At public events and press conferences, HTC staff spoke in opposition to the rezoning, calling for the current proposal to be

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shelved and reintroduced ­under a new administration. “Let me be clear, being happy with BP Stringer’s non-­binding suggestions is far dif­fer­ent than being happy with City Planning’s proposal. We agree with the community boards that this rezoning is greatly lacking. This half-­baked plan jeopardizes tens of thousands of ­middle class jobs in a City that has lost 100,000 m ­ iddle class jobs in five years” (Gold, cited in Smith 2013). As the negotiations came down to the wire, REBNY, the Department of City Planning, and the ­union ­were unable to reach agreement. The community boards ­were kept out of t­ hese final communications and had no leverage over the final outcome. The HTC wanted language that would require any new h ­ otel in the district to go through a special permit pro­cess before City Council, regardless of ­whether it would be sited in a new construction. As the ­union leadership ­later explained to its members, “[u]nder the rezoning proposal rejected by the City Council this week, special permits for some but not all h ­ otels ­were included, but this still would have allowed developers to have the opportunity to create many new, non-­union ­hotels, especially smaller boutique ­hotels” (­Hotel Voice 2013b). The DCP, desperate to gain the ­union’s support, appeared to be willing to make this concession. But this was a step too far for REBNY (Geiger 2013b). In rejecting the city’s proposal, the local councilperson cited the lack of clear funding commitments to transit infrastructure and prob­lems with the pricing of transferable development rights—in other words, all justifiable “public good” criteria—­rather than the failure of REBNY and the ­union to agree to a strong special permit regime (Garodnick 2014). When the rezoning is reintroduced by the de Blasio administration, real estate executives speculate that the new plan “­will impose on ­hotel operators the most ­labor-­friendly regulations they have ever seen” (Steven Spinola, cited in Geiger 2013b). For the ­union, this is “good news for us and especially the many members of our Union that work in that area. . . . ​Our Union had a good day on Election Day this year and now, we have had another solid victory with the postponement of Midtown East” (­Hotel Voice 2013b).

Conclusion The outcome of this case speaks unequivocally to or­ga­nized ­labor’s strength in New York City politics and to a growing recognition in real estate and policymaking circles of l­ abor’s importance in urban land use planning. If the h ­ otel workers had been even stronger, the city would have included the special permit language that the h ­ otel workers demanded. But this failure registers as much a miscalculation on the part of real estate, whose appreciation of the importance of securing the u ­ nion’s support evolved throughout the pro­cess and w ­ ill continue to

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evolve in the direction of meeting the ­union’s concerns ­under the de Blasio administration. Po­liti­cal power depends greatly on ­others’ perception of this power. By effectively vetoing the city’s plan for a new East Midtown, the u ­ nion has greatly increased o ­ thers’ perception of its power. This is how both real estate and the ­union have interpreted the outcome. Objectively, the po­liti­cal power of this ­union has three main sources. First, the ­union has built an effective and disciplined po­liti­cal network that can be mobilized ­behind candidates who win the ­union’s endorsement, endorsements which are dependent on candidates’ support for the ­union’s campaign. This network has been or­ga­nized within a membership which understands that the wages and benefits they receive could well be eroded if they do not take an active role in the regulation of their sector. Members further understand that the regulation of their sector can be powerfully ­shaped through the land use planning capacities of the local government. Second, the ­union’s po­liti­cal effectiveness is facilitated by conflicts that appear between developers and communities, as well as, in this case, divisions within the city’s elite over urban land use change. L ­ abor’s planning interventions must meet public policy criteria beyond the workplace interests of the ­union, and they rely on community opposition to succeed. Thus the HTC joins vari­ous interests and co­ali­tions on an ad-­hoc basis, while eschewing more integrative co­ali­tions in which the ­union might find its autonomy and po­ liti­cal maneuverability constrained. Third, the leverage that is brought to bear against real estate derives from the u ­ nion’s ability—­through its effective endorsement of officeholders and maneuvering among urban alliances—to keep rent gaps open that developers seek to close. Just as a workplace strike brings the employer to the bargaining ­table by disrupting the flow of value in production, so the ability to keep rent gaps open in the city brings developers to the ­table by preventing the capitalization of speculative land value. The special permit campaign is of a piece with a trend ­toward the urbanization of l­abor strategy seen in major urban centers across North Amer­i­ca. In this case, a key determinant of this shift is the failure of l­abor law adequately to protect workers’ rights to form “a u ­ nion of their own choosing.” Even a ­union as powerfully entrenched in the workplace as the HTC finds itself outmaneuvered by nonunion employers in or­ga­niz­ing drives that pass through NLRB procedures. This case clearly shows that by shifting its associational power to the sphere of local politics, the ­union can greatly overpower single employers and fractions of local capital, including real estate. Unlike ­labor law, the rules of po­liti­cal mobilization are not designed to cripple the associational powers that workers have by virtue of being citizens. This case demonstrates an enduring truth of working-­ class politics, beyond the particularities of this case and of direct relevance to u ­ nion renewal: that ­union power is the power of or­ga­ni­za­tion.

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The ­hotel workers’ special permit campaign is a remarkable attempt to embed associational rights and industrial relations practices in the zoning text of the city as securely as the codes permitting the physical transformation of the business district. ­There is ­little doubt that, in dampening and even blocking nonunion ­hotels from protected districts, special permits can function as a defensive strategy to protect existing ­union members in the high-­road sector. This would require, of course, that ­these special permits encompass larger swaths of the city. Other­wise, the ­union ­will be playing whack-­a-­mole, displacing low-­road ­hotel development from one district to another. The ­union does have its sights set on establishing a citywide permitting regime, and is engaging community boards and the new administration to this end. If it is successful in this, it is entirely likely that the ­union ­will be in a position to block nonunion ­hotels from opening in the city. ­Whether the special permit campaign ­will succeed as an or­ga­niz­ing strategy is less certain. The ­union is only able to give one example of a ­hotel recently or­ga­ nized in the city through a card check neutrality agreement: the OUT New York ­Hotel in Times Square. As of this writing, the balance sheet would show that the ­union is as successful or­ga­niz­ing through card check as it is through the NLRB, but with a far greater investment of po­liti­cal resources in the case of the former. A more definitive evaluation would have to allow time to pass ­under the new zoning restrictions. ­Labor’s land use strategies have been generalized across North American cities. The special permit campaign developed by the New York ­Hotel Trades Council is a local adaptation of l­abor’s land use strategy to the par­tic­u­lar context of development politics in New York City. To my knowledge, t­here are no other cities in which ­unions have secured special permit language in zoning texts that effectively block nonunion development. This context includes an uncommonly power­ful local u ­ nion, local po­liti­cal accountability in urban planning decisions, and the ­simple fact that the profits to be made by rezoning New York City space are large enough to bring developers to negotiate rules with l­ abor ­unions that they strongly oppose. The special permit campaign requires all of ­these ele­ments to work: a mobilized and po­liti­cally effective ­union membership, local institutional leverage over the development pro­cess, and large rent gaps. But crucially, the strategy also requires an understanding of the contradictions that are pres­ent in urban po­liti­cal economies and the use of imagination to exploit ­these for ­labor’s ends. What implications can be drawn from this study about l­ abor agency in the city? As ­unions become more invested in land use or­ga­niz­ing and bargaining strategies, they stake out a role for themselves in the “socio-­spatial dialectic” (Soja 1989) between the physical spaces we create and the social relations that reproduce cap­i­ tal­ist society. The higher forces of interurban competition and creative destruction

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to which the development industry appeals are mediated though local government as development proposals pass through rounds of negotiation with place-­based actors. This is where l­abor’s agency is expressed, in this case through a form of veto power. This veto power amounts to the capacity to negotiate, and ultimately come to terms, with dominant growth interests. At best, this form of l­abor agency ensures the ability of u ­ nion members to reproduce themselves in the city. The special permit campaign ensures that the ­future of the Global City w ­ ill include l­ abor or­ga­nized at its center and allows this segment of the workforce to remain resident in the city that they help to produce. To the extent that this agency is limited to closing rent gaps, it falls short of the role ­labor may play in a socially transformative urban proj­ect. ­Labor’s potential urban agency extends beyond this narrow basis. The New York h ­ otel workers show the potential for workers acting to shape how the city develops. As the chapters in the following sections demonstrate, this power can be directed t­oward some ambitious proj­ects.

2 OR­G A­N IZED ­L ABOR AND CASINO POLITICS IN TORONTO  Steven Tufts What hy­poc­risy to forcibly close petty gambling ­houses, when our cap­i­tal­ist society cannot do without an im­mense gambling ­house, where millions ­after millions are lost and won, for its very centre! Friedrich Engels, “Social Classes—­Necessary and Superfluous”

On November 5, 2012, the Executive Committee of Toronto’s city council voted to move ahead with public consultations on the benefits and location of a casino in the city. The marathon session included over fifty-­two listed deputations from ­unions, social ser­vice professionals, urban boosters, and anti-­casino residents. The meeting unofficially kicked off competitive campaigns among casino and real estate capital, the state, community groups, and or­ga­nized ­labor to shape the ­future of Toronto’s downtown core. On May 21, 2013, following an intense period of media campaigns and public debate, the council overwhelmingly rejected a downtown casino (40–4) and the expansion of the casino at Woodbine Raceway, albeit by a closer margin (24–20). The plan for a new casino, once thought to be a “done deal” for Toronto’s entertainment industry, unraveled over the seven-­month period.1 This chapter is not an exhaustive examination of contested casino politics in Toronto. The primary focus is on the complex and contradictory positions of ­labor ­unions on casino development in the context of the casino debate’s multiple actors. For some, or­ga­nized ­labor’s broad initial support for a casino was “­really about jobs.”2 Unions w ­ ere largely supportive of the downtown casino proj­ ect, which promised ten thousand jobs and $3 billion of new investment. Several cracks in ­labor’s position emerged as u ­ nions revealed dif­fer­ent interests in a casino proj­ect. The divisions within the ­house of ­labor on the casino ­were as complex as t­hose among local elites, the state, and the broader community. I argue below, however, that or­ga­nized ­labor’s contentious initial support for casino development must not be reduced to “vulgar reproduction,” narrowly defined class 53

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strug­gle, and collaboration for investment in order to reproduce par­tic­u­lar workers in place.3 Rather, the par­tic­u­lar moment in which the debate unfolded and the importance of gaming to the reproduction of ­labor power in the hospitable city both account for l­abor’s contradictory positions and perhaps the proposal’s failure. In terms of the “moment,” I refer to the context in which the debate unfolded—­specifically, Mayor Rob Ford’s besieged leadership. A right-­wing populist with a “pro-­taxpayer” agenda, Mayor Ford was very much pro-­casino, but a drug scandal tarnished his ability to rebuke the anti-­casino forces. Pro-­casino ­unions could not fully align with an anti-­union, scandal-­plagued mayor.4 Second, pro-­casino ­labor was fragmented and failed to focus on the importance of casino development to the reproduction of “good jobs” in the deindustrialized downtown core of Toronto ­until it was too late. The obvious starting point for explaining the dif­fer­ent positions of state, capital, and community actors is their immediate economic interests. ­Labor ­unions are creatures of capitalism deeply embedded within its structures. Unions are classed institutions that address the basic contradictions of capital rather than revolutionary organ­izations with the capacity for systemic change. They remain largely reformist institutions operating ­under the constraints of advanced capitalism. Unions are, however, able to play a part in shaping cap­i­tal­ist geographies to the relative benefit of workers, but the bourgeoisie always remains the dominant class. When the bourgeoisie is divided, however, ­labor can play a determining role by aligning with specific factions. In the case of the g­ reat Toronto casino debate, major ­unions closely aligned with multinational casino companies against other capital with alternative visions of economic development in the city’s core. Naturally, this raises several questions on the nature of workers’ agency within capitalism, something that is still debated by l­ abor geographers (see Herod 2007; Coe and Lier 2011). Are u ­ nions ­really exercising power if they merely attempt to reproduce their own narrowly defined economic interests? Can l­ abor truly shape the economic landscape in­de­pen­dent of state and capital consent? Are all alignments with factions of capital “class betrayal”? ­These remain pertinent questions, but limiting analy­sis only to t­ hese questions often leads to an economic determinism that fails to move beyond arguments based on vulgar reproduction. We must consider more complex relations if we are to truly understand the dif­fer­ent motivations for ­labor ­union support for specific types of developments (see Tufts 2004; 2010). Union support for casino development in Toronto is better explained with attention to several interrelated pro­cesses. First, or­ga­nized ­labor is involved in the material strug­gle over the f­ uture of the postindustrial city, both downtown and in the suburbs. Unions benefit differently from successive rounds of creative destruction, and therefore intervene in the competition between “high-­ road” and “low-­road” postindustrial capital as it restructures spaces for con-

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sumption and production. Second, support for casino development is linked directly to ­union strategy and interunion competition to represent current and ­future workers in Toronto’s gaming and hospitality sectors. Third, or­ga­nized ­labor is involved in complex and contradictory relationships with the community that require dif­fer­ent types of community mobilization and support. Given the contested topic of the chapter, I must come clean about some of the methods used in the research and my own position on the gaming industry. First, I am not a gambling prohibitionist. In many ways, I sympathize with the above quotation from Engels on the hy­poc­risy of banning “petty gambling h ­ ouses” when an entire financialized cap­i­tal­ist economy has devolved to an im­mense global casino. I do, however, take the position that as an economic development strategy, casinos are a losing bet in most contexts. Throughout the debate, I spoke publicly against a mega-­casino in Toronto, or­ga­nized anti-­casino panels, and even debated pro-­casino ­labor leaders at community meetings. It may have put some stress on my long-­term relationship with some ­unions, such as UNITE ­HERE Local 75, which I have worked with in the past on development issues. But engaging myself in the casino debate in this way did force me to confront the pro-­casino arguments and develop an understanding of the strategic motivations of pro-­casino ­unions. Pro-­casino ­union officials ­were also willing to provide some insight into the strategies they chose through personal communication. The bulk of the documents cited in this chapter, however, are publicly available (e.g., formal submissions, news releases, and media reports). The chapter is divided into three sections. The first section provides a brief overview of the “modernization” plan of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) and the centrality of gaming in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to the strategy. The second section details how the debate in Toronto unfolded in 2012–2013, with emphasis on the positions of or­ga­nized ­labor on the casino question. I attempt to explain the complex, contradictory, and even hypocritical positions taken by a number of l­abor ­unions. The final section provides a concluding discussion of ­labor’s role in the debate and the implications for local ­unions.

The Modernization of the OLG and Toronto Across Canada, provincial governments have become increasingly dependent on gaming revenues since the 1970s. Researchers have suggested that such dependence has resulted in the rise of the “casino state,” despite the social costs associated with gambling (see Cosgrave and Klassen 2009). Governments have promoted casinos in most cases as a form of export-­led development in times of crisis. Alberta and

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British Columbia w ­ ere the first to develop casinos in the 1980s, often as an economic development strategy for First Nations (see Belanger, Williams, and ­Arthur 2013), inspiring the expansion of casinos across Canada. Beginning in the 1970s, local and provincial governments in Ontario replaced underground numbers games with state lotteries. In the 1980s, the Ontario government allowed regulated local bingo halls to operate and “roaming” (i.e., temporary) charity casinos. In the 1990s, a New Demo­cratic Party (NDP) government led by Bob Rae, faced with stifling deficits, introduced government-­owned charity casinos, largely located along the Ontario–­U.S. border, arguing that they would serve U.S. tourists. In the 2000s, the Conservative government established a slot revenue sharing program with raceways in a bid to subsidize a declining h ­ orse racing industry and appease its rural base. Such subsidy allowed the construction of new h ­ orse­racing facilities across Ontario. Currently, ­there are ten casinos in Ontario and another seventeen “racinos,” which combine ­horse racing with slots facilities. As economic policy, casinos are meant to enhance tourism and attract visitors, and the role of local residents as gamblers is downplayed. In Ontario, this had a geo­graph­i­cal logic as the first round of state-­regulated casino development was largely in border communities (e.g., Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Windsor, Point Edward, Niagara Falls, and Gananoque). Indeed, casinos are often held to be “of interest” to tourists and hold the prospect for spin-­off development (see MacLaurin and MacLaurin 2003). However, casinos fail as tourist attractions on many fronts. They are often small and nondescript, vulnerable to swings in the exchange rate, and the laws of competition simply lead bordering states to expand their own stock of casinos just a few kilo­meters south (see Stolarick and Brydges 2013). As Ontario casinos approach twenty years of age, and the limited local markets of prob­lem and non-­prob­lem gamblers decline over time, ­there is no incentive for private or public reinvestment in situ, and new, larger markets are explored. Casino development in Ontario is perhaps more accurately described as an import substitution strategy. Residents experience gambling in Las Vegas or Atlantic City and bring back a demand for gambling that can easily be met at home rather than abroad. The unique aspect of this type of import substitution is that the public has historically demanded that it be highly regulated. As a result, pseudomonopolies can be granted to specific geographic areas and providers. In exchange for highly regulated territorial rights, the state can leverage its power over casino operators to subsidize other developments (e.g., racetracks, convention facilities, ­hotels, retail). In 2010, however, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation began a pro­cess of modernizing its practices to become more market oriented. The provincial government, this time Liberal, and again facing significant deficits, deci­ded

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to expand the revenues generated by the OLG. In early 2012, the OLG released its modernization report, guided by three priorities: (1) become more customer-­ focused; (2) expand regulated private-­sector delivery of lottery and gaming; and (3) renew the OLG’s role in the oversight of lottery and gaming (OLG 2012). The implications for casino development are made quite explicit throughout the report. First, “customer-­focused” means that gaming ­will move ­toward densely populated markets to increase access and create new gamblers. This is not restricted to the relocation and building of new casinos, but also means the establishment of an online gaming presence, placing casinos in homes. The Liberal government, u ­ nder Premier Dalton McGuinty, deci­ded to move ahead and expand casinos into large centers with the approval of local councils. The OLG announced that it was ending the Slots at Racetracks Program, as it was shifting to a model that would move slots to more densely populated locations despite concerns of gambling facilities in small centers.5 Any geo­graph­i­cal prioritization given to rural areas or deindustrialized border cities was repealed as the industry seeks rent-­maximizing locations. Toronto is the last major metropolitan center in Canada to escape full casino development. Casino Montreal was established in 1993, and Edgewater Casino in Vancouver opened in 2005. It is impor­tant to note, however, that Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack has three thousand slot machines as part of the above profit-­ sharing program. The Woodbine Entertainment Group (WEG) has been calling for a full casino at the site for some time, while ­others have advocated for a downtown location. For much of the 1990s and early 2000s, the ­future of Toronto’s waterfront was largely tied to the success of mega-­events. However, the failure of Toronto to win the 1996 and 2008 Olympic Games has forced local elites to consider alternatives along the waterfront into the Port Lands. The 2015 Pan Am Games ­were not as intensive in terms of development, and any bid for the World’s Fair or ­future Olympic Games may be a generation away. The Ontario government’s decision to close Ontario Place as an attraction (perhaps in preparation for something “new”) also increased the pressure for the city to consider casino-­ led rejuvenation. Second, the expansion of the “regulated private sector” meant that multinational casino corporations would be encouraged to expand their role in casino development and operations. Given that Canada’s gambling industry is relatively young, firms with anchor properties in Las Vegas and Atlantic City ­were the front-­ runners in any competitive pro­cess. The Conservatives, in official opposition in the provincial parliament, promoted the privatization the OLG’s operations to such firms. Third, the renewal of OLG’s oversight role is a concession to a public that wants corruption-­free lotteries, any expanded private sector involvement in gambling

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to be ­free of or­ga­nized crime, and a state commitment to contain the social costs of gambling addiction. Again, the state recognized the contentious nature of gambling as public policy and the demands to strictly regulate it—­even from a neoliberal perspective. The changing priorities and the OLG’s ambition to build casinos in Ontario’s largest centers with private money launched the casino craze that gripped Toronto for seven months. The city had been confronted with the issue before. In a 1997 referendum held just prior to the amalgamation of the new City of Toronto, the old city and the boroughs soundly rejected the idea of a casino.6 The debate in 2012–2013 was qualitatively dif­fer­ent in many re­spects and unfolded in a dif­fer­ent context. The rise of online gambling, the poker craze of the last de­cade, the first generation of Ontario casinos, the emergence of multinational gaming corporations, as well as governments’ addiction to revenues have worked together to normalize the gambling industry. The global financial crisis and an unpre­ce­dented hoarding of capital in the face of uncertainty pressure local economies to accept any form of investment that w ­ ill generate jobs. State revenues from highly regulated gaming are also seen as a means of reducing deficits and tax burdens, and thus maintaining urban neoliberal governance and accumulation. At the same time, t­ here has been a global slump in international gaming, which has forced multinational gaming corporations to pursue a shrinking number of undeveloped markets such as Toronto and its surrounding suburbs. Both the Liberal provincial government and Toronto Mayor Rob Ford ­were enthusiastic about a casino along the city’s neglected waterfront. While ­there was always a ­great deal of public concern over the social and economic costs of gambling, ­there was no obvious community group to mount re­sis­tance to casino development. Indeed, many commentators at the time thought it was a done deal and that the best course was to shape the proj­ect and perhaps limit its footprint on the city. Furthermore, the proj­ect had significant l­abor support, and t­ here was no apparent community mobilization in place to resist such development. ­Under the surface, however, ­there was significant anti-­casino sentiment that managed to or­ga­nize quickly and manage a significant come-­from-­behind victory.

Contested Casino Development in Toronto Contested development proj­ects such as casinos require a ­great deal of unity within and among dif­fer­ent social forces: capital, the state, the community, and, of course, ­labor. Once divisions emerge within power­ful groups, coherent and disciplined campaigns become impor­tant. Where would a casino be located? How much revenue would Toronto receive? How big would the casino development

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be compared to other proj­ect components? How many jobs would be created? ­These ­were all questions that w ­ ere not coherently answered by the diverse pro-­ casino forces. ­There ­were significant divisions within capital and the state on the casino question. ­There was also strong anti-­casino sentiment in the community that was able to align itself with anti-­casino politicians and business interests. Although some anti-­casino positions emerged from ­unions at the end of the debate, ­labor was initially neutral or pro-­casino. Yet the pro-­casino ­unions, in alliance with casino boosters, could not sway the pro­cess in their f­ avor. I argue below that the so-­called pro-­casino ­unions ­were actually quite diverse, and the idea that their support was “­really about jobs” is a vulgar oversimplification. In fact, the dif­fer­ ent strategic imperatives of pro-­casino ­unions limited their ability to put forward a coherent argument for casino development, adding another fragmented stakeholder voice.

Capital United/Capital Divided Debates over the extent to which the bourgeoisie is united or divided are inextricably linked to the level of abstraction and the scale of analy­sis. For example, the very nature of capitalism demands competition, and capital competes in the market daily. Similarly, industries can compete with each other over state subsidies and other regulatory support for their sector. For example, “green technology” firms have a very dif­fer­ent view of resource development policy than big oil. At the same time, capital may be singular in its views on how the overall economy should be regulated and united in the strug­gle to limit ­union power, lower corporate taxation, and increase the mobility of capital. Following the recent global financial crisis, ­there has been some tension between Keynesians and a deepening neoliberalism, but the extent to which this has divided elites is debated (see Albo 2012). Local capital can also compete for public and private investment. This is the essence of interurban competition. Again, local elites from dif­fer­ent cities compete while largely agreeing on the rules of the game. At the urban scale, multiple interests also emerge with qualitatively dif­fer­ent views on how a city’s economy should develop. It is this scale of analy­sis and level of abstraction that are most relevant to the casino case in Toronto. Global casino capital interests w ­ ere united in both their goal and initial strategic approach. The casino industry was greatly damaged by the financial crisis and needed its “spatial fix,” growth through expansion into underdeveloped gaming markets.7 The first step was to approach the OLG with a vision for modernization in which they would play a key role. Following this, they engaged in an

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intensive lobbying campaign to influence the public consultation pro­cess enacted by city hall and the council votes to follow. At one point, it was noted that the largest casino developers had over forty registered lobbyists at Toronto City Hall (approximately one per councillor) (Hains 2013). The lobbying strategy was quite ­simple. Pro-­casino forces emphasized the overall job creation and relatively limited proportion of the redevelopment that would be dedicated to the casino itself. Of the more than 3 million square feet of proposed casino resort development (including an im­mense parking lot), only 300,000 square feet would be dedicated to gaming space. The OLG also chose to emphasize the benefits of an integrated resort development, specifically the 9,700 new jobs and 3,000 temporary construction jobs that would result from the proj­ect. The second aspect of the strategy was to challenge the non-­industry-­ sponsored research on the social costs of gambling. In public debates, the No Casino Toronto advocates ­were very effective in introducing their own figures on social impacts. In many re­spects, their messaging was clear, but the location and scale of the four major proposals ­were diverse. Proposals for casino development ­were consistent with the gaming zones identified by the OLG. Of the twenty-­nine provincial zones identified in the modernization report, two (C1 and C2) w ­ ere in the Greater Toronto Area (see figure 2.1). C1 had three subareas: downtown Toronto, Mississauga, and an area including Markham and Richmond Hill. A fourth region, Vaughan, was added ­after the report’s release. The large C2 zone, the area west of Highway 27 from Dixon Road into Malton, con­ve­niently captures the Woodbine Racetrack. On October 22, 2012, the city man­ag­er reported findings from con­sul­tants Ernst & Young (2012) that an integrated casino and entertainment proj­ect in C1 would generate up to 4,600 construction-­related jobs and up to 5,100 net new jobs. New revenues for the city in terms of “hosting fees” w ­ ere estimated at up to $168 million, before any government lease or sale of land. The size of the mega-­casino necessary to generate ­these funds, 300,000 square feet, is 1.5 times larger than Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls and Casino Rama in Orillia, smaller municipalities west and north of Toronto. The proposals considered by council centered on the downtown core. Woodbine was initially excluded from the debate. Perhaps the most developed proposal centered on Ontario Place, a provincially owned theme park closed in 2012. The adjacent city-­owned Exhibition Place, which currently hosts a casino in August each year during the Canadian National Exhibition, was preferred by Mayor Ford. Brian Ashton, president of the Canadian National Exhibition Association, stated in a letter to the Executive Committee that such an Ontario Place proj­ect would have “VERY SERIOUS implications for the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), a 135 year old institution in this City” (emphasis in original).8 ­Here MGM part-

Or­g a­nized ­L abor and Casino Politics in Toronto

KING

CALEDON

YORK

PICKERING

RICHMOND HILL

VAUGHAN

DURHAM

MARKHAM AJAX

C1

61

WHITBY

C3

C1 PEEL

C2

Woodbine Racetrack

CITY OF TORONTO

N

BRAMPTON

C1

HALTON HILLS

C1

MISSISSAUGA

LAKE ONTARIO

Downtown/Convention Centre

C4 HALTON MILTON 0 OAKVILLE

0

5

10 5

15 km

CNE Grounds

Port Lands

10 m i.

FIGURE 2.1.  Proposed OLG central Ontario locations

nered with real estate developer Cadillac Fairview to develop a $3 billion proposal for a new integrated casino resort on the Ontario Place site. In the downtown core, two players had proposed redevelopment of the convention center, which was argued to be inadequate for a city the size of Toronto. Caesar’s Entertainment partnered with Oxford Properties (the owner of the existing convention center space) for one proposal, while The Sands and its Tea Party–­supporting CEO, Sheldon Adelson, developed a second (see Carroll, Branigan, and Sherwood 2012). The least developed downtown plan included a casino as part of the Port Lands Acceleration Initiative, set in motion a­ fter Doug Ford’s 2011 failed proposal for a ­giant Ferris wheel and monorail on the brownfield site. Jerry Sprackman, a local real estate owner, had called for a large integrated casino resort in the area as well as a temporary casino during construction. It was argued that the old industrial site had the space, and a casino would anchor development necessary to secure the floodplain at the mouth of the Don River and allow further redevelopment across the eastern waterfront to Leslie Street (Kent 2012). ­There was also a rival plan developed, which argued against a downtown location and advocated for an expansion of the Woodbine racino. The Woodbine Entertainment Group had taken out advertisements claiming a waterfront casino would reduce slots revenue and harm its fa­cil­i­ty. Indeed, the $1 billion proposed development Woodbine Live!, financed with $120 million in local tax credits, has yet to emerge, as the financial crisis delayed the proj­ect, which many ­were

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convinced hinged on a casino in any case (see Tufts 2010). The expansion of the existing gaming site was perhaps Mayor Rob Ford and Councillor Doug Ford’s back-up plan, given that Woodbine is located in or near their own inner suburban Etobicoke wards. As stated above, however, this alternative also failed in 2013 by a close margin. Indeed, the multiple proposals did perhaps add some confusion to the casino proponents’ message. Which proposal was the best? What if an expanded casino at Woodbine is acceptable, but not downtown? But ­these ­were minor divisions among casino elites, as the most damaging divisions w ­ ere among factions of development capital itself. A significant number of elites simply did not support this type of development. Perhaps this was best articulated by Toronto boosters such as Richard Florida, who vehemently opposed the development of a casino along the waterfront from the beginning (see Florida 2012). Kevin Stolarick, research director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and a colleague of Florida’s, was also very vocal in his opposition to a casino, speaking to community and business groups and arguing against the development. Florida and his colleagues’ position is consistent with their view of a creative city rich with amenities necessary to attract knowledge workers.9 Highly securitized casinos and low-­brow retail are not part of this vision, but public green spaces and knowledge-­intensive industrial parks are. During an anti-­casino public panel, Stolarick responded to a question on better uses for Ontario Place by referencing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proj­ect revitalizing Roo­se­velt Island with a partnership between the high-­tech industry and Cornell University.10 The creative class vision is far from an alternative to competitive capitalism, but it does represent a rupture among Toronto elites as to the direction of economic development in stark contrast to the casino, Ferris wheel, and monorail vision of Mayor Rob Ford. For Florida, the casino issue is one where t­ here is significant consensus among urbanists and planners, but this is not necessarily true for the public at large. Any campaign must confront the limits of simply advocating for a higher-­road model of economic development. Many in working-­class communities do ­gamble, and many ­others ­will take any job a casino provides. The knowledge economy is exclusionary, requiring specific skills and training many workers do not have, while discrediting skills of other workers not trained in Canada. It should not be surprising that parts of Toronto’s working class embraced Mayor Ford’s version of economic development, especially when the alternative presented simply benefits another segment of the cap­i­tal­ist class. ­There ­were other cracks in the business community itself. Local business improvement areas (BIAs) near the casino w ­ ere concerned about displacement, as the new development would displace smaller bars, restaurants, and retail loca-

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tions. Other large developers, perhaps echoing the concerns expressed by Florida, also challenged the impact a large consumption-­oriented space would have on local condominium developments and commercial real estate. In perhaps the most embarrassing case, a real estate firm which had OLG Chair Paul Godfrey on its board said a large redevelopment proj­ect would be stopped if a casino was built in the downtown core. The OLG, the provincial government, and pro-­casino councillors all preferred a downtown casino. Aesthetics, higher population density, central transportation facilities, and parking (especially in the case of the Ontario and Exhibition Place lots) w ­ ere cited most often. Together, ­these would lead to higher location rents along the waterfront. As casino operators are able to profit more from a waterfront location, the competitive local government is able to leverage a much larger integrated proj­ect attached to a casino and higher hosting fees than would be the case for a suburban casino. This was perhaps the biggest contradiction facing anti-­ casino activists. If casino development is stopped downtown, but successfully retreats to other locations in the Greater Toronto Area, the demands the state can make on casino capital ­will be more modest.

Divided State The state, however, was perhaps even more divided. On the surface, both the municipal and provincial governments ­were faced with fiscal challenges, especially at the provincial level, with over $10 billion in annual deficits following the economic downturn and decline of the manufacturing base. The OLG report was initiated in the midst of the economic crisis, and its release occurred as the government searched for sources of revenue other than increased taxation. For the province, a mega-­casino in the largest market was deemed crucial to meeting current and generating ­future demand. For the city, casino development was integrated into larger real estate development and public infrastructure renewal. At a time when capital appeared committed to hoarding investment, leveraging billions of dollars in new public space, buildings, ­hotels, and of course casinos is attractive for local politicians. Yet, despite the lobbyists’ “occupation” of Toronto’s City Hall and Ontario’s Queen’s Park, the politicians remained divided. At the provincial level, the Conservative opposition wanted the government to go further with the privatization of the OLG’s operations, but was sceptical of a casino in downtown Toronto. Of par­tic­u­lar concern was the impact a mega-­casino would have on Woodbine and the ­ripple effects through the rural ­horse racing sector in Conservative ridings. The Ontario New Demo­cratic Party, which was responsible for introducing

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casinos in the 1990s, was also against the downtown casino, reflecting the wishes of constituents in their downtown ridings and representing the geo­graph­i­cal princi­ples of distancing gambling from large markets.11 Such differences along party lines are expected in an adversarial party system, but less expected ­were the differences within the governing Liberal Party. During the casino debate, Kathleen Wynne (a Toronto MPP herself) was elected leader and replaced Premier McGuinty. Wynne had less enthusiasm for casinos and for Paul Godfrey’s administration of the casino file. When the OLG began to see a potential loss of support for a casino, Godfrey attempted to negotiate a “special” revenue-­sharing agreement with Mayor Ford without Wynne’s approval. Predicting (very accurately, as it turned out) the resentment other municipalities would have if Toronto had a more generous revenue split from gaming, Wynne reigned in Godfrey and eventually dismissed him from his position.12 At the municipal level, councillors w ­ ere largely divided on the casino question along left and right affiliations. Re­sis­tance to a downtown casino had mobilized. Led largely by Councillor Mike Layton, many left-­leaning councillors from the outset spoke passionately against casinos in or near their wards. Adam Vaughan was particularly vehement in his position, and aggressively counterattacked pro-­casino voices, including ­unions that supported the proposals.13 As for the right and center-­right supporting the initial proposals, the issue was “jobs, jobs, jobs” and revenue for the city coffers. The prob­lem was that no supporter could argue how many jobs and how much revenue. Possibly the largest strategic error made by pro-­casino forces was the solicitation of a report on the economic impact of casinos from Ernst & Young, released in October 2012 just prior to the meeting at which the Executive Committee council voted to begin public consultations. The range of estimates provided in terms of revenue for the city is so large in the report that it was almost rendered useless. For example, the revenue from the sale or lease of land to the casinos was estimated at anywhere between $35 million and $250 million (Ernst & Young 2012, 46). As for the mysterious hosting fees (i.e., the revenue split received from the province), the numbers in the report differed significantly from t­hose promoted by Mayor Ford. In the end, the inability of the mayor to negotiate high hosting fees contributed to the overwhelming defeat of a downtown casino. It must be noted that Mayor Ford was at a point of weakness during the final months of the debate. The circulation of a video of the mayor appearing to smoke crack cocaine had weakened the mayor and distanced him from other casino supporters. Weak leadership on the “Yes” side and the divisions within the state on the issue provided a context that required a strong show of public support. But even parts of the state apparatus w ­ ere against the casino. A number of health professionals such as Nigel Turner from the Centre for Addiction and M ­ ental Health

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(CAMH) spoke about the perils of gambling as a health issue, and the Boards of Health itself came out against the casino, citing the strong evidence documenting the social prob­lems of gambling addiction. Clearly, the pro-­casino councillors would need the help of ­labor and community groups.

United Community In the summer of 2012, t­ here was no group actively taking on the pro-­casino state and capital. However, three w ­ omen formed No Casino Toronto and managed to launch an effective campaign against the pro-­casino lobby. It has been argued that for an anti-­casino campaign to be effective, social forces must “reframe the issue” away from the economic benefits and emphasize the social costs (see Louishomme 2003). No Casino Toronto did emphasize the social costs of prob­lem gambling, but a key to the no-­casino forces’ success was their ability to debunk many of the economic arguments levied by the urban boosters. The groups ­were able to document the health effects, but they w ­ ere also able to point out the wide disparities in revenue estimates, the quality of the jobs generated, and the adverse economic effects of added traffic congestion in the downtown core. No Casino Toronto disseminated their message through a number of traditional and more recent campaign strategies. First, they attended countless panels and community meetings on the issue, reading from a prepared script. Second, they quickly established a website and social media presence (a Facebook page) to circulate information and announce events. Third, they began a lawn sign and button campaign to establish a physical presence in neighborhoods. The group also managed to build co­ali­tions of support through endorsements of the No Casino Toronto position. Once enough endorsements w ­ ere attained, a full-­page advertisement with the list of organ­izations, planners, academics, and community leaders was placed in the Globe and Mail’s weekend edition.14 ­There ­were negligible community groups that voiced support for the casino. The Tax Payers Association, which saw the casino as a revenue stream to c­ ounter property tax increases, was marginal relative to No Casino Toronto. Another par­ tic­u­lar group was Yes Woodbine, which was against a downtown casino but very much for a casino expansion at the racetrack. This group, however, was much less of a grassroots community or­ga­ni­za­tion and was heavi­ly sponsored by the Woodbine Entertainment Group and its employees. Of all the social forces, the “community” demonstrated the most unity throughout the debate and was able to exploit divisions among capital and elites. For the most part, a very informed public was against the casino throughout the debate, and polling was constant. The success of No Casino Toronto is reflected in its “demonstration effect” and the emergence of s­ ister groups inside the GTA (e.g.,

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No Casino Vaughan) and beyond (e.g., No Casino Peterborough, No Casino Kingston). The group was able to mobilize support in a manner that pro-­casino ­unions ­were simply unable to accomplish.

Pro-­Casino ­Labor? On the surface, much of the pro-­casino ­union support appeared to be a case of ­unions seeking jobs for members as a means to reproduce the working class and increase power in the local ­labor market. Explanations for such motivations end with a crude economic determinism, when ­there are much more complex po­liti­ cal pro­cesses at play. Perhaps the most energetic supporters of the casino ­were the building trades ­unions. Mike Yorke, president of the Carpenters and Allied Workers Local 27, was a leading voice, but other ­unions such as LIUNA ­were also supportive. It is obvious why the trades ­were supportive of $3 billion in construction in the downtown core. Building trades workers did relatively well during the financial crisis, with federal stimulus money and the condominium boom in Toronto. Anti-­casino forces often cited the high employment rates in the trades and argued that the size of the proj­ect could create ­labor shortages that would damage residential and transit construction. The building trades, constantly facing boom-­and-­bust cycles, ­were aware of both an austerity agenda’s end to spending and housing market saturation. Slightly more nuanced support was given by UNITE H ­ ERE Local 75, representing seven thousand hospitality workers in the city. Local 75 had a strong relationship with casino developers, especially MGM. The u ­ nion is part of an international ­union that represents sixty thousand workers in Las Vegas and was well aware of the expansionary needs of leveraged casino capital. The local ­union was interested in the casino as well as the new ­hotels and convention facilities that would upgrade Toronto’s tourism product. While No Casino Toronto disputed both the quality of the new jobs (in terms of part-­time vs. full-­time) and the net gain given displacement effects, the ­union also emphasized they would be ­unionized jobs. Indeed, MGM publicly stated that construction and casino jobs would be ­union, and even conservative Mayor Rob Ford said he wanted the “­union jobs.” Increasing ­union density in the hospitality sector (even if some ­union and nonunion jobs ­were displaced) is as impor­tant strategically for Local 75 as the quantity of new jobs generated. For Local 75, maintaining density in the hospitality sector is not only aimed at gaining leverage over employers. The u ­ nion has been involved in several jurisdictional ­battles over the last two de­cades as other ­unions have attempted to gain a foothold in the growing hospitality sector. Assisting

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FIGURE 2.2.  Local 75 casino campaign leaflet Courtesy UNITE ­HERE Local 75

casino developers in exchange for voluntary recognition is one way to maintain a position in the sector. Local 75 also emphasized that their support for a casino in Toronto was conditional. The four major conditions ­were: (1) decent wages and ­unionization, (2) a fair share of revenue for the city, (3) “green building” standards and innovative

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design, and (4) community benefits such as local hiring (see figure 2.2). Indeed, the trades u ­ nion also advocated for green construction. Throughout the debate, however, most of the u ­ nions focused on the job-­generating benefits of casinos, and the contingent nature of their support was difficult to message. SEIU represented 350 workers at Woodbine, and another seven hundred members ­were at risk if Ontario racetracks ­were threatened by urban casinos. SEIU Local 2 submitted a statement calling for two casinos in Toronto, one at Woodbine and another downtown as a “true opportunity for positive growth and revitalization in our city.”15 The statement argued that any net job gain must be mea­sured against the loss of existing gaming jobs in the ­horse racing industry. In other words, the u ­ nion leadership needed to protect what it had, while supporting private ser­v ice development downtown for the ­future. The Canadian Autoworkers (CAW, now part of UNIFOR) was also pro-­casino, but largely favored the expansion of the Woodbine Casino—­not surprising given its claimed repre­sen­ta­tion of six thousand casino and racetrack workers in Ontario, most notably Casino Windsor. Bob Orr, at the time assistant to CAW President Ken Lewenza and Secretary Trea­surer Peter Kennedy, offered a somewhat confusing statement that supported gaming expansion, but only in ways that would not compete with existing employers. Orr stated that “A downtown Casino would most likely not have much of an impact on Woodbine, Brantford or ­Great Blue Heron [Port Perry]. Placing a casino in closer proximity to any of ­these sites could result in a shift where ­people spend their entertainment money.”16 The above excerpt reflects the ambiguous nature of UNIFOR’s cautionary position on casino expansion. Why ­didn’t UNIFOR come out strongly against a casino in order to protect its members at Woodbine? One answer could be that the ­union was perhaps hoping to use its existing relationship with Caesar’s Entertainment (operator of Casino Windsor) to expand into Toronto’s hospitality sector. As UNITE ­HERE Local 75 has insulated itself from raiding by other u ­ nions in recent years, general ­unions such as UNIFOR ­will have to find other ways to enter the sector, and a voluntary agreement with the corporation interested in developing the convention center is one opportunity. Despite experimentations with social u ­ nionism in the 1980s and 1990s, the ­union has been greatly affected by the downsizing of manufacturing in Ontario (Gindin 1995). In discussion with a No Casino representative, it was reported that when it was learned the ­unions supported the casino, the group “thought that we ­were dead” (personal communication). Cracks in l­ abor’s support did, however, emerge as the debate progressed. First, the Metro Toronto and York Region ­Labour Council never supported the casino proj­ect but remained neutral, despite the positions of its major affiliates. The decision to not speak against the casino demonstrated some discipline and solidarity with its private-­sector members. ­There was no evi-

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dence of ­Labour Council support for casinos. In fact, casino development was antithetical to much of what the council was supporting through its green jobs campaigns and efforts to protect the zoning of “employment lands” (i.e., industrial lands) against encroachment by condominium and retail real estate developers. ­Here the central ­labor council was attempting to restrict rent gaps by controlling land use, while the pro-­casino ­unions ­were seeking to realize rents by supporting conversion of government land (i.e., Ontario Place) and industrial land (i.e., the Port Lands) to commercial redevelopment (see MacDonald, Nugent, and Wieditz in this volume). The position of public-­sector ­unions was much more complex. The Public Ser­v ice Alliance of Canada (PSAC) represented casino workers at Woodbine and racetracks outside the GTA (e.g., Georgian Downs in Barrie). While not strongly against a downtown casino, the ­union did publicly support New Demo­crat MPP Taras Natyshak’s unsuccessful opposition bill to suspend the OLG’s modernization plan ­until the 2014 provincial election. Other public-­sector ­unions not directly representing workers in the sector w ­ ere also implicated in the debate. The schoolteachers did not come out strongly against casinos and their social costs. While teachers’ ­unions often take positions on public interests, they also have pension interests. The Teachers’ Pension Plan owns Cadillac Fairview, a key development partner teamed with MGM. Similarly, it was surprising that CUPE did not come out strongly against a casino, given that its members deal with the local social impacts. It must be noted, however, that extra revenue in Toronto may be perceived as a positive development when negotiating with the city. CUPE also represents casino workers in Alberta. Further, Oxford Properties, partnered with Caesar’s Entertainment in the proposal pro­cess, is the real estate development arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), the pension fund for CUPE members. Despite ­these interests, CUPE Local 79 did fi­nally denounce the casino. This only occurred, however, ­after the leadership had polled its membership. In one of the more bizarre contradictions, officials from Local 79 ­were scheduled to testify against the casino on the same day its pension fund man­ag­ers at OMERS ­were testifying on the virtues of casino development. It is h ­ ere that the differences between private-­and public-­sector ­unions become evident. For private-­sector ­unions negotiating with corporate employers, it was easier to discount anti-­casino public sentiment. For public-­sector ­unions with pension and o ­ thers interests in the casino debate, trivializing anti-­casino public opinion would have been a strategic error. Public-­sector ­unions negotiate with state employers and depend directly on community support in collective bargaining.

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This left the private-­sector ­unions, especially UNITE ­HERE Local 75 and the building trades, relatively isolated. Lis Pimental and Mike Yorke became the pro-­ casino ­labor voice during the debate and did most of the heavy lifting in public. Other so-­called pro-­casino ­unions (e.g., SEIU, CAW) delivered deputations to the city council, but with relatively l­ ittle at stake given their position in the sector did not broadly publicize their position. As a result, what appeared as a united pro-­ casino l­ abor position was in real­ity as fragmented as that of capital and the state.

Concluding Discussion and Implications Analy­sis of or­ga­nized ­labor’s role in the ­great casino debate of 2012–2013 is complicated from the outset by the question of w ­ hether or not a failed proposal is to be considered a win or a loss for local ­unions given their diverse positions. While ­labor support for a new downtown casino was contingent and fragmented, it remains a fact that significant u ­ nions ­were strongly b ­ ehind development, and even public sector u ­ nions that opposed it in the l­ater stages of the debate had some contradictory interests (e.g., CUPE’s pension investments). When capital and the state consider divisive development proposals, t­ here is greater opportunity for actors such as ­labor and community groups to be deciding ­factors. Yet such opportunities to shape municipal politics and development still require discipline and solid strategy. It is not only the loss of casino and construction jobs for some ­unions that is relevant ­here, but also the failure of local or­ga­nized ­labor to exercise power in a decisive manner at a moment when the opportunity presented itself. Admittedly, ­labor was confronted with an unpopular development proposal championed by a mayor u ­ nder siege by scandal. Mayor Rob Ford’s erratic be­hav­ ior linked to substance abuse did not serve the pro-­casino lobby well. The weak and oddly matched alliance that emerged through the debate was not well integrated into a unified pro-­casino “movement.” The failure of the OLG and the mayor’s office to provide leadership on the file left pro-­casino ­labor without a strong partner. The fictitious benefits in terms of overinflated jobs and revenue estimates ­were also not an asset. In a recent report issued by Ontario’s auditor general on the OLG’s modernization plan, a strong critique on the OLG’s faulty financial projections and lack of stakeholder consultation is made (see Lysyk 2014). The anti-­ casino forces w ­ ere able to challenge the economic arguments and emphasize the social costs. Pro-­casino ­unions ­were weakest on the social costs of prob­lem gambling, which remains a mainstay for anti-­casino activists, as even the most cohesive pro-­casino campaign has difficulty countering the real social prob­lem of gambling. A major error cited by a pro-­casino ­union representative was the pro-­

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casino state and capital strategy of taking multiple proposals forward before having an initial debate on gambling itself, which confused the public. The widespread public scepticism, an effective community-­based No Casino Toronto campaign, and the weak state leadership must be considered in any overall assessment of ­labor’s role. Nevertheless, pro-­casino ­unions ­were unable to sway the debate, and the strategic choices they made must be assessed even if they emerged in a challenging context. First, ­labor did attempt to adhere to a narrative that emphasized the need for construction and tourism-­related jobs and the economic benefits of a casino. The debate was not simply about creating more jobs, but also about taking the opportunity to transform traditionally low-­wage jobs into strong ­middle-­class jobs. UNITE ­HERE Local 75 attempted (albeit with dif­fer­ent levels of success) to emphasize that support for a casino proj­ect was contingent upon a good jobs strategy. What Local 75 was not able to bring into the discussion was the strategic importance of casino development to the u ­ nion’s goal of increasing ­union density and its membership in the sector, and solidifying its place as the city’s primary hospitality workers’ ­union. ­Doing so would have alienated ­union allies and further fragmented ­labor’s position. More importantly, pro-­casino ­labor never emphasized and developed core counterarguments about employment ­until the very end, when it was too ­little too late. With less than a month before the casino question was to be put to council, pro-­casino forces launched a 10,000 Jobs Now website. The 10,000 Jobs Now Co­ali­tion included the Carpenters’ District Council of Ontario, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of Amer­i­ca Locals 27 and 675, SEIU Local 2, UNITE ­HERE Local 75, Cirque du Soleil, The McEwan Group, PCL Constructors Canada Ltd., MGM Resorts International, and Cadillac Fairview. The 10,000 Jobs Now campaign was launched “so that Toronto does not lose a once-­in-­a-­generation opportunity to create 10,000 new and much needed jobs as well as 5,000 u ­ nion construction worker jobs resulting from the building of an integrated resort and with a casino” (Canadian Newswire Press release, April 26).17 In personal communications with pro-­casino ­unions, it was reported that a grassroots campaign was proposed by a leading con­sul­tant to industry much earlier in the debate, but the casino employers preferred a direct lobbying strategy. By the time the campaign was launched, it was perhaps too late in the game. Such an approach may have played to Local 75’s strengths and experience with community-­based campaigns (see Tufts 2010). However, in embarking on cross-­ class alliances, pro-­casino ­unions risk isolating themselves from potential po­liti­cal and community allies. It remains to be seen how such relationships with community groups, faith organ­izations, and leftist city councillors ­will be affected over the long term. It also is unclear if developing community grassroots strategies such as

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10,000 Jobs Now in league with large employers w ­ ill debase the value of f­uture community–­union co­ali­tions. Furthermore, the ­future development of Toronto’s ser­vice economy was ceded to a rhetorical high-­road and high-­technology vision of development that downplays hospitality and tourism as a lead sector. Commercial and residential real estate developers with alternative visions of the areas in question w ­ ere perhaps the real victors. Toronto’s tourism product has not experienced any dynamic growth for almost two de­cades. Loss of market share, aging convention facilities, and the limited development of new attractions have all hurt the sector’s per­for­mance since the SARS public health emergency of 2003. Instead, rhetorical attention has been paid to preserving the few manufacturing jobs remaining, the so-­called green economy, film, finance, and high value-­added, technology-­ intensive industries. For UNITE ­HERE Local 75, the casino debate was, in part, about getting the local government to prioritize postindustrial development as a means of reproducing m ­ iddle-­class jobs. ­Labor ­will continue to debate strategies aimed at allowing capital to exploit rent gaps as a means of creating employment versus ­those that protect lands for other types of high-­road employment in the downtown core. Mayor Rob Ford did not run for a second term as mayor due to illness, and John Tory defeated Doug Ford, Mayor Ford’s b ­ rother, in the 2014 mayoral election. Within the first few months of his term, Mayor Tory was lobbied by the Woodbine Entertainment Group to reconsider the question of expanded casino gaming. In July 2015, Toronto City Council voted 25–19 to expand gaming at the Rexdale site, located in the Etobicoke ward represented by Mayor Ford, then a city councillor. While the proposed expansion is not on the scale of a new waterfront downtown casino, it does appear that u ­ nions representing workers at Woodbine got a victory of sorts in a community Rob Ford described as a “very challenging area.”18 Again, opponents of casino expansion cited social prob­lems and the lack of imagination to bring high value-­added jobs to the community. A majority of councillors, however, w ­ ere convinced that the benefits outweighed the costs, and that casino-­led development was appropriate for the inner suburbs, if not the downtown core. In the end, the 2012–2013 debate revealed the fragmented nature of local l­ abor, even when t­ here seemed to be a strong pro-­casino ­union position on the surface. For ­labor to succeed in contentious development politics, it needs more effective structures for deep strategic thinking, and more nuanced and united positions that avoid such divisions and further frustration on the part of an increasingly pessimistic working class. What is lacking is leadership structures that can transcend the par­tic­u­lar interests of individual u ­ nions. The Toronto and York Region ­Labour Council was unable to come out for or against the casino, and was un-

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willing and po­liti­cally unable to negotiate a comprehensive ­labor position on gambling. It is unlikely that provincial or national ­labor federations ­will come to terms with gaming policy despite their affiliates’ repre­sen­ta­tion. It is naïve to expect construction workers to speak against a $3 billion proj­ect or ­hotel workers representing fifty thousand workers in Nevada to speak against gambling. It is not, however, unreasonable to demand that such vested u ­ nions develop a coherent sector strategy advocating for tourism and casino development that is responsible, and recognize that the best casino locations may lie in areas where ­unions do not have a strong presence. Simply fighting to expand membership limits any gains to a militant particularism incapable of building the working class, and would be truly vulgar. An alternative sector strategy that invests gambling capital in a tourist region (e.g., Niagara Falls, Ontario) rather than concentrating more capital in Toronto might be a better strategy for Ontario, even if that contradicts a u ­ nion’s priority to increase h ­ otel ­union density and membership in Toronto. It would also pose an alternative to prohibitionist high-­road creative capital visions to which anti-­casino groups are allied. ­Doing this, however, would require u ­ nion cooperation and the formation of local tourism workers’ sectoral councils to develop alternative economic strategies. Such a body may be able to address ­union fragmentation in a sector and provide a united voice with joint campaigns even if one u ­ nion (e.g., UNITE ­HERE Local 75) with a larger stake in the sector plays a leading role. If ­unions continue to compete against one another to represent the hospitality sector in Toronto, workers ­will be limited in the institutional power they can exercise in shaping f­ uture economic development. Opportunities such as casino-­led waterfront redevelopment ­will continue to be missed. The ­great casino debate complicates any absolute claims to ­labor’s agency in shaping the “hospitable city.” It is clear that many large u ­ nions engaged in the po­liti­cal pro­cess and attempted to shape a transformative postindustrial investment, but lacked the institutional capacity to do so definitively. For the pro-­casino ­unions that lost, it was devastating, as they failed to achieve an outcome that was in concert with employers. In this re­spect, one can interpret the case as another example of ­labor’s diminishing power, not only in its ability to resist capital, but even to enable specific types of cap­i­tal­ist accumulation with corporate and financial collaboration. Yet ­labor was more divided on the casino question than it initially appeared. The fact that the ­labor council remained neutral was perhaps evidence of anti-­casino ­labor agency in play. Or­ga­nized ­labor in Toronto ­will have to rethink its strategic approaches to postindustrial development in the city and provide a more united vision if it wishes to shape the ­future urban economic landscape and take advantage of t­hose moments when capital and the state are divided.

Part 2

­ ABOR AND THE L CREATIVE CITY Maria Figueroa, Lois S. Gray, and Thorben Wieditz

Since the publication of The Rise of the Creative Class (Florida 2002), the creative city has become a dominant urban development strategy suited to matching the aspirations of place-­bound rentiers and property developers with local politicians and sectors of the economy that fall into the creative industry category. The creative city vision holds the promise that cities and city regions become eco­nom­ically successful if they concentrate on the “creative class” inside their jurisdictions. This creative class consists of well-­educated groups employed in leading industries. With city governments firmly embracing the vision of the creative class, a principal urban policy orientation for cities around the world has become the creation of quality urban amenities that are said to attract the highly mobile and fastidious members of this class. Much of the critical scholarship on the creative city highlights the fact that this is a vision that excludes large segments of the working class, along lines of class, race, and gender (Parker 2008; McLean 2014). Considered a creative industry, the film and screen-­based sector occupies a central symbolic and ideological place in the growth strategies of city boosters grouped in and around the state. New York City and Toronto are both impor­tant centers for production of motion pictures, tele­v i­sion, and the internet emanating from the conglomerate o ­ wners, mostly centered in Hollywood. Key components in competition for work are studio space and a qualified workforce. In both cities, highly trained technicians and performers are represented by l­ abor ­unions with long-­standing, contractual relationships with the studios. Both face increasing competition from other locations, and the case studies presented h ­ ere 75

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highlight the impact of that competition on ­labor involvement in the policy arena and worker politics. The context in which film ­unions operate can be usefully described as a virtually integrated/flexible production system that offers im­mense opportunities to locations capable of attracting Hollywood runaway productions. The notion of the runaway production refers to the phenomena by which the most cost-­intensive phases of the production pro­cess (preproduction, production, and postproduction) are spatially dislocated from Los Angeles and undertaken in low-­cost locales (Storper and Christopherson 1987). McDonald (2007) identifies three dif­fer­ent categories of runaway phenomena: (1) natu­ral economic runaways, (2) artistic runaways, and (3) artificial runaways, in which “artificial” refers to legislative differences, such as tax incentives and, we would add, land use planning tied to economic development strategies vis-­à-­v is film use. While it makes analytical sense to distinguish dif­fer­ent types of runaways, the ways in which t­ hese dif­fer­ ent categories are combined are of utmost importance. Both New York and Toronto jockey for artificial runaways, yet both centers also show “dense networks of trade and co-­operation between small firms embedded in a relatively internalized local l­abour market . . . ​that may also exhibit strong innovative and creative tendencies, along with strong trade association and local government involvement” (Coe 2001, 1756). In Toronto, for instance, domestic production has remained strong and still outweighs total foreign production, yet, at the same time, Toronto’s new mega-­studio was able to attract features such as the $130 million Robocop or the $150 million Pacific Rim (DeMara 2013). This relative balance, to a large degree, is the result of film ­union workers struggling to retain affordable studio space and studios cooperating with producers to open up new, relatively affordable space, despite the attempt by some factions to retool the industry in ­favor of the big Hollywood studios. In terms of the actors involved in shaping film industry dynamics in New York and Toronto, we can identify common players in both cases. Just as New York producers, studios, and u ­ nions ­were concerned with losing productions to Canada in the early 2000s due to Canadian tax incentives, and thus began to shape fiscal policy to attract investment, studio o ­ wners, producers, and u ­ nions in Toronto w ­ ere collaborating to create the physical infrastructure necessary to ground U.S. productions in Toronto. Such initiatives have become increasingly impor­tant to attract productions as relatively standardized collective agreements across North Amer­i­ca between the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE), North Amer­i­ca’s largest film technician ­union, and the big Hollywood studios have taken ­labor costs somewhat out of the equation. This is not to say that bargaining does not remain impor­tant. The upswing in Toronto following 2009 has been explained not least by concessions made with regard

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to seniority in IATSE’s 2009 round of bargaining, which allow producers to pick and choose their crews (research participant [ID20], interviewed by author, June 19, 2013). Moreover, in both locales, “above-­the-­line” ­unions, such as the Directors Guild, and “below-­the-­line” ­unions, such as the IATSE, together with their respective central l­abor councils, collaborated with factions of capital to shape an economic landscape in pursuit of runaway productions and the protection of employment. Employment is a central force of ­unionization in the film production industries of both Canada and the United States, as u ­ nions seek to maximize the number of jobs available for their members, as well as the level of compensation. The following two chapters examine the ways in which film ­unions have engaged in the po­liti­cal and public policy arena to strengthen the film industry sector in New York and Toronto, respectively, in order to address their employment security and to reproduce their bargaining regimes. In the New York study, Figueroa and Gray explore the activities of a co­ali­tion of film ­unions, studios, and producers, which lobbied the state to institute tax incentives for below-­the-­line production costs in order to address the prob­lem of runaway productions following the introduction of similar tax incentives in Canada. In the Toronto study, Wieditz examines the effort by film ­unions to protect affordable studio space from being redeveloped into a Walmart-­anchored big-­box shopping center. Both studies highlight the contradictions and tensions that arise from their respective strategies. As the New York case illustrates, pursuing a tax incentive for the film and tele­vi­sion sector created tensions between film ­unions regarding who would receive public subsidies (e.g., the decision to exclude talent u ­ nions and initially the editors’ ­union). In Toronto, fault lines emerged between the studios, with CineSpace and Shoreline ultimately suing the city of Toronto for unfairly subsidizing the new studio space developed to lure big-­time Hollywood productions (Lofaro 2012). In New York, ­unions came ­under criticism for diverting scarce public resources away from social ser­vices ­toward largely white and male members of the creative class. Unions responded to the lack of diversity in the workforce by contributing to a training program for entry-­level jobs that recruited local minority residents. In Toronto, ­labor built a co­ali­tion with members of an upper-­middle-­class community who ­were proud of having gentrified the neighborhood, but who also represented potent co­ali­tion partners when it came to building an effective co­ ali­tion to fight Canada’s largest commercial developer and development agent of choice for Walmart. This situation was swiftly exploited by the developer, who painted the ­labor–­community co­ali­tion as elitist, representing members in the community who needed neither affordable goods nor entry-­level jobs, and who ­didn’t want poor p ­ eople to frequent the neighborhood. In Toronto, the

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contradiction was not resolved; rather, ­labor’s involvement in this strug­gle has increased the neighborhood’s appeal to the gentry. Both cases met with considerable success in trade ­unionist terms. In New York, the tax incentive program brought employment levels to new highs and sustained the u ­ nions’ bargaining regimes. Despite other states quickly following suit with their own tax incentive programs, New York City preserved its locational advantage on the basis of its crew depth, its talent pool, and the wide network of resources. However, the generalization of generous tax incentive programs points to the larger prob­lem of a zero-­sum game that increases the bargaining power of the big studios over both l­ abor and locations. The Toronto case evolved in unexpected ways, with an end result that is, at least for now, highly favorable to film workers. Not only was Walmart defeated by a local ­labor-­led co­ali­tion, but affordable studio space was retained and Toronto’s actors ­union (ACTRA) became the majority shareholder in the newly built studios. With the industry booming once again, this is an ideal situation for Toronto’s film industry and its workers. As in New York, Toronto’s film u ­ nions managed to shape their economic geography and ­labor market in ways that increased their competitiveness vis-­à-­v is other North American film centers jockeying for Hollywood productions. ­These chapters illustrate how, rather than being at the mercy of “footloose” capital, politics in film production centers like New York City and Toronto is at the same time product and producer of the seemingly universal power wielded by large multinational corporations.

3 NEW YORK FILM PRODUCTION UNIONS ENTER THE PO­L ITI­C AL ARENA IN SEARCH OF TAX SUBSIDIES Maria Figueroa and Lois S. Gray

The North American film and tele­vi­sion production industry has experienced dramatic transformation over the last two de­cades, including waves of technological innovation, globalization, and concentration of owner­ship, which have in turn induced changes in the regulatory framework and industrial structure. Growing concentration of owner­ship and changing technology have increased the rivalry among film locations, requiring new strategies for ­unions to maintain their bargaining regimes. Adding to t­ hese pressures, a wave of new tax policy changes, which began in Canada in the 1990s, has swept the United States and intensified competition among existing production centers and states aspiring to attract the funding to grow their local film industries. Currently, thirty-­four U.S. states, in addition to Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, as well as the two main Canadian production centers (Toronto and Vancouver) offer tax subsidies to lure producers to their locations (Film Production Capital 2016). New York City is the second largest U.S. film production center a­ fter Los Angeles, accounting for $8.7 billion in spending and employing 130,000 individuals in the media and entertainment industry and related sectors (Boston Consulting Group 2015). New York’s competitive advantages lie primarily in its concentration of tele­v i­sion network and production studios, and its large pool of creative talent and technicians (e.g., most leading directors live in the city, along with many leading actors) (Forman 2015). This supply of talent and technical crews is sustained by cross-­industry opportunities for employment in live entertainment, broadcast, and film. According to the Boston Consulting Group, New York City

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“is one of the only three cities in the world (along with LA and London) with a filming community large enough to enable production to be made without needing any roles to be brought in from the outside,” including talent or crew (Boston Consulting Group 2012). T ­ hese advantages have ensured New York’s second place in the film industry, with about 20 ­percent of total U.S. film ­production. As the Canadian subsidies triggered runaway productions from the United States in the 1990s, New York film u ­ nions, not normally active in the po­liti­cal and urban policy arenas, and traditionally working alone rather than together, joined with producers and studios in a campaign to seek tax subsidies from both the state and New York City to incentivize film production and strengthen New York’s ­position in the industry. The New York Production Alliance (NYPA), formed in 1998, spearheaded the policy effort and succeeded in achieving the subsidies in 2004, and then expanding them in 2009. The flexible specialization system that prevails in film production involves a highly mobile and well-­paid core of talent and crew, with outer layers of locally fixed contractors and suppliers (Storper and Christopherson 1987). This system adds a geographic dimension that calls for an urban policy response, and was a key ­factor shaping the film ­unions’ strategy of supporting public policies that provide fundamental support to their industry. In the pro­cess of achieving and implementing the incentive program, contradictions and tensions surfaced among film production ­unions, as well as between u ­ nions and the broader community. Such tensions included conflicts over which occupations and media sectors should be covered by the incentive program, opposition directed at the perceived diversion of public resources from social needs, and criticism from public officials about underrepre­sen­ta­tion of minorities in the workforce. This chapter draws on the authors’ extensive research on the economics and ­labor relations of the film and tele­v i­sion production industry, including arguments previously advanced by Gray and Seeber (1996) and Christopherson et al. (2006). It further relies on data obtained through semistructured interviews of key in­for­mants in the fall of 2013, as well as industry and government reports and statistics. The chapter is or­ga­nized in four parts. The first section discusses the long-­term industry trends and the film production system that shape ­union strategies. Second, we turn to a description of ­union strategy and public policy response. A third section evaluates the results of film ­unions’ campaign efforts. We conclude with a critical discussion of the results and contradictions of u ­ nion strategy.

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Long-­Term Trends and the Film Production System The film production ­unions operate within a context involving numerous challenges originating from trends in their industry. Technological change resulting in both l­abor-­saving technologies and new distribution platforms for film and tele­vi­sion content dramatically threaten ­unions’ density and market share. While ­union density in large-­budget film productions and TV broadcasting remains high, ­unions are much weaker in newer and fast-­growing media sectors such as cable and the internet. In the 1930s and 1940s, Hollywood’s film production system was vertically integrated, enabling five corporations to control the making and distribution of motion pictures. This system was broken up by the Paramount decision of the Supreme Court (1948), which separated production from distribution. However, the Hollywood studio system reemerged through a series of mergers and acquisitions. The waves of deregulation that started in the 1980s and continued throughout the 1990s significantly eased owner­ship restrictions in the media industry and facilitated the onset of intense industry consolidation—­especially on the distribution end—­and in high-­budget production (Gray and Seeber 1996; Bagdikian 2000). Currently, six studios control U.S. and global film production: Warner Bros. (owned by Time Warner Inc.), Paramount (owned by Viacom Inc.), Fox (owned by NewsCorp), Disney, Sony, and NBC Universal. The conglomerates that dominate this industry, domestically and internationally, continue to compete for stars and awards, but their collaboration is tighter now than it was in the early studio era. Producers have l­ ittle choice but to work through ­these majors, b ­ ecause they are the access points for funding and distribution (Epstein 2006). The confluence of t­ hese trends has s­ haped a “virtually integrated” industrial structure, in which the major media companies are increasingly integrated through contracts and investments, “rather than owning the facilities and hiring the personnel,” as was previously the case (Christopherson 1996). In this new structure, the controlling studios provide the financing for the major Hollywood productions and dominate their marketing and distribution, both directly and through their parent companies’ owner­ship of the multiple distribution outlets generating downstream revenues such as DVD, cable, internet, and mobile devices (Gray 2001). This “flexible specialized” (Storper and Christopherson 1987) structure involves a production system in which a network of producers, subcontractors, and suppliers come together for a limited term to undertake par­tic­u­lar proj­ects. Each of t­ hese proj­ects “can be or­ga­nized with a dif­fer­ent mix of specialized input-­output providing firms” (Storper and Christopherson 1987, 105), with

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a core of highly paid talent and crew that can travel the world, and outer layers of locally based subcontractors and suppliers. This structure provides the opportunity to shift phases of the production pro­cess from high-­cost to low-­cost locations (Coe 2001). Employment in the locally fixed outer layers tends to be highly contingent on landing proj­ects, with negative implications for workers’ incomes. Escalating costs of special effects and talent (i.e., agents for stars bid up compensation) pressure producers to look for ways to cut costs by finding locations that offer lower-­cost crews and/or subsidies for film productions. This has resulted in a worldwide search for the most favorable terms and a race among countries to offer vari­ous forms of concessions to filmmakers (Screen Actor 1999). An extreme example is the push by New Zealand to attract the production of The Hobbit, which led to a change in their ­labor laws stripping filmmakers of their right to be represented by ­unions (McAndrew and Risak 2012). The ­unions representing talent and crew workers in film and tele­v i­sion production are not always well equipped to address t­hese challenges. Since u ­ nions are or­ga­nized by occupation (craft system), the bargaining structure tends to be fragmented, with multiple u ­ nions representing employees and mostly negotiating separately with employers. Unions representing performers, directors, and writers are known as talent or “above the line,” which is a term used in film bud­ geting. In the U.S. film industry, the main talent ­unions include the recently merged Screen Actors Guild–­American Federation of Tele­v i­sion & Radio Artists (SAG-­AFTRA), the Directors Guild of Amer­i­ca (DGA), the Writers Guild of Amer­i­ca–­West (WGAW), and the Writers Guild of Amer­i­ca–­East (WGAE). Unions representing cinematographers, editors, and skilled mechanics are known as technical staff or “below-­the-­line” ­unions; they include the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). Almost all of the below-­the-­line local ­unions are affiliated with IATSE. In Hollywood, building crafts belong to the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and to the IBEW, while in New York City they belong to the Studio Mechanics Local 52 (IATSE). As a consequence of the fragmentation of ­unions along occupational lines, tensions develop between crafts in the same locality, and between the same craft locals in dif­fer­ent localities, when negotiating with employers, who are united in a single association on the national level. As u ­ nions rarely collaborate in bargaining, they are disadvantaged in facing conglomerates that bargain through a single association, the Association of Motion Picture and Tele­v i­sion Producers (Gray 2001). Conflict between the u ­ nions and guilds representing the industry came to a peak during the Writers Guild strike in 2007–8, when the Directors Guild and IATSE openly opposed their contract demands. In recent years, national leader-

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ship of IATSE has encouraged (and enforced when necessary) coordination of bargaining and contract terms, thereby strengthening unity below the line, and the 2014 merger of SAG-­AFTRA has consolidated the bargaining position of actors. Nonetheless, a solid ­union front has yet to be achieved in bargaining with the AMPTP. Faced with the challenges of technology, employer consolidation, and the globalization of their industry, u ­ nions in film production and other electronic media sectors have pursued a variety of strategies. Union strategies have included aggressive or­ga­niz­ing of the emerging nonunion sectors (e.g., AFTRA or­ga­niz­ ing in cable content production), as well as internal restructuring through mergers of regional locals into national locals (e.g., IATSE Local 600). Other responses have involved confrontation with employers on issues related to new technologies, such as residuals (pay for re-­use of product) from new distribution platforms. Policy strategies in some cases have involved cooperation with employers in lobbying efforts on mutual interests (e.g., intellectual property rights protections), but they have also involved adversarial approaches such as campaigns on regulatory issues regarding concentration of media owner­ship. The internationalization of owner­ship and production has led to alliances with u ­ nions in other countries and the Screen Actors’ implementation of Global Rule One, which requires that ­union members working overseas be covered by a ­union contract. Nonetheless, producer conglomerates continue to grow stronger, while ­unions, fragmented in structure, strug­gle for survival. As production becomes footloose, locally based industry actors, including ­unions representing talent and crew, have sought to promote the competitiveness of their sector through a variety of public policy mea­sures.

Tax Subsidies: The Policy Tool of Choice for L ­ abor’s Spatial Fix In the late 1990s, at the behest of film ­unions seeking to expand local employment levels, Canadian provincial governments began offering tax credits and other incentives—in some provinces, tax rebates as high as 22 ­percent of ­labor costs. Subsequently, the U.S. production centers of Los Angeles and New York began to experience the effects of the increased competitive pressure, including a significant slowdown in production. The U.S. Department of Commerce characterized the effects of the Canadian incentives as “an expanding and damaging challenge to US film and tele­v i­sion production centers,” and perceived this as an intensification of the “runaway production” trend that started in the early 1990s (U.S. DOC 2001). As an illustration of the threat, the DOC indicated that

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in 1999 California had a total of 152 weeks of feature film for tele­v i­sion (or Movies of the Week) production, while Canada had 696 weeks during the same period. Canadian film production centers also began capturing more work for large bud­get feature films, with 523 weeks of such production, compared to California’s 569 weeks. In New York, impacts associated with Canadian competitive pressures amounted to a decline of $100 million in total direct expenditures from 1998 to 1999, and a significant decrease in shooting days during the same period. The New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting (MOFTB) and the New York State Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Tele­vi­sion Development expressed concerns about the loss of business to Canada, and indicated that the Canadian tax rebates ­were the primary driving ­factor for the production decline in New York (U.S. DOC 2001). The lower value of the Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar also enhanced its competitiveness u ­ ntil about a year ­after 2003, when the value of the Canadian dollar started to rise (McDonald 2011). Despite ­these negative impacts on production levels, the implementation and scope of state subsidies in the United States remained limited ­until 2002, when Louisiana and New Mexico followed the lead of the Canadian provinces and started offering tax credits of 25 and 15 ­percent, respectively, of film production costs incurred within their states. The policy spread rapidly across the country, with forty-­three states joining what critics described as a “classic race to the bottom” (Tannenwald 2010). According to critics, the incentives only exacerbated runaway production by multiplying the “artificial runaways,” which, as defined by McDonald (2007, 900), are ­those production relocations that occur “­because of artificial, or legislatively created, incentives designed to lure productions.” Christopherson and Rightor argue that the high visibility of the film industry appeals to policymakers who would like to be perceived as taking action to improve their deindustrialized state economy by promoting knowledge-­economy jobs. They also point out that as subsidies have widened in scope and proliferated across the country, at a time when state bud­gets have come ­under increasing pressure, “questions are being raised about the use of public tax money to lure media producers” (Christopherson and Rightor 2010, 337). Critics have challenged ­these policies on the basis that they are not producing enough benefits to warrant the public investment being diverted from essential areas such as education, health, or infrastructure. Other studies have found that ­these policy strategies, and especially saleable tax credits, can have a particularly negative impact on tax revenues in states that are not traditional production centers. Unlike New York and California, t­ hese states lack crew depth or the critical mass of skilled workers and related resources to support and sustain multiple film production proj­ects.

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It is also argued that state tax incentives tend to exacerbate runaway production from Los Angeles and New York, thus weakening the competitive advantage of the U.S. film production industry (McDonald 2011). According to this view, the concentration of infrastructure and talent in Los Angeles and New York is the source of the U.S. dominance in the film industry internationally. The sheer size of t­ hese production centers also makes them vulnerable to competition from other locations, ­because they require high levels of activity to secure adequate returns to capital investment and to sustain employment of their large talent and technical pools. ­These issues call for a national policy to protect the large U.S. production centers. The current national policy to incentivize film production in the United States consists in a tax deduction of up to $15 to $20 million of production costs. Seventy-­five ­percent of the production costs need to be incurred in the United States. This policy, known as Section 181 (IRS code, 26 CFR Part 1), was enacted in 2004 as a result of the lobbying efforts of the Motion Picture Association of Amer­i­ca (MPAA). In terms of levelling the playing field within the United States, film production ­unions had succeeded in taking ­labor costs out of competition to a certain extent with the formation of national locals and the signing of national contracts with employers. For instance, IATSE merged a number of regional locals into one national local (International Cinematographers Guild Local 600) in 1996 to represent and negotiate national contracts for camera operators and other technicians from all regions. As a result of the consolidation efforts at IATSE, the u ­ nion’s total number of locals decreased from 750 in 1993 to 473 in 2001 (Gray 2001). SAG and AFTRA started joint planning and negotiations with the AMPTP in 1981 before fi­nally merging in 2012. In addition, the Writers Guild–­East and West negotiate contracts together (Gray 2001). Largely as a result of ­these coordination efforts, ­labor costs have not been a significant ­factor for production location decisions involving Los Angeles and New York. Union contract terms have also shown increasing flexibility. Such is the case with so-­called “boutique” or low-­cost contracts that take into account the specific needs and bud­get constraints of individual producers (Christopherson et al. 2006). However, with the advent of induced or artificial runaway production and the predominance of the virtual integration/flexible specialized systems in film production, ­union standards have become vulnerable to the challenge of competition from lower-­cost states, including right-­to-­work states (where joining a ­union is not a condition for employment). ­These under­lying ­factors impelled New York ­unions to explore policy strategies such as tax incentives that would level the playing field without lowering their standards. In this case, New York film ­unions took an unusual path for ­unions in the entertainment industry, which have traditionally avoided local policy efforts and

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po­liti­cal involvement in the belief that this would divide their members. Furthermore, entertainment ­unions historically “go it alone” without help from ­unions in other sectors. Most are not affiliated with central ­labor councils or state federations. In the campaign pro­cess discussed in the following section, New York ­unions broke t­ hese traditions and entered into alliances with state and city representatives, studio o ­ wners, and employers to pursue and achieve the tax incentives. As an unintended result of their campaign effort, u ­ nions incorporated into their policy solutions community concerns about lack of diversity in the workforce.

The New York Production Alliance: Efforts and Results The New York film production industry had its own set of challenges at the turn of the ­century. Adding to the competitive pressure from Canada, filming in New York started to plunge in 2001 as a consequence of the performers u ­ nions’ (SAG-­ AFTRA) commercial strike of 2000 and 2001, and with a growing perception that New York’s production costs w ­ ere too high and the logistics too complicated in comparison with other production centers. The economic and psychological impacts of the September 11 tragedy also took a toll. Between 2001 and 2004, New York’s share of jobs in U.S. production and postproduction decreased from 22 ­percent to about 15 ­percent (Christopherson et al. 2006). Significant volumes of commercial production went to London and California ­after the strike. In fact, since 2001 California had strengthened its position as the top producing state, with about 63 ­percent of the production and postproduction work in the United States (Christopherson et al. 2006). In response to t­ hese challenges, then New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg deci­ded to redesign the existing Office of Film and TV Broadcasting to develop more business-­friendly policies and programs. ­These included streamlining permit pro­cesses, sales tax exemptions, traffic control, and marketing aid to the industry. New York’s large pool of talent and crew is one of its main competitive advantages, but it might also become its main vulnerability if New York is not able to attract enough work to sustain adequate employment levels for this workforce. Workers in film production and in the overall arts and entertainment industry are likely to experience contingent employment, resulting in low median incomes and lack of health and pension coverage. The scarcity of affordable housing and workspace, together with the high cost of living (particularly in the city) are pressing issues that often force p ­ eople to leave the state. The lack of support structures for networking and job search is another key challenge, which often makes Los

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Angeles more attractive to arts and entertainment professionals. Adding to competitive pressures in the New York l­ abor market is the growing number of gradu­ates from postsecondary institutions, which exceed available employment opportunities, and training institutions rarely assist in placement or trace the ­careers of their gradu­ates (Gray and Figueroa 2009). By 2002, producers, studios, and u ­ nions in New York w ­ ere all concerned with what they considered to be the most serious competitive threat to the local industry: tax credits offered by Canadian jurisdictions to attract U.S. productions. Cooperation between film ­unions began with SAG-­AFTRA’s commercial strike in 2001, which compelled this ­union to reach out to the broader ­labor movement and the public for support. Prior to the strike and the campaign for tax incentives, entertainment ­unions rarely worked together, and did not affiliate or even participate in activities sponsored by the New York City Central ­Labor Council or the New York State American Federation of ­Labor–­Congress of Industrial Organ­izations (AFL-­CIO). Then state AFL-­CIO President Dennis Hughes points out that the strike prompted the staff of the national AFL-­CIO and the state AFL-­ CIO to or­ga­nize meetings of arts and entertainment u ­ nions, which coalesced as an official committee to coordinate action among film u ­ nions (interviews with Susan Borenstein, Executive Director, New York State Unemployment Appeal Board, and Dennis Hughes, former President of the New York State AFL-­CIO). About the same time, Steiner Studios (a local soundstage) began a campaign for state subsidies for film shoots in Empire Zones, which w ­ ere designated for economic development of low-­income, eco­nom­ically depressed areas. Since Steiner Studios was the only studio located in an Empire Zone, it would be the sole beneficiary of t­ hese subsidies. This compelled Steiner’s competitor Silvercup Studios to propose tax subsidies for all filming in New York. Silvercup ­owners raised this issue with the New York Production Alliance, the or­ga­ni­za­tion of film producers and ­unions that had been formed to lobby for programs promoting increases in New York film production. Members of NYPA included the New York studios as well as the Directors’ Guild, IATSE Local 600 (Cinematographers), IATSE Local 52 (Studio Mechanics), IATSE Local 700 (Editors), Teamsters Local 817, and SAG and AFTRA (­these two u ­ nions merged in 2012). The Motion Picture Association of Amer­i­ca (MPAA), representing the Hollywood-­based conglomerates, was also involved in the campaign that NYPA launched to propose tax rebates to producers for local expenditures for vendors, including employment of technical employees. As a ­matter of fact, the MPAA played a lead role (Fry interview). When the studios started the campaign for state and city tax subsidies, members of the state AFL-­CIO Arts and Entertainment committee supported the effort and enhanced their clout through the support of other member u ­ nions of

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the state AFL-­CIO. Leaders of film u ­ nions began countless trips to Albany to learn about the state legislative pro­cess and to get to know the players. Legislators ­were impressed to see ­unions and management collaborating. A key source of support for NYPA’s efforts came from the New York City’s Office of Film and TV Broadcasting, recently renamed the Office of Media and Entertainment. It was agreed by all supporters, producers, and ­unions that the state and city tax credits should be based on expenditures for employment of technicians, who ­were likely to be local residents, and not include the cost of hiring talent (i.e., performers, directors, and writers), who ­were more likely to be itinerant, with stars imported from other locations. Talent ­unions (DGA, SAG, and AFTRA) accepted this formulation in the belief that t­ here would be a spillover effect resulting in increased employment for their own members. With the expectation that increasing public subsidies would encourage more filming in the United States, national ­unions took a neutral stand with re­spect to local efforts to obtain tax subsidies (though a proliferation of campaigns throughout the states contributed to competition among local ­unions). NYPA’s campaign succeeded in 2004, achieving a 10 ­percent state tax rebate for film and tele­vi­sion productions, and an additional 5 ­percent tax credit granted by New York City in 2005 for all productions filmed within the city. B ­ ecause ­these are tax rebates, the credits actually take place only a­ fter proj­ects are complete (which can take as long as two years), but the state starts receiving tax revenues from the moment the production begins filming. During the first few years into the program’s implementation, New York was able to attract a rec­ord number of proj­ects, but soon afterward neighboring states like Connecticut, Mas­sa­chu­setts, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania started implementing competitive tax incentive programs and building production facilities (i.e., soundstages). Early in the spring of 2008, New York’s Governor Patterson tripled the state tax credit to 30 ­percent of below-­the-­line expenditures, with a cap of $460 million. As the race to lure film productions continued, Mas­sa­chu­setts offered an uncapped 25 ­percent tax credit ­toward payroll (of ­people employed in the state), in addition to a 25 ­percent tax credit on production expenses, to last ­until 2023. In 2009, California passed legislation calling for a 20 to 25 ­percent tax credit to be in effect u ­ ntil 2014. In response to t­ hese new threats, New York legislators extended the program three more years, with the prospect of further extension. New York State’s Office of Film played a key role in securing the incentives, and l­ ater in maintaining and enhancing the state incentives u ­ nder three dif­fer­ent administrations. The mayor’s office, according to the u ­ nions, did an effective job of promoting production in the city and making it easier for producers to shoot in New York locations and to obtain permits. Producing in New York is never-

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theless more difficult than producing in other locations, and this higher level of difficulty translates into higher costs. According to Ed Fry, AFTRA’s recording secretary and New York Local legislative chair at the time, “every­thing is money, time spent in pro­cessing permits, securing locations, ­etc. The incentives helped mitigate t­ hese extra costs and allowed New York assets and talent pool to come to the fore” (Fry interview). Although ­unions’ perceptions vary with re­spect to the role of the AFL-­CIO Arts and Entertainment committee, many believe that ­unions and guilds ­were able to build a more robust entertainment community in New York as a result of their work. “Prior to 2000, the entertainment community was fractured. The commercial strike made this worse,” according to Fry. In his view, the state AFL-­CIO A&E committee was very effective in bringing together all sectors of the entertainment community. “It was the only time in my lifetime that I could see and talk to representatives of the entire entertainment community gathered in one room” (Fry interview). Other campaign leaders believe that the committee was successful in encouraging cooperation on mutual interests but did not overcome long-­standing frictions, such as tensions between IATSE and the Writers Guild. The committee continues to meet twice a year, and is currently working together to sponsor a joint ­union training program. As the state incentive grew from $25 million to $420 million in less than a de­ cade, the film industry gained unpre­ce­dented visibility with legislators, causing concern among certain u ­ nions that the tax program might become a “big, easy target” during bud­get cuts. Unions therefore perceive the need to maintain close relationships with legislators, but feel confident about the support they get from current New York governor Andrew Cuomo to continue the incentive program. Industry observers expect that policymakers in both New York and Los Angeles ­will continue to support their film production industries. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti expressed concerns about the continuing prob­lem of runaway production, and in 2013 created a film czar position in his administration to make the film production pro­cess “as smooth as pos­si­ble through the thicket of City Hall red tape,” and to be the face of “an industry that has historically kept a distance from downtown” (Johnson 2013). Meanwhile, in New York City, producers and investors in film production w ­ ere concerned about the “changing of guard” with the departure of the Bloomberg administration. In par­tic­u­lar, they wanted a continuation of the city’s “film-­friendly” policies. Thus, an industry co­ ali­tion was founded to monitor the 2012 mayoralty election, and ­unions considered endorsing a candidate for the first time. All indications are that the film ­unions’ involvement in urban policy ­will continue. The de Blasio administration has kept in place the Bloomberg policies of support for film and tele­v i­sion.

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Lack of Diversity in the Industry In the early stages of the campaign for tax incentives in New York, hearings ­were held on the policy proposal before the City Council. At ­these hearings, council members raised questions about diversity in the workforce, specifically about the lack of racial/ethnic and gender diversity in the technicians (IATSE) and Teamsters ­unions. Then council member (now public advocate) Letitia “Tish” James stated: I believe that we are voting on this bill prematurely . . . ​in absence of a disparity study which addresses the unemployment in communities of color. . . . ​[W]hat we need to do is tie all of t­ hese tax subsidies that w ­ e’re giving to t­ hese industries to jobs to New Yorkers, and to individuals who need it most. (City Council 2004) Although employment decisions are made by employers, ­unions ­were blamed for a lack of diversity in hiring of technicians employed as camera operators, mechanics, and editors. Council member Bill Perkins spoke to this concern: It was heartening for me when we had our hearing with regard to the film industry, to hear them say that they admit that they had prob­lems with discrimination in the past, and that they ­were interested in working with us and moving forward to address t­ hose prob­lems of discrimination. That they admit that ­there’s been some intransigence, particularly with re­spect to the ­unions, in terms of being inclusive, and that they needed to do something about it. (City Council 2004) Employers had blamed u ­ nions for excluding minorities and w ­ omen from their membership, and pointed to ­union contracts requiring that their employees be ­union members. Unions responded that employers controlled hiring decisions. Union representatives also explained to the City Council that the pro­cess of entry to below-­the-­line trades begins with being hired as a production assistant. In response to the criticisms raised at the City Council, but not as a condition to secure support for the tax incentive program, the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting began to develop and fund the “Made in NY” training program for production assistants. Unions and employers agreed to cooperate in the program, which is based at Brooklyn Workforce Innovations (BWI 2013), an affiliate of the community development corporation Fifth Ave­nue Committee. The program was established as a collaboration between BWI and the Mayor’s Film Office, with the mission “to give unemployed and low-­income New Yorkers the chance to work on New York sets and build ­careers in this dynamic field” (BWI 2013). The training program for entry-­level jobs was designed to recruit minor-

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ity and local resident applicants. Unions representing ­these crafts provided instructors for the training and promised to help in finding jobs for the gradu­ ates. It is in­ter­est­ing to note that in response to racial tensions, Los Angeles has developed a program for training minorities, which gained the support of the film industry in 1999 (SCOPE website). The creation of the New York City program added an unplanned high-­road ele­ment to the tax incentive program in that it promotes workforce development. However, as we discuss in the next section, the program’s impacts appear to be limited.

Strategy Impacts and Revealed Tensions According to studies commissioned by the city of New York and by the MPAA, the tax incentive program succeeded in achieving all of its goals. The program increased the number of productions in New York, raising the spending on film production in the city from $4.2 billion in 2002 to $8.7 billion in 2014 (Boston Consulting Group 2015), and increased employment levels for film employment in the state from 32,500 to 46,100 during the same period (HR&A 2012). Figure 3.1 shows employment trends in the number of production and postproduction jobs, and it indicates that employment in the industry is now above the prestrike levels of the past de­cade. The studies also provide estimates of benefits to the state economy derived from the program, including $6.9 billion in economic spending and $4.2 billion in personal income in 2011, and $366 million in state tax revenues and $382 million in city tax revenues in the same year. One of the studies estimates a combined state and city return on investment of $2.23 for ­every $1.00 of credit (HR&A 2012). Critics have widely identified the shortcomings of this type of study, pointing to prob­lems of transparency and accuracy in the data, and to the weakness of the assumptions used to estimate job creation and ­ripple effects of production expenditures. Nonetheless, ­unions and industry representatives agree that the results have been positive, with New York regaining its national share of 20 ­percent of total film production in the United States. According to IATSE Local 52 President John Ford, the “tax credits have been wildly successful” in increasing film work, to the point that his members complained about “lack of ­free time” as they ­were working “up to 14 hours per day with no gaps between jobs” (Ford interview). Russ Hollander, associate national executive director of the Directors Guild, adds that “now, everywhere we go in the city we see film productions taking place. ­There has been a dramatic increase in the number of productions. Just in tele­v i­sion, back in 2001 ­there ­were three TV series being shot in New York. Now ­there are twenty-­six. This is only ­because of the incentives” (Hollander

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FIGURE 3.1.  New York State employment in film and TV production (number of jobs)

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interview). Union leaders even perceive that the incentives helped to shield the industry from the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent ­great recession, “when daytime TV was disappearing, which would have crippled the ­union; but, thanks to the incentives we ­were not hurt as much” (Fry interview). Film ­unions recognize that tax incentive policies failed in other states such as Michigan, Iowa, and Louisiana, where the fiscal and economic impacts have been negative. Unions attribute New York’s success largely to its talent pool, crew depth, and wide network of local resources. In their view, “the difference [between New York and other states] lies in that talent and technical workers actually live in New York” (interview with John Amman, Business Representative, Local 600 IATSE). Locally owned studios played a key role in the campaign for New York subsidies, but do not benefit directly from the incentives b ­ ecause the tax credits are granted to production companies. Nonetheless, the policy was crafted so that only productions using “approved facilities” can qualify for the incentives. As a result, the local studios are “third-­party beneficiaries” that have gained the most with this program, as traffic through their soundstages increased significantly since 2004. Impacts on u ­ nion density have been uneven, but are also difficult to determine given the complexity of the industry and the presence of other key ­factors that affect ­union density and market share (e.g., technological change and industry consolidation). In terms of growth, technical ­unions such as IATSE’s Locals 52, 600, and 700 increased their membership over the last ten years. Although it is not pos­si­ble to determine how much of this growth can be attributed directly to the tax incentive, it is evident that t­ here has been an expansion. Unions like the former AFTRA (prior to the merger with SAG) perceived par­tic­u­lar value in the incentives b ­ ecause content production for cable increased significantly u ­ nder the program, and cable is a sector in which this u ­ nion has been or­ga­niz­ing aggressively. None of ­these perceived benefits came without frictions between ­unions and between the industry and the broader community. Some of ­these tensions resulted in the introduction of policy ele­ments that enabled u ­ nions to have a role in workforce development.

Interunion Conflicts The issue of which occupations should be included for coverage u ­ nder the incentive program proved to be divisive among the ­unions. Postproduction was initially excluded from the program, and frictions developed within the u ­ nion co­ali­tion when the editors’ u ­ nion (IATSE Local 700) began to campaign for subsidies directed to postproduction, which legislators insisted should come out of the same total cap on subsidy expenditure. The editors’ postproduction subsidy was

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initially resisted but eventually accepted by all ­unions and producers (interview with Paul Moore, Eastern Region Director, Editors Guild Local 700). Among talent u ­ nions, SAG expected that background actors would be included. And ­later in 2010, the Writers Guild sought inclusion for writers, proposing that the subsidies include the cost of employing writers of films produced in New York. This was viewed as opening the floodgates for demands from other talent u ­ nions, and was opposed by both employers and other film u ­ nions, who pointed to the in­effec­tive­ness of above-­the-­line tax subsidy programs in other states. ­There are also ongoing tensions between u ­ nions over which media sectors should be included in the program. ­These tensions are relevant to assessing the policy in terms of nurturing emerging sectors as opposed to supporting an established industry. The incentive program is primarily geared to benefit large-­ budget productions, not small-­scale productions. In light of this, some talent ­unions believe that it would be impor­tant to cover digital games production (work that performers do) and small-­budget productions; but other talent ­unions are not in agreement about this, and technical u ­ nions might not be interested b ­ ecause ­these productions do not involve their members in significant ways. Since film ­unions are national organ­izations representing members across the country, local policies promoting employment for members in New York created concerns for members based in Los Angeles. This indicates that a policy that was designed to bolster international competitiveness (vis-­à-­v is Canada and other producer countries), actually intensified competition between production centers in the United States. Conflict over goals and increasing tension between and within ­unions are a backward step, in view of the need to increase collaboration to enhance ­union bargaining power when facing united film producers.

The Public Interest Critics have attacked the film tax rebates as a drain on public funding for social needs, arguing that the program subsidized proj­ects that would have been filmed in New York even without tax incentives. According to Ed Fry, some state legislators also held the belief that the incentives “­were turning tax moneys into extra profits for big Hollywood studios, which d ­ idn’t need this support . . . ​our challenge was to c­ ounter the argument that this was a government subsidy for the rich. So we had to explain that this is r­ eally an economic development program providing ­middle-­class jobs to p ­ eople who live in New York.” Unions also pointed to the inherent vulnerability of the outer layers of the film production system, making the argument that “not having employment creates a fiscal burden for the state,” as unemployed film production workers would not contribute to the tax base and may even resort to government aid for basic necessities (Fry inter-

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view). This issue highlights the industry’s bifurcation between stars (highly paid talent and crew) on one end, and peripheral contractors with employees who are likely to experience contingent employment and low annual incomes on the other end. Nonetheless, the criticism of “subsidizing the rich” or “the Tom Cruise earnings effect” (Hollander interview) convinced ­unions of the need to keep talent costs out of the tax credit program. Some of the tensions between the industry and the community derived from the geo­graph­i­cal dimensions of both the film production system and the policy response. Upstate New York legislators questioned why they should provide such an expensive subsidy to a program that does not create jobs in their localities. ­These legislators argued that their regions w ­ ere paying 25 ­percent of the total subsidy funds, while they ­were getting ­little or nothing from it. The rationale for including postproduction in the incentive program was that the program expansion would benefit Upstate locations; but this did not occur at the magnitude that was anticipated, though ­unions made an effort to spread the work (Moore interview). To address this issue, the state recently established additional credits for ­labor expenses incurred in certain counties of Upstate New York (New York State, Empire State Development 2013; Brown 2013).

Addressing the Lack of Diversity In response to the concerns raised during City Council hearings about the lack of diversity in ­union crews, the city government created the Mayor’s Task Force on Diversity in Film, Tele­v i­sion and Commercial Production in 2006, with the goal of providing opportunities for the city’s diverse population in general, and low-­income residents in par­tic­u­lar (NYC MOME 2013). To achieve this goal, the Mayor’s Office of Film launched the Made in NY production assistant training program, which is delivered in partnership with the Brooklyn Workforce Innovations (BWI), a nonprofit community-­based or­ga­ni­za­tion. According to a 2013 report from the Mayor’s Film Office (NYC MOME 2013), four hundred individuals, mainly p ­ eople of color and residents of low-­income communities, had received training u ­ nder this program. Trainees are selected through a competitive pro­cess, and as part of the five-­week program they work on productions as interns. Upon graduation, program assistants receive two years of job placement and ­career advancement support from BWI. According to the Film Office report, the program placed gradu­ates in more than two thousand production proj­ ects, including episodic tele­vi­sion, real­ity tele­vi­sion shows, feature films, documentaries, commercials, and m ­ usic videos. The report also indicated that approximately 70 ­percent of program gradu­ates remained employed full-­time in film proj­ects for one year ­after graduation.

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Early in its implementation, the production assistant program was criticized for providing only low-­skill job opportunities. To address this concern, more advanced training and scholarship programs in skills needed for specific trades ­were developed, including the Made in NY Media Employee Training program (offering grants to employers to train their staff) and the Made in NY Scholarship Fund (for students pursuing degrees in entertainment technology at the New York City College of Technology). In addition, the new High School for Film and Tele­v i­sion in Brooklyn is an outgrowth of this program. Critics of the New York film incentives assert that the production assistant training program is another form of subsidy (Morrison 2012). Unions, however, have seen an increase in minority repre­sen­ta­tion in film employment resulting from the program. For instance, IATSE Local 52 (studio mechanics) opens its membership roster to new applicants twice a year, and has recruited production assistant program gradu­ates as new members. Additionally, individual u ­ nions developed their own initiatives to increase diversity in their ranks. For instance, DGA had been r­ unning an associate director training program even prior to the enactment of the tax incentives. Additionally, IATSE Local 52 has cooperated with a city-­sponsored program of training for grips (electricians). Despite ­these efforts, occupational statistics for the overall industry, including u ­ nion and nonunion workers, indicate that the gender and racial composition of the film and tele­v i­ sion production workforce remains predominantly white male. T ­ here has been a small increase in minority repre­sen­ta­tion among camera operators and editors, but a decrease of broadcast and sound engineers. Minority repre­sen­ta­tion among actors shows l­ ittle change, though t­ here has been a small increase among producers and directors (see figure 3.2). Analyzed by gender, the composition of the workforce registered substantial gains for ­women, reaching 50 ­percent of actors, producers, and directors in 2013, but l­ ittle change below the line (see figure 3.3).

Discussion The New York film ­unions’ campaign achieved its employment goals but raised impor­tant questions about the effectiveness of l­abor strategies in promoting industry growth and delivering broader public benefits. Although film production has a higher income multiplier than the financial sector, according to a joint study by Cornell University and the Fiscal Policy Institute (Christopherson et al. 2006), the film industry cluster in New York has largely had no impact on employment opportunities for low-­income communities, which include predominantly ­people of color. Even though hiring decisions reside with employers and not with the ­unions, criticisms ­were aimed at the entire industry, and specifically at ­unions.

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FIGURE 3.2.  Racial and ethnic composition of the film and TV production workforce, by selected occupation, New York State, 2000 and 2010

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FIGURE 3.3.  Gender composition of the film and TV production workforce, by selected occupation, New York State, 2000 and 2010

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Both local studios and the u ­ nions have taken steps to correct the lack of diversity, yet to date ­these efforts have not made substantial changes to the demographic composition of the workforce, which continues to be dominated by white males. As urban space is highly racialized, ­labor’s urban policy interventions inevitably confront questions of racial justice. This has been the case with construction trade u ­ nions, which have been criticized for promoting development proj­ects that do not employ ­people of color or residents of the low-­income communities in which the construction proj­ects take place. In response to t­ hese criticisms, some construction ­unions have established community workforce agreements and pre-­apprenticeship programs to create ­career opportunities for eco­nom­ically disadvantaged communities and minorities (Figueroa, Grabelski, and Lamare 2012). Film u ­ nions could explore similar strategies, and they have been recruiting from New York City’s low-­income communities for their own training programs (Amman interview). ­There is no question among knowledgeable observers, including producers and studio executives, that the film ­unions and their allies in the state AFL-­CIO played a key role in achieving po­liti­cal support for the incentives. The film ­unions’ urban strategy in this case was consistent with the shift in urban policy and governance from managerialism to entrepreneurialism, as discussed by Harvey (1989). As ­unions ­adopted entrepreneurial strategies to increase employment, tax incentives became the policy tool of choice to influence location decisions of producers and the major studios. Tax incentives in turn fit perfectly with the controlling studios’ goals of saving on below-­the-­line costs to compensate for the increasing above-­the-­line and marketing costs incurred in the production of blockbusters (Ulich and Simmens 2001). Subsidies and regulatory breaks, including tax incentives and subsidized training, enable studios to achieve desired savings without seeking wage concessions (at least not for now). As the major studios continue their search for cost savings, and as virtually all locations offer fiscal incentives, ­labor costs as regulated by ­union contracts are likely to become the target for savings. McDonald (2011) advances an alternative to the local incentive strategy, arguing for a national policy to incentivize film production. This would require converting the existing policy, Section 181, which is a deduction, into a tax credit for U.S. production costs. The national tax credit would especially protect the large production centers of the United States, and would address the prob­lem of capacity underutilization (in California and New York) resulting from the existing competition between U.S. states. The MPAA is currently pushing for an overhaul of Section 181, but the ­unions are not participating in this effort (Hollander interview). However, this approach would not address the challenges to u ­ nion wages.

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Alternative ­labor strategies might have to aggressively promote the linking of local and national incentive policies to u ­ nion growth, possibly requiring ­union coverage of all new employment and/or neutrality agreements from direct employers, investors, and distributors. Unions in the United States would also need to increase coordination with entertainment organ­izations in other countries, and formulate strategies informed by a deep understanding of the film production and distribution chain at a global level.

Conclusion Long-­term trends in the film production industry, including the internationalization of production, owner­ship concentration, deregulation, and technological change, have transformed ­union strategies and policy across North Amer­i­ca. Faced with rising costs emanating from competition for stars and marketing in a global market, the studios have sought to drive down controllable costs through a global search for locations promising lower wages for below-­the-­line ­labor and subsidies for production. New York City—­the second largest center for production of film and tele­vi­sion in the United States, accounting for 20 ­percent of total output—­has come ­under competitive threat from other locations in the United States and abroad as a result. With a favorable exchange rate and tax incentives, Canadian film production centers became particularly attractive. New York film ­unions entered the urban policy arena largely in response to ­these challenges. Similar to the Toronto case discussed in the following chapter, the impetus for new l­abor strategy lay in efforts to defend their bargaining regime through a defense of employment in their sector. This chapter focuses on a strategy of promoting production volume and employment through tax incentives, while the Toronto chapter deals with efforts to defend production space; in both cases, ­unions ­were able to achieve their immediate goals without strengthening ­union bargaining power in relation to that of the conglomerates, and with limited spillover benefits to the broader community. In New York, a number of contradictions and tensions emerged between ­unions, and between the industry and the broader community, as a result of ­labor strategy. Interunion tensions evolved from the debate about which occupations should be covered ­under the incentive program (e.g., the decision to exclude talent ­unions and initially the editors’ u ­ nion), and w ­ ere partly the result of the craft system that organizes the industry’s workforce into multiple ­unions. Tensions between the industry and the community resulted from the geo­graph­i­cal dimensions of both the film production system and the policy response chosen (state and local tax incentives). T ­ hese tensions manifested themselves in the criticisms

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of subsidizing a profitable industry that is also geo­graph­i­cally mobile, of taking away public funding from other social needs, and of the lack of diversity in the industry. Some of t­hese tensions remain unresolved, and are likely to continue to shape ­unions’ strategic responses as well as public policy. Unintended consequences also emerged in the film ­unions’ attitudes ­toward forming co­ali­tions. In response to declining employment, New York–­based film ­unions, which had rarely worked together, began to cooperate with each other and seek allies in the state and central l­abor councils, and joined producers and locally based studios in the campaign for city and state subsidies. Public attention to the industry’s hiring practices and lack of diversity represents a further unintended consequence of the campaign pro­cess. This public attention offered an opportunity for ­unions to play a role in workforce development of underserved communities, thereby adding a high-­road ele­ment to their policy solution. However, the impact of newly established training programs to prepare w ­ omen and minorities for entry to t­ hese trades has yet to be determined. In summary, the New York film ­unions’ successful campaign increased employment but brought about unanticipated consequences, which are highlighted in this case study. Side effects of the subsidy campaign include positive gains for the film ­unions, including (1) building alliances with other u ­ nions, which ­will tend to strengthen their role and influence in urban decision making; and (2) opening their ranks to greater diversity of membership. Most significant for long-­ run collective bargaining is how the u ­ nion strategy and policy effort in this case succeeded in defending employment levels, but may in the long run undermine their bargaining power with film producers. As noted earlier, film ­unions are fragmented in structure, bargaining separately with producers who maintain a united front in a single bargaining or­ga­ni­za­tion, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Tele­ vi­sion Producers. Producers seek low-­cost locations, pitting one state or one country against another for the best terms. Lack of collaboration among u ­ nions in this context creates risks of u ­ nion avoidance strategies, as suggested by the New Zealand experience. Alternative strategies for film ­unions would have to involve national and international collaborations among ­unions, and aggressively tying local and national incentive policies to ­union growth.

4 FILM UNIONS’ STRUG­G LE TO DEFEND STUDIO SPACE IN TORONTO Thorben Wieditz

The following chapter takes a close look at how film u ­ nions and Toronto’s Central ­Labour Council fought for film jobs in the city of Toronto. More precisely, it explores ­labor’s role in derailing a large-­scale redevelopment proposal that threatened to replace Toronto Film Studios (TFS), then the city’s largest studio complex, with a Walmart-­anchored retail mall in Toronto’s Leslieville neighborhood. It delves into the complexities of this land use dispute and shows that neighborhood-­level change is ­shaped by po­liti­cal strug­gles rather than the “­free hand” of the market. The chapter directs its readers to t­ hose groups and organ­ izations that are involved in the constant making and remaking of our urban environments, including or­ga­nized ­labor. In this case, film u ­ nions and the Central ­Labour Council w ­ ere not stand-­ins but main protagonists in the strug­gle to retain affordable film studio space in the city of Toronto. Or­ga­nized ­labor’s role, however, remained largely underappreciated among observers, critics, and the usual pundits, who pitted the actions of the East Toronto Community Co­ali­tion (ETCC), a local grassroots community group, against SmartCentres, one of the country’s largest commercial developers and the development agent of choice for Walmart in Canada. What remained largely unnoticed and unreported was the fact that the ETCC was composed not only of local area residents and business o ­ wners, but, more importantly, of a co­ali­tion of ­unions that provided much of the financial, orga­nizational, logistical, and strategic support. In other words, while the ETCC initially grew out of a NIMBYist reaction ­toward the redevelopment proposal that had the local gentry up in arms, it changed its character a­ fter ­labor became involved. This involvement, importantly, 102

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grew out of the activism of film workers, rank-­and-­file activists, and local area residents who pressured their respective ­union locals to get involved in the politics of land use planning. While this fight was brought to or­ga­nized ­labor, it was far from unrelated to other ­labor-­led initiatives at the time. Toronto’s ­Labour Council, for instance, had long recognized how housing developments and/or large-­scale, big-­box retail proj­ects have taken over spaces that ­were once set aside for manufacturing activities. Speculative redevelopment proj­ects, in other words, had been identified as an increasingly impor­tant ­factor contributing to the loss of “employment lands” and ­unionized jobs across Toronto. Moreover, in a city that, over the last de­cade, developed into North Amer­i­ca’s condo capital and possibly its hottest real estate market, industrial-­zoned lands ­were increasingly lost to the voracious appetite of the development industry for developable land. The city’s “employment land problematic” was therefore a central concern of Toronto’s L ­ abour Council. At the time, the ­Labour Council was also involved in a fight against a similar conversion of the former Kodak lands in the city’s Mount Dennis neighborhood, as discussed by Nugent in this volume. In the Leslieville case, the L ­ abour Council had two main objectives. The immediate goal was to protect the so-­called South of Eastern Employment District, one of only two remaining industrial areas in Toronto’s inner city, from being undermined by speculative pressures and incompatible land uses. Retaining the industrial land use for the TFS site would dissuade adjacent landowners from pursuing similar rezoning attempts in an effort to increase the value of their properties. L ­ abor’s more long-­term goal was to use the strug­gle in Leslieville to better preserve industrial-­zoned land across the city. ­Because the dispute over the TFS site would be adjudicated at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), a quasi-­judicial land use tribunal that oversees land use and planning disputes in the province, the ­Labour Council hoped to set a pre­ce­dent for similar speculation-­driven conversion requests that challenged existing or potential ­future ­unionized jobs in the city, including in Mount Dennis. Fighting for film and tele­vi­sion jobs in Leslieville thus had the potential for a range of positive effects that w ­ ere not necessarily reducible to the film sector. Both of ­these goals could be achieved by preventing SmartCentres from pushing through its conversion request at the tribunal, a result that would at least retain the possibility for f­ uture film production activity on this site. The fact that Toronto’s film industry became the center of attention for the ETCC during this fight played out in f­ avor of the co­ali­tion. The nature of the film industry is that it has one foot in the past and one foot in the f­ uture. In land use language, a film studio is considered an industrial manufacturing use, which points to Toronto’s manufacturing past. In urban policy language, it is considered a creative industry impor­tant to Toronto’s global economic competitiveness,

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which points to the city’s ­future. ­Labor set out to protect its pres­ent, which it argued was threatened by speculative land development. Organ­izing the strug­gle around the goal of protecting Toronto’s film industry allowed the ETCC to leverage the sector’s importance within Toronto’s economy as well as its leading position within the creative city narrative that had already been firmly embraced by the city of Toronto. The local film industry thus became front and center in the evidence provided to the OMB, and the nature of this industry made it pos­si­ ble to please equally the local gentry, film industry workers, and u ­ nion locals. The ETCC was able to enroll not only community residents and merchants, but also a ­great number of ­unionized film workers into the strug­gle. The expert witnesses retained by the ETCC w ­ ere able to situate Toronto’s film and tele­v i­sion industry within the wider creative city narrative, to highlight the importance of the TFS within the developing cluster of film-­and television-­related uses in Leslieville, and to stress the importance of this sector for enhancing Toronto’s global economic competitiveness. In other words, the ETCC’s expert witnesses made strategic use of a creative city narrative and related arguments, knowing that film and tele­v i­sion workers represent a ­labor force that is central to Toronto’s reputation as a creative city. The most developed contradiction in this case is related to the role of the film and tele­vi­sion industry in triggering gentrification. Leslieville’s gentry never tired of demonstrating that the film sector greatly contributed to the “revival” of the neighborhood. Many of the local bars, cafés, restaurants, furniture shops, and boutiques ­were indeed founded as side proj­ects by film workers looking for additional income opportunities in a highly volatile, precarious, and proj­ect-­based industry. The unique character that this neighborhood developed attracted more affluent residents, and slowly low-­income ­house­holds and the kind of ser­vices ­these rely on ­were displaced from the area. More than once did I hear members of the ETCC proclaim, with considerable pride, that “we are the ones who gentrified the neighborhood,” only to add that “we w ­ on’t let a big-­box development ruin our achievements.” The ensuing “upgrading” of Leslieville by real estate developers also made plenty of references to the area’s film industry, marketing their proj­ects as “Stage East” or as “au­then­tic live work lofts in the Studio District.” This vocal and well-­connected gentry allowed ­labor to build a successful co­ ali­tion, but it also presented a number of pitfalls, both immediate and long-­term. At the immediate level, the ETCC opened itself up to criticism and was quickly described by SmartCentres’ ­legal counsel as elites who opposed a potential Walmart ­because they ­didn’t like poor ­people shopping and working in Leslieville. On the more long-­term level, building co­ali­tions with gentrifiers runs c­ ounter to broader goals of building working-­class solidarity within the l­abor movement. Yet, as I pointed out above, ­labor’s engagement with the ETCC was also more pragmatic

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and strategic, in that the wider objective was to enforce an OMB ruling that would protect employment lands in all parts of the city. While one might call l­abor’s engagement in Leslieville a calculated risk, it also points ­toward broader shortcomings, namely l­ abor’s involvement in gentrification pro­cesses that displace working-­class ­house­holds as well as non-­“creative” industries. This chapter draws on semistructured interviews with key in­for­mants, an analy­sis of policy documents, industry reports, city council decisions, government statistics, weblogs, and newspaper reporting, as well as participant observation. It also builds on earlier work by the author (Lehrer and Wieditz 2009b), which contextualized the land use strug­gle at issue h ­ ere within the lit­er­a­ture on gentrification. This chapter, however, ­will take a closer look at the land use dynamics as they relate to Toronto’s film industry, the city’s contradictory involvement in promoting Toronto’s film sector, ­labor’s role in protecting the industrial land use zoning that may ensure long-­term use of the TFS site for film production activity, and, perhaps most importantly, ­labor’s role in shaping the opportunity for ACTRA to become a controlling shareholder in North Amer­i­ca’s largest purpose-­ built soundstage.

Filmpor t: Toronto’s Answer to Hollywood’s Demands The rezoning strug­gle originated in the city’s own entrepreneurial strategies that began in the late 1990s, ­after Ontario’s neoliberal Progressive Conservative Premier Mike Harris (1995–2002) and Toronto’s probusiness Mayor Mel Lastman (1998–2003) met with Hollywood executives in Los Angeles (“Toronto Needs $21m Studio” 2000; James and Harding 2002; Seguin 2003). While the federal and provincial governments had long provided tax incentives to lure foreign productions to Ontario, Hollywood executives expressed the need for a one-­stop, purpose-­built mega-­stage in Toronto. The city’s Economic Development Division and Ontario’s Film (now Media) Development Corporation retained a Los Angeles–­based consultancy, Economic Research Associates (ERA), to explore the feasibility of a mega-­studio in Toronto (Kalinowski 2002; Morton 2002). ERA’s study recommended, somewhat predictably, the addition of a massive new purpose-­built soundstage to the already existing stock of studio space to attract the industry’s largest productions, which had routinely bypassed Toronto for other jurisdictions (see figure 4.1). The city initially awarded the contract to build this mega-­studio on the city-­owned Port Lands to a San Diego–­based development firm, the Sequence Development Group, which partnered with U.K.-­based film ­giant Pinewood Shepperton. This constellation of extra-­local actors, however,

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FIGURE 4.1.  Toronto’s existing and proposed film studio space

failed in 2002 (Kalinowski 2002; Tillson 2007). Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO), the city’s economic and property development arm, followed up with a worldwide call for proposals (“Toronto Economic Development Corporation” 2005; “It’s Lights, Camera” 2005). Unsurprisingly, a number of local studio operators submitted proposals, if only “to gain more insight into what the local state was offering potential competitor studios,” as a se­nior executive at TEDCO put it.1 Observers ­were surprised, however, when Sam Reisman, owner of TFS, won the bid to construct Filmport, as the mega-­studio was now dubbed, in Toronto’s Port Lands (Davidson 2004). It was this decision taken by TEDCO that set off the lengthy strug­gle over the TFS site.

Take One: Redeveloping 629 Eastern—­T he Foundr y District In August 2004, ­after TFS received the Filmport contract, Rose Corporation, the parent com­pany of TFS, submitted a rezoning application to the city asking for the redevelopment of the existing TFS site at 629, 633, and 675 Eastern Ave­nue,

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colloquially known and referred to below as 629 Eastern. The development proposal, termed “The Foundry District,” called for a mix of uses, including a substantial amount of residential development (City of Toronto 2006; Clark 2005b). The proposal received initial support, not the least of which came from Paula Fletcher, the local councillor. Local progressives grouped in and around the neighborhood’s social ser­vice providers, such as Woodgreen and the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, saw this development proposal as an opportunity to negotiate the inclusion of affordable housing units (Clark 2005b; 2005c). The only opposition came from a small but vocal number of film industry workers as the Foundry District application stoked their fear of losing TFS’s affordable studio space and the kind of jobs that depended on it. To calm the opposition, Ken Ferguson, the operator of TFS, repeatedly went on rec­ord telling the film industry that they “are not g­ oing to lose any studios on Eastern Ave­nue before t­ here are more and better studios down in the Port Lands” (Clark 2005a). But critics remained doubtful. None would argue against Filmport, which was generally embraced by members of the film industry, but activists would point out that the city had called for additional studio space, not the loss of affordable space to cost-­prohibitive space. What Ferguson referred to as “better studios” was concerning, and while initially “every­body was singing from the same songbook, from producers, the ­unions, suppliers, ­union employees and ­people who derive their livelihood from the film industry,”2 cracks began to develop in the previously unan­i­mous support for the proj­ect. A group of activists formed the Friends of the Studio District in response to the redevelopment plans, publicly pointing out that the proposal displaced ­unionized film industry jobs from the Studio District. The group consisted of local area residents, members of the Directors Guild of Canada, and members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), as well as local shop ­owners with ties to the film industry. They began to mobilize opposition in the neighborhood and among film u ­ nion members by sending letters to city planners, city councillors, and ­union executives, and by holding community meetings, developing a website, distributing flyers, and contesting the assertions of TFS representatives during public consultation meetings. Despite its efforts, the Friends of the Studio District did not gain much traction. Union locals ­were hesitant to engage in efforts to protect the Studio District. “They ­were afraid,” as an IATSE Local 873 rank-­and-­file activist put it. Following her early attempts to mobilize re­sis­tance against TFS’s plans inside the film industry, she explained that she “got tons of calls, like how dare you, bringing attention to the public of this, how dare you alert Los Angeles.”3 Challenging the redevelopment of 629 Eastern was thought to be throwing a wrench into the plans of Rose Corporation/TFS and TEDCO, and of t­ hose big Hollywood studios

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that had asked for better soundstages in Toronto in the first place. IATSE, dependent on local studio operators providing space to ser­vice productions on the one hand, and on Hollywood producers to send productions to Toronto on the other, did not want to ruin relations with e­ ither of them. Similarly, a longtime member of the Directors Guild of Canada and activist with the Friends of the Studio District, received much re­sis­tance and “bluster” when he offered a motion during a Directors Guild General annual membership meeting asking the leadership to publicly speak out against TFS’s rezoning plans.4 The attitude of u ­ nion leadership changed ­after it became known that TFS would be shut down as part of the agreement between Rose Corporation/TFS and TEDCO. Rather than building additional space, TEDCO’s plan, from the very beginning, was to replace affordable space with cost-­prohibitive space at the Port Lands, and to “retool” Toronto’s film industry in ways that would attract Hollywood blockbusters, increase foreign investment, and permanently cement Toronto’s status as “Hollywood North.”

Take Two: Redeveloping 629 Eastern—­From Residential to Retail TFS’s rezoning application triggered an employment land study by the city’s Planning Division, and thus employment issues began to take center stage. Residential use was increasingly regarded as a distant possibility for an industrially zoned area inside one of only two remaining employment districts left in Toronto’s central core. In addition, the local councillor “realized how much employment t­ here was and how big of an employer the film industry in Ward 30 is.”5 Once the residential mixed-­use redevelopment became unlikely, Rose Corporation requested that that the city put their application on hold in July of 2005. In December, to the city’s surprise, Rose Corporation appealed to the OMB, citing “delays in pro­ cessing of this application,” “its uncertain status,” and “Council’s failure to make a decision on the application” (City of Toronto 2007a). Following this move, which is routinely used by the development industry to circumvent the city’s planning pro­cess, Rose Corporation’s Sam Reisman “deci­ded to sell [629 Eastern] to somebody a l­ittle more sophisticated and more determined.”6 This deal was made public in an article in the Toronto Star in October 2006, which revealed that SmartCentres, Canada’s largest commercial real estate developer and the development agent of choice for Walmart, had purchased a 50 ­percent interest in 629 Eastern (Wong 2006). SmartCentres is well versed in both land use rezonings and hearings at the tribunal. To ensure success at the OMB, Rose Corporation had dropped its residential mixed-­use

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redevelopment plans in ­favor of SmartCentres’ large-­scale retail formula. The new proposal promised immediate employment in the construction sector and f­ uture employment in the retail sector, thereby addressing the city’s concerns with the original proposal, which would have replaced employment uses—­and film industry jobs—­with nonemployment, namely residential, uses. Once Walmart entered the picture, looming large b ­ ehind its proxy SmartCentres, the deliberations over the use of and access to 629 Eastern took on a new dimension. The Friends of the Studio District ­were no longer the only or­ga­nized group resisting the redevelopment of 629 Eastern. A new group, Friends of Leslieville, emerged. While the Friends of the Studio District consisted of a mix of local residents, shop ­owners, and members of the Directors Guild of Canada and IATSE with the expressed objective of protecting film industry jobs, the Friends of Leslieville w ­ ere composed of the area’s gentry, namely ­those who had transformed Leslieville from a working-­class community into an up-­and-­coming neighborhood with increasingly expensive single-­family homes and a variety of high-­end specialty shops. Friends of Leslieville (2007a) feared that Walmart would spoil the par­tic­u­lar social ecol­ogy that characterizes “their” neighborhood, and they did not want to see their newfound quality of place dis­appear. Re­sis­tance to the new SmartCentres-­led Foundry District proposal grew more pronounced as it broadened. The local councillor, made aware that her riding represented the largest concentration of film workers in the city, had by now become a fierce opponent of the SmartCentres-­led reincarnation of the Foundry District. A number of public meetings w ­ ere or­ga­nized in the neighborhood to inform residents of the proposed redevelopment of 629 Eastern. ­These meetings soon featured film screenings that introduced viewers to grassroots re­sis­tance against Walmarts elsewhere. The general thrust was that Walmart was not welcome in Leslieville. During a community meeting in March 2007, Councillor Fletcher forcefully announced that “this is a community that believes . . . ​that every­body should be paid fairly; and, for an employer to come in that states from the very beginning that they ­will pay the lowest wages, and that [workers] ­will close the store down if they ­will ­unionize, this is just not ­going to happen in this community” (Friends of Leslieville 2007b). Peter Tabuns, the area’s member of the provincial parliament, as well as the late Jack Layton, then member of the Canadian Parliament for the federal riding that includes Leslieville, shared Councillor Fletcher’s sentiments. The fact that Walmart had shut down one of their superstores in Jonquière, Quebec, ­after a successful or­ga­niz­ing drive by the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW) in 2004 did not bode well for SmartCentres. This ward, municipally represented by a left-­w ing councillor married to the longtime president of

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Toronto’s ­Labour Council, and with ­labor-­friendly repre­sen­ta­tion across all levels of government, was soon to be mobilized against real estate speculators, land developers, and the largest retailer in the world in an effort to protect the area’s employment district and its ­unionized film jobs.

Inser ting ­L abor into Planning: The Good Jobs Alliance Once it became clear that the f­uture of 629 Eastern would be fought out at the OMB, the Friends of the Studio District and the Friends of Leslieville merged into the East Toronto Community Co­ali­tion (ETCC). Through contact with Councillor Fletcher’s office, the ETCC was soon approached by ­Labour Council representatives, who offered l­abor’s support in the strug­gle. Initially hesitant, as the cochair and spokesperson of the ETCC explained, the ETCC agreed to ­labor’s involvement.7 The L ­ abour Council managed to bring to the t­ able a large number of ­union locals directly affected by the proposed redevelopment of 629 Eastern. Or­ga­nized ­under the umbrella of the Good Jobs Alliance, this group including the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Tele­vi­sion and Radio Artists Toronto (ACTRA); the Canadian Union of Postal Workers Toronto local; the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada Locals 87M, 132-0, 700M (NABET), and 975; the Directors Guild of Canada’s Ontario chapter; the International Alliance Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 873; the Toronto Musicians Association; UNITE ­HERE; and the United Food and Commercial Workers. While Toronto’s ­Labour Council and the film ­unions ­were central to the case, the media’s repre­sen­ta­tion was one that foregrounded the local neighborhood rather than ­labor, and characterized this dispute most often as Leslieville versus Walmart, a David versus Goliath narrative. While ­labor’s role was somewhat underappreciated in the media, it was far from being a secret. Not only did the L ­ abour Council or­ga­nize the Good Jobs Alliance, in Eric Gillespie it also recruited an environmental ­lawyer with ample experience fighting SmartCentres and Walmart at the OMB. The Good Jobs Alliance, and particularly IATSE Local 873, provided financial support above and beyond the orga­nizational and infrastructural capacities that the L ­ abour Council 8 added to the ETCC. Moreover, or­ga­nized ­labor “brought the voice of quite a substantial amount of landholding to the discussion,” a move that was based on the recognition that the OMB “does give quite a bit of weight to the views of the ­actual landowners who are ­going to be more directly affected.”9 The co­ali­tion strategy against SmartCentres’ redevelopment proposal was to attack the developer from vari­ous a­ ngles inside and outside the OMB. Toronto’s

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film ­unions ­were central to this task. In addition to substantial financial support, they provided valuable information to the ETCC regarding Toronto’s film industry, its economic impact, and the geo­graph­i­cal distribution of its membership, as well as the number and location of film studios (past and pres­ent) and other filmand television-­related businesses. Film u ­ nions contributed by helping out at public events. They supplied material, staging, and public address systems, as well as trucks and performers. They created short YouTube clips and or­ga­nized a social media campaign, which highlighted the importance of TFS to the local neighborhood. They mobilized their membership to participate at community events, such as fund-­raisers, street protests, press conferences, and the OMB hearing itself. Thanks to the film ­unions, the ETCC was able to fill the largest hearing room on the first day of the hearing and ensured that ­unionists participated throughout the hearing. Most importantly, during the OMB hearing’s public sessions, the ETCC brought many community members and film workers to testify, far outnumbering the hired support that SmartCentres was able muster. For strategic reasons, the ETCC aligned itself with the position the city of Toronto took in its fight against SmartCentres. This alignment was problematic, not least ­because, despite its aim of protecting the integrity of the South of Eastern Employment District, the city did not see the f­ uture of the area as an industrial one. Film production, however, falls ­under industrial zoning, as studios are considered industrial manufacturing activities. The city’s vision was one of a white-­collar ­future anchored in the area by what Kyle Benham (2008), director of Toronto’s Economic Development and Culture Division, described as a “modern business campus ideally suited for companies that use imagination, innovation and intelligence as key attributes of the goods and ser­v ices they produce.” Moreover, the city had developed a secondary plan for the area that eliminated land uses that traditionally supported blue-­collar jobs in declining old industrial areas, such as open storage yards, builders’ supply yards, taxicab stands or stations, automobile ser­v ice or repair shops, car washing establishments, and motor vehicle repair shops, among ­others (City of Toronto 2008). The city’s vision was and still is an example of how it is engaged in what Slater (2004) refers to as “municipally managed gentrification,” a pro­cess that displaces working-­class residents and the kind of land uses they rely on. “Over time,” so the city’s Planning Division says, “­these sites w ­ ill redevelop, attracting new investment and improve the overall amenity of the area” (City of Toronto 2008, 5). While l­abor’s alignment with this orientation might make sense from the most immediate perspective, it ­will perhaps prove more harmful in the long run, as the local government consolidates the social forces that create central city areas cleansed of working-­ class and low-­income communities.

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In addition to aligning itself with the city, the ETCC engaged with dominant neoliberal discourses. This was as harmful as it was helpful. To convince the OMB of the need to retain the film industry in Toronto’s Studio District, the ETCC had to merge Richard Florida’s ideas about the “creative city,” that combine “neoliberal development agendas, framed around interurban competition, [with] gentrification, ­middle-­class consumption and place marketing” (Peck 2005, 740), with insights “into the geography of film production” developed by Los Angeles–­based economic geographers such as Allan J. Scott and Michael Storper (Tufts 2008a). However, Scott and Storper have regularly critiqued Florida’s arguments, effectively showing them to be erroneous. Furthermore, Florida’s ideas and the policy initiatives feeding on them are complicit in pro­cesses that attract the gentry and disperse low-­income communities. From an immediate tactical point of view, the use of this discourse was, indeed, useful and warranted. Scott and Storper’s work was used by the ETCC to articulate the importance of clustering in Toronto’s film industry, and hence the importance of retaining the existing studios, while Florida’s work could be used to link a creative industry like film production to Toronto’s quest to become a creative global city. Since the city of Toronto had already firmly incorporated Florida’s ideas into its urban policy documents in the early 2000s (Lehrer and Wieditz 2009a), t­ hese arguments could be used to highlight the importance of Toronto’s film sector for the city’s global economic competitiveness and to demand consistency with the city’s own policy regime. The specific argument made was that Toronto’s film industry is a particularly impor­tant economic sector, a leading creative industry, and one that needs policy support that allows it to flourish and expand in and around Toronto’s Studio District. From a more immediate perspective, this tactic was useful in retaining industrial land use designation that would at least allow for the possibility of operating a film studio on the property in years to come. From a more strategic and long-­term perspective, however, this tactic is problematic, not least ­because it meant that ­labor engages in the same discursive repertoire that marginalizes blue-­collar and low-­wage ser­vice workers, symbolically, materially, and, ultimately, spatially. The ­labor movement cannot build a broad-­based, working-­class movement when one working-­class faction is pitted against another and the “right to the city” is extended only to t­ hose who find themselves momentarily useful for capital. Fi­nally, the ETCC integrated some of the concerns voiced by NIMBYist and gentry factions inside the co­ali­tion. ­These arguments centered on the need for sustainable urban development, and pointed out that the proposed proj­ect is like any other resource-­intensive big-­box store built in sprawling and car-­dependent suburban communities across Canada, and therefore does not represent good

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planning (Lehrer 2008b). It would be a development scheme centered on the automobile. It would increase pollution and traffic, which would endanger the many cyclists and pedestrians in Leslieville. Moreover, it would cut the neighborhood off from Toronto’s waterfront. ­These concerns, valid as they are, also express the aesthetic sensibilities of an urban gentry whose lifestyles afford the prioritization of the environment and consumption over production and jobs. The area’s working-­class residents of the past experienced pollution and contamination at home and at work, while t­oday’s gentry are able to enjoy the ­decontaminated environment and engage in politics to keep potential polluters at bay. ­These arguments proved effective weapons in the strug­gle over the use of 629 Eastern. Convincing a provincially appointed board of the need to deny SmartCentres’ rezoning application on its own terrain requires foregrounding dominant ideas and concepts such as “competitiveness” and “sustainability,” as articulated in the provincial state’s newly reformed policy framework. This framework highlights the need for sustainable urban development and recommends residential and employment intensification in already built-up areas to reduce car de­pen­dency and urban sprawl, increase alternative modes of transportation, and reduce commuting distances. The ETCC picked up on this and argued that the “[p]roposed amendments are not recognizing good land use planning in context of the Provincial Interest [and thus] this proposal cannot be supported from Provincial Interest perspective” (Lehrer 2008a). To stop SmartCentres’ rezoning application, in short, the ETCC played with power, rather than against it, and pressured the government to adhere to its own policies.

Exploiting the Contradictions for L ­ abor When ­labor engages in co­ali­tion building with gentrifiers, this creates situations that can easily be exploited by its opponents. Dennis Wood, ­legal counsel for SmartCentres, wasted no time in ­doing so. In his opening statement to the OMB, Wood (2008) argued that the ETCC was a group of NIMBYists who wanted to see jobs, but not the kind of jobs that his client was g­ oing to bring to Leslieville, and that the ETCC did not want the kind of p ­ eople who rely on low-­wage retail jobs in its neighborhood. He painted the members of the ETCC as elites, turned Walmart into the victim, and essentially accused the ETCC of waging class warfare against low-­income communities who wanted his client’s proposal to advance ­because it would bring employment opportunities and affordable goods. Moreover, he called ­these jobs “real jobs,” opposing this to the ETCC’s controversial claim that retail jobs are not real jobs, or at least not the kind of jobs that should

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replace ­unionized film industry jobs. He went on to call the city’s “business campus” idea a vision of hoped-­for jobs and, again, pointed out that SmartCentres would bring real jobs now, not hoped-­for jobs that might never materialize (Wood 2008). This message made it to the media, which began to publish pro-­ SmartCentres pieces that painted the ETCC and Leslievillians as job snobs and elites. Before long, posters appeared in Leslieville mimicking the official ETCC poster in look and feel. Instead of saying “No Big Box on Our Waterfront,” they said “No Yuppies in Leslieville,” and encouraged ­people to smash the shop win­dows of Leslieville’s yuppie stores. ­These posters ­were put up along the most heavi­ly gentrified retail strip. They w ­ ere po­liti­cally astute and sensitive to the spatial articulation of gentrification in Leslieville. They signified the real connection between commercial gentrification along Queen Street East, the neighborhood’s commercial spine, where one laundromat and greasy spoon ­after another was turned into cafés and galleries, and residential gentrification on nearby residential streets, where one former worker’s bungalow ­after another was renovated to the gentry’s tastes. What made this connection between gentrifiers and the ETCC’s campaign so transparent was the fact that the ETCC’s official campaign posters ­were equally pres­ent in the win­dows of renovated homes on residential streets as they ­were in the shop win­dows of the establishments the gentry frequent along Queen Street East. Voluntarily displayed ETCC posters, in other words, became a spatial signifier of the extent to which members of the ETCC could be linked to commercial and residential gentrification in Leslieville. Whoever created ­these posters tried to pres­ent the ETCC as a NIMBY group that represented the interests of upper-­middle-­class homeowners at the OMB. ­Labor’s co­ali­tion building with gentrifiers had its tactical advantages. For one, it allowed l­ abor to take advantage of the accumulated social privilege in Leslieville. The par­tic­u­lar constellation of forces and actors that came together as Friends of Leslieville had social, po­liti­cal, economic, and cultural networks that extended their social space from Leslieville to the corridors of power at all levels of government and within the environmental movement. For instance, the ETCC was able to sway then Mayor Miller (2003–2010) to send a letter to Ontario’s minister of municipal affairs and housing to request a so-­called Declaration of Provincial Interest on behalf of the city of Toronto, a rarely executed request that was even more rarely granted. The group was able to meet the minister’s chief of staff Gerald Butts (­today a se­nior advisor to Prime Minister Trudeau), largely ­because the core group of the ETCC, ­those who initially had formed the Friends of Leslieville, had ties to the Ontario Liberals.10 While the ETCC was well connected to the corridors of power and the mainstream environmental movement, it arguably had fewer organic connections to or­ga­nized ­labor, a deficit that was addressed a­ fter

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the ­Labour Council joined the co­ali­tion. Once ­labor formed the Good Jobs Alliance, the ETCC became well positioned to prevent SmartCentres’ proposal from becoming real­ity. Similarly, ­labor’s involvement with the privileged, ­middle-­class ETCC served its own instrumentalist objective, preventing the rezoning of 629 Eastern and protecting all t­hose ­unionized jobs that a major redevelopment like this might threaten in the long term.

The OMB’s Decision This dispute turned out to be one of the most high-­profile cases in the history of the OMB. To every­one’s surprise, a­ fter fifty-­eight days of deliberation, and close to six months a­ fter the closing statements, the OMB denied SmartCentres’ rezoning application. In its final decision, OMB vice-­chair James Mc­Ken­zie (2009) cited the evidence provided by Jeffrey Climans, a city witness, who testified that a rezoning of 629 Eastern would lead to “lease terminations and lack of opportunities to renew existing leases for all businesses that rely on older and/or inexpensive space in this par­tic­u­lar location. Price sensitive businesses that rely on proximity to similar and allied companies, and proximity to the downtown core, ­will be displaced by the proposed proj­ect and ­will be unable to re­create the existing synergy in other locations, including Filmport” (Climans 2008, 11). Climans showed that SmartCentres paid three times the average per-­acre value of industrial land in Toronto’s inner city, that is, $1.5 million instead of $400,000 per acre. From that, he concluded that the mere prospect of a retail redesignation had opened up a rent gap three times the current average value of industrial land. The decision to deny the rezoning of 629 Eastern recognized that the displacement of current or f­uture commercial and industrial activities by land speculation pressure was undesirable for the South of Eastern Employment District, thereby addressing the chief concern of the ETCC and its l­ abor constituent, the Good Jobs Alliance.

The Bailout: From Filmpor t to Pinewood Shepper ton Studios The rejection of the 629 Eastern rezoning threw a major wrench into Reisman’s ability to financially leverage 629 Eastern for his Filmport development. Not only that, but the opening of Filmport in August of 2008 coincided with one of the worst years experienced by Toronto’s film industry. The onset of the ­great financial crisis, the high Canadian dollar, competition from other jurisdictions

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offering generous tax incentives, and the prospect of the U.S. screenwriters’ strike combined in ways that saw overall production spending in Toronto reduced from $1.2 billion in 2000, the time Filmport was conceived, to $670 million in 2008, the time the first Filmport soundstage opened. Despite this particularly challenging conjuncture, Sam Reisman, the majority shareholder of Filmport, was not overly concerned about Filmport’s ­future or the fact that Toronto’s mega-­stage so far had failed to attract any business (Leung 2008). This optimism, however, seems to have come crashing down a­ fter the OMB served its final decision on the SmartCentres case. Less than one month a­ fter the OMB served its decision in March of 2009, TEDCO informed Toronto’s City Council that the Rose Corporation would be selling its stake in Filmport. Reisman’s exit strategy had been well in preparation. Already in December of 2008, TEDCO’s Steiner had asked the city to approve a number of amendments to the original Filmport lease that would make a ­future sale of Filmport shares more attractive to pos­si­ble investors (TEDCO 2008). T ­ hese amendments meant that ­future investors could turn their efforts to more profitable redevelopment schemes, rather than propping up the film studio complex. Every­thing was in place to make Filmport a more in­ter­est­ing and lucrative investment for potential shareholders taking over Reisman’s majority stake. Threatened by the default, the city quickly engineered a deal that would see Paul Bronfman’s Comweb hold on to his 20 ­percent share, a number of new investors—­Return on Investment (ROI), a ­labor-­sponsored investment fund, and Castleweb Developments, a major Toronto real estate developer—­take over 60 ­percent of Rose Corporation’s shares, with the city of Toronto taking on Rose Corporation’s remaining 20 ­percent. Pinewood Shepperton would be retained as the new man­ag­er for the film studio. This new agreement, among other ­things, resulted in extending investors’ options in redeveloping the surrounding waterfront and removing further risks from private-­sector partners by securing a low-­interest, state-­backed Infrastructure Ontario loan that replaces the original high-­interest loan arrangement (City of Toronto 2009a). The city agreed on the restructuring, and through its own involvement prevented Filmport from defaulting. While the city of Toronto seemed to have bailed Filmport out, Toronto’s actors’ ­union (ACTRA) landed the real coup. Executive Director Brian Topp was pivotal in securing this advantage: Brian Topp, the former Executive Director of ACTRA, who is on the board of Pinewood, is a genius, a very smart individual. He established the ROI fund at ACTRA, years before they got involved with Pinewood. It was an existing venture capital fund that quickly capitalized at almost

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$500 million; it ­rose very quickly. The leadership of ACTRA understood that the ­whole Filmport studio would go belly up if somebody ­didn’t step in, and ­there would have been no film studio in Toronto. You know the psychological impact that this would have had on the industry? It would have been devastating. So they r­ eally stuck their necks out and jumped in to take over basically almost 50 ­percent of the studio.11 Not only did ACTRA save the Filmport development from g­ oing “belly up,” but they also secured a voice in the f­ uture development trajectory of Filmport, thereby eliminating the fear that this film studio development would only be a “placeholder” for non-­film-­related land uses in the ­future, and that its ­owners would eventually pursue development schemes unrelated to expanding the film studio.

Take Three: Redeveloping 629 Eastern—­R evival 629 With the de­mo­li­tion permit granted to SmartCentres even before the OMB case was settled, many observers wondered if the site would just sit stagnant and crumble u ­ ntil a zoning change could be secured sometime in the ­future. Following the OMB case, 629 Eastern indeed sat vacant and unused, with the notable exception of a four-­month period in 2010, during which the property was turned into a temporary prison site for the G20 meeting held in Toronto. It was not ­until 2013 that new plans surfaced for 629 Eastern, fittingly marketed as Revival 629. ­These plans include a mix of ten new low-­rise buildings that include retail and offices, a public plaza, and a ­hotel. Perhaps most surprisingly, the new plans include the never-­demolished studio spaces. With this proposal, SmartCentres, Canada’s largest shopping mall developer, becomes a film studio operator, using a subsidiary com­pany called StudioCentre (Bateman 2013). Interestingly, Revival 629 is a proj­ect that incorporated the critiques leveled previously by community members and the film industry alike. StudioCentre even held a public meeting reserved for t­ hose factions that w ­ ere previously the most out­spoken critics—­members of the ETCC and the local ­unions. StudioCentre hired Peter Finestone, Toronto’s former film commissioner, to smooth t­ hings over with Toronto’s film ­unions, and retained Ken Ferguson to run the film studio side of ­things. Many past critics, however, remain wary. An activist with NABET, for instance, “firmly believe[s] that they ­will still try and come back to change the zoning again, I know that ­there is a new plan . . . ​a ­little less a big-­box Walmart type of t­ hing, my guess is that . . . ​­there ­w ill be another b ­ attle.”12 Similarly, an Oscar-­winning producer equally loyal to competitor studio CineSpace is also not

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much convinced by StudioCentres’ redevelopment plans. He acknowledges that they “are ­doing some business ­there,” adding, “other­wise it would just sit vacant ­until the next time they need a temporary jail.”13 The same opinion is voiced by a representative of Absolute Locational Support Ser­v ices, a film-­related business, for whom Revival 629 is ­little more than an attempt to “generate a ­little good ­will on the one hand and to defer the costs of having it sit fallow on the other.”14 Union folks, however, are a ­little more optimistic. A co­ali­tion member from IATSE, although distrustful of StudioCentre, still considers the availability of 629 Revival an opportunity, not only for IATSE members but also for the growth of Toronto’s entire film and tele­v i­sion industry, now that the industry is once again booming.15 Similarly, the former president of IATSE 873 regards the return of 629 Eastern as a positive outcome, one that u ­ nions fought for in the first place. While Toronto went through a rough spot and u ­ nions ­were struggling to retain studio space, ­today, he explains: We have better facilities available ­today, and should 629 come online as projected, I say it once again, it just means that when they are sitting down in the vari­ous jurisdictions, ­whether that would be in a board room in Toronto figuring out can we do this movie in this town or ­whether they ask in Hollywood where do we take this show, Toronto has the nuts and bolts and the infrastructure.16 SmartCentres may not have given up on its efforts to extract the highest pos­ si­ble rent in the ­future. This is congruent with Mathews’s (2010) notion that the film industry functions as an impor­tant intermediary tenant before specific sites are redeveloped for so-­called higher and better uses. In the meantime, however, Revival 629 represents the exact scenario that film u ­ nions ­were struggling for in 2008: The city needs the capacity for the film industry right now. I mean, it is an extraordinary competitive global market for film and tele­v i­sion production. Having that capacity is a major asset to us. It also speaks to providing space for domestic production and t­here is e­ very reason to believe . . . ​that the next c­ouple of years could be very significant in terms of volume for the domestic production industry, and not having adequate space would be a detriment. And that is what 629 largely does now, Revival film studios, that is. In fact, the way it is playing out right now is exactly what we ­were fighting for in 2008. That scenario. It is redeveloped; it is used for lower bud­get production, to give us tiers of studio space. You got big glossy $200 million at Pinewood and ­you’ve got $1 million movies being shot at 629 and other facilities.17

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In sum, while a ­great deal of skepticism and distrust still exists, film ­unions remain wary but pleased, at least in the interim, that 629 Eastern was brought back on as Revival 629. The land use politics surrounding 629 Eastern and Toronto’s Filmport have left ongoing rifts within the industry. ­These differences, however, pertain more to the relationship between studio ­owners. And while producers might side with one studio over another, film workers ­will ultimately go to where production takes place, but also fight, as we have seen, to retain film production where it already takes place, often in close proximity to their nonwork lives, as in the case of Leslieville. Having a range of studios available, from low-­budget studios in converted ware­houses to North Amer­i­ca’s largest, purpose-­built soundstage, means that film workers w ­ ill be able to ser­vice low-­to medium-­budget Canadian productions as well as Hollywood blockbusters.

Conclusion The allocation of land use is far from being the “natu­ral” outcome of market forces determining the so-­called highest and best use of any given property. Rather, the negotiation of land uses and associated development proj­ects, as this case shows, is the result of the actions of vari­ous opposing, and at times collaborating groups, classes, and actors, or­ga­nized in and around the government, never resting in the pursuit of their individual and/or group interests. The case also clearly highlights that for ­unions to play a role in the new urban economy, w ­ hether described as neoliberal, creative, or flexible, ­labor has to become inventive, collaborative, and entrepreneurial in its approach to urban restructuring. In times and places where investments flow into real estate rather than the production of goods and ser­vices, ­labor has to shape the flow of capital into urban space in ways that result in the best pos­si­ble outcomes for working ­people. In the case of the film industry, ­labor operated at multiple levels—at the level of land use policy, trying to prevent the rezoning of the TFS site on 629 Eastern, as well as at the level of investment decisions, where ACTRA used its ROI fund to become a majority shareholder in Toronto’s new Pinewood Shepperton Studios. It thereby s­ haped two essential characteristics of the new urban economy: land use and the resulting investment flows into the urban environment. Given what we have learned, it is quite feasible to suggest that ETCC’s actions, ­under or­ga­nized ­labor’s leadership and guidance, greatly contributed to the OMB denying the redevelopment proposal for 629 Eastern, arguably forcing Reisman out of the Filmport deal, which opened up the opportunity for ACTRA to step in and establish itself as a legitimate shareholder in Toronto’s Pinewood Shepperton Studios from the perspective of Toronto’s film ­unions. Reisman, a rentier and

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merchant banker, never had the confidence of or­ga­nized ­labor to be legitimately interested in supporting Toronto’s film industry, which in any event would have been only a means to an end. Or­ga­nized ­labor had a major impact both in retaining the TFS, which is operational again, rebranded as Revival 629, and in establishing what is known ­today as Toronto’s Pinewood Studios, North American’s largest purpose-­built film studio. Taken together, ­labor’s efforts resulted in the ideal situation, where affordable studio space was eventually retained and the kind of physical infrastructure was created that attracts the largest Hollywood productions. Can we then speak of “­labor’s spatial fix” (Herod 1997)? While spatial strug­gles never come with guarantees, and evolve in contradictory ways, often with unexpected twists and turns, we can say that, at least in the case of this effort, or­ga­nized ­labor’s action resulted in the reproduction of conditions of production quite suitable for u ­ nionized film workers in the city of Toronto. This, however, does not mean that this “fix” has no negative repercussions for nonunionized workers, non-­“creatives,” the poor, and the unemployed, who, through ­labor’s involvement with the city of Toronto and gentrifying social groups in Leslieville, are further marginalized, spatially, eco­nom­ically, and po­liti­cally.

Part 3

­ ABOR AND THE L SUSTAINABLE CITY James Nugent

The vision for a sustainable city calls for the production of a new urban landscape which would include green manufacturing facilities, renewable energy facilities, environmental infrastructure, and “green” building designs. This green “spatial fix” has provided capital with new markets and more efficient production pro­ cesses that generate ever-­greater profits (Schoenberger 2004). But the green economy has not simply been produced by capital in its own image. As the following two chapters show, the formation of l­abor–­community co­ali­tions has been an impor­tant way for or­ga­nized ­labor to try to regulate capital in order to create green jobs, achieve social justice, and address environmental prob­lems. We refer to l­abor’s active attempt to realize t­hese goals as “­labor’s socio-­ ecological fix.” It is a fix for l­abor in two ways: First, it is an attempt to spatially fix capital into the built environment in ways that are desirable for ­labor (e.g., in terms of where a green manufacturing fa­cil­i­ty is located, winning investments for public transit, retrofitting workplace buildings so they are healthier, ­etc.). Second, it is also an attempt by l­ abor to fix broader socio-­ecological prob­lems caused by current or previous rounds of accumulation that affect the everyday lives of workers (e.g., climate change, toxic brownfields, congestion, nuclear waste, ­etc.). ­These co­ali­tions have built up their po­liti­cal power by drawing together the established po­liti­cal connections of u ­ nions with the strength of broader social movement organ­izations advocating for social and environmental justice. A growing number of studies have begun to examine how l­abor, community groups, and environmental organ­izations have worked together (or not) to ­battle environmental injustices, shape environmental policy, and advocate for green job 121

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creation (for reviews, see Norton 2003; Nugent 2009; Obach 2004; Hess 2012). But studies that have examined ­labor–­environmentalist relations have usually focused on resource extraction sectors in rural areas, where t­ here have been some high-­profile conflicts between ­unions and environmentalists (Bantjes 1997; Ekers and Sweeney 2010; Moore 2002; Prudham 2008; Rose 1997; Simon 2000). In contrast, the two case studies presented ­here offer examples of progressive co­ali­tions involving ­labor, community, and environmental groups that have formed at the urban level. The mid-2000s saw a surge of climate change activism and growing interest among certain factions of capital and the state in investing in renewable energy (Hess 2012). A growing lit­er­a­ture has looked at the response of ­unions to climate change and renewable energy policy (Felli 2013; Lipsig-­Mumme 2003; Nugent 2011; Snell and Fairbrother 2010). Or­ga­nized ­labor contributed to a reframing of climate change as an economic opportunity. High-­profile ­labor–­environmental co­ali­tions argued that policies to combat climate change could also help respond to the massive loss of manufacturing jobs in the 2000s, and during the 2007–2008 financial crisis in par­tic­u­lar. In the United States, the Blue-­Green Alliance between the Sierra Club and United Steelworkers helped develop the green job initiatives contained in President Obama’s 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In Canada, a similar co­ali­tion, Blue-­Green Canada, joined with renewable energy companies and venture cap­i­tal­ists in pushing the Ontario government to pass the Green Energy and Green Economy Act (2009). The Green Energy Act promised green jobs by providing subsidies to solar and wind energy proj­ects that incorporated a percentage of made-­in-­Ontario components. Climate change policy and green jobs initiatives have been primarily led by subnational governments, especially in periods when federal support has been pulled back—­for example, following the return to Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010 (creating re­sis­tance to the Obama administration’s clean energy and green job policies), and following the 2006 Canadian federal election win by the Conservative Party (which cut spending on the environment and pulled Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012) (Hess 2012). Subnational activity around the green economy has created an unevenness across both countries through the success or failure of dif­fer­ent state and local governments in forming partnerships with green factions of capital (e.g., renewable energy firms), but also ­because of the varying success of ­labor–­community co­ali­tions in forming and advocating for green job initiatives in dif­fer­ent regions (Hess 2012). The following two chapters examine attempts by l­ abor–­community co­ali­tions to translate higher-­level policy discussions around green jobs into concrete outcomes for workers and marginalized urban residents. James Nugent discusses

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efforts of the Mount Dennis Weston Network to prevent the conversion of industrial lands in northwestern Toronto into a big-­box retail development, and instead to attract green manufacturing facilities into the area. Maria Figueroa evaluates home energy retrofit programs advanced by a statewide co­ali­tion of building trades and community groups in New York. Drawing on federal and regional funds, ­these programs aimed to create green jobs for low-­income and racialized populations by growing new markets for building renovations among low-­income homeowners that would reduce both energy use and green­house gas emissions. ­These two case studies highlight the significant challenges and contradictions faced by ­labor–­community co­ali­tions hoping to realize a high-­road economic development strategy. Although ­labor–­community co­ali­tions in Toronto have sometimes succeeded in influencing land use policy to protect industrial lands, the experience of the Mount Dennis Weston Network shows the difficulty involved in trying to attract green industrial capital to specific neighborhoods. Green Jobs/ Green New York was much more successful at getting legislation passed and leveraging federal funds and loans offered by the Regional Green­house Gas Initiative. But the energy retrofit program still faced trou­ble ensuring that funding reached its intended target—­namely, low-­income homeowners and marginalized workers who wanted to receive skills training. Besides questions of financing, both case studies reveal impor­tant tensions around class, race, and gender within high-­road green job strategies. Efforts by the Mount Dennis Weston Network to attract industrial capital ­were driven by a hope that this would generate higher-­skilled, high-­wage employment in an eco­ nom­ically depressed neighborhood. However, the type of big-­box retail stores that the co­ali­tion fought against in order to protect green industrial uses has historically employed more low-­income workers, namely w ­ omen and racialized workers. This raises the question of how to ensure that mechanisms are in place to win cross-­class, multiracial po­liti­cal support for a green jobs strategy. The Green Jobs/ Green New York program took up this challenge, in part, through LIUNA’s skills training program aimed at marginalized workers. But the limitation faced in New York was that, even with the subsidies, too many low-­income residents ­were still unable to afford, as customers, the kinds of ecological ser­v ices that l­abor sought to provide. The legitimate demand of construction workers for higher ­unionized wages raised the cost of conducting energy retrofits, which in turn helped to price the renovations out of reach for some low-­income residents. Both cases therefore reveal how worker-­residents must negotiate the contradictions of capitalism in their role as both producers and consumers. A key princi­ ple of environmental justice is that both environmental “bads” and “goods” are fairly distributed. The distribution of environmental goods refers not only to environmental amenities, clean environments, and more expensive organic food,

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but also access to well-­paying green jobs and lower energy bills through environmental technologies. As Figueroa’s case study makes clear, ­unions have a direct stake in this strug­gle for environmental justice, since greater demand for green products and ser­v ices ­w ill provide jobs for their members. Addressing ­these contradictions has also become critically impor­tant for ­unions ­because neoliberalism continues to undermine the po­liti­cal access and power that u ­ nions traditionally commanded. As Fordist l­abor relations continue to be undermined by neoliberalism, ­unions are turning to marginalized communities to rebuild their po­liti­cal support. Hopefully, in trying to build ­these co­ali­tions, ­unions ­will deepen their commitment to a progressive po­liti­cal agenda, not only around the environment, but also in terms of how green job policies relate to broader concerns around class, race, and gender politics.

5 BUILDING A GREEN NEW YORK Construction Unions and Community Alliances Maria Figueroa

This chapter examines the experience of construction ­unions and community organ­izations as they enter into strategic alliances to create new markets in energy-­ efficient systems. I focus on two recent policy initiatives: PlaNYC for the retrofitting of public and commercial properties in New York City, and Green Jobs/Green New York (GJ/GNY) for the retrofitting of noncommercial residential properties in the rest of the city and the state. Construction u ­ nions aligned along t­ hese two policy paths, with the Laborers’ International Union of North Amer­i­ca (LIUNA) focusing its efforts on GJ/GNY, and other building trades and the building ser­ vices ­union concentrating their efforts on the PlaNYC initiative. L ­ abor was involved in the implementation of both initiatives, and played a particularly active role in forging statewide policy. At the city level, the mayor’s office primarily drove policy in this area, with initial efforts started during the Bloomberg administration. ­These cases illustrate the challenges that ­labor ­faces in implementing a “socio-­ ecological fix” (as defined by Nugent in this volume), which aims to create employment opportunities for disadvantaged communities and workers while addressing pollution originating from the outdated energy systems of the building stock in the city and across the state. New York State has faced its fair share of environmental challenges over the years, ranging from issues related to nuclear power stations to having suffered the impacts of climate change with superstorm Sandy in 2012. In New York City, the c­ auses of environmental degradation have changed with the shift from light manufacturing to the predominance of the real estate and financial sectors. ­Today, New York’s building stock of almost one million buildings concentrated in an area of 300 square miles accounts for 75 ­percent 125

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of the city’s green­house gas emissions (Tatum 2013). This explains the focus of the city’s programs on large building retrofitting, with an emphasis on institutional and commercial properties. Previous studies have discussed the challenges to ­labor’s socio-­ecological fix and to the formation of long-­term strategic blue–­green alliances in North Amer­ i­ca (see reviews in Mayer 2009, 3–15; Nugent 2009; Obach 2004). A key challenge originates in the differences in orga­nizational cultures and governance between the ­labor and environmental movements. Unions have a hierarchical structure, while the environmental movement’s structure is rather horizontal. This difference also applies between ­unions and community organ­izations, including worker centers. Another critical challenge has been the job blackmail strategy that power­ful economic and po­liti­cal actors implement to create divisions between ­labor and environmental organ­izations, as well as between working-­class communities and the environmental movement. Re­sis­tance to environmental protection policies on the part of ­these communities is particularly strong where the local economy is based on a single industry (Goodstein 1999). T ­ hese conflicts tend to overwhelm what researchers have found to be a positive net effect of environmental protection. It was estimated that about two million p ­ eople in the United States ­were employed in jobs that are directly or indirectly related to environmental protection at the turn of the ­century (Obach 2004; Goodstein 1999), and that only three thousand jobs w ­ ere lost annually as a result of protection mea­sures. A recent example of a job blackmail strategy in North Amer­i­ca was the conflict over the Keystone XL pipeline, which brought a number of ­unions and environmentalists to opposing sides, and provoked a division among ­unions. Unions such as LIUNA, the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters, and the Teamsters supported the pipeline on the expectation of high-­wage job creation for their members, while environmentalists and six ­unions opposed the proj­ect on climate change grounds (Communication Workers of Amer­i­ca 2012). Despite ­these challenges, a number of broad-­based co­ali­tions at the national and local levels have developed over the years. T ­ hese include the Blue-­Green Alliance, formed by the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club and now involving ten ­labor ­unions and four environmental organ­izations, and the Apollo Alliance, a co­ali­tion of business, l­ abor, environmental, and community groups. Despite the divide created by Keystone XL at the national level, the same ­unions that ­were on opposite sides of that debate collaborate to promote local and regional policies for a transition to a green economy (Smith and Brecher 2012). ­There are also networks of ­labor and environmental groups working in local communities to promote green jobs. Such networks include Green for All, the ­Labor Network for Sustainability, and the Emerald Cities Collaborative. An example of

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local collaborative green jobs campaign includes the Los Angeles Apollo Alliance and Green Jobs Campaign to retrofit city-­owned and -­operated buildings. The Apollo Alliance is led by SCOPE (Strategic Concepts in Organ­izing and Policy Education) and includes community-­based organ­izations, ­labor ­unions, and environmental groups. Other examples include Milwaukee’s Me2 initiative to retrofit residential and commercial buildings, and Chicago’s Chicagoland Green Collar Jobs Initiative, founded in 2007 to promote workforce development and employment in green industries (Apollo Alliance and Green for All 2008). This chapter discusses the ­factors that limited ­labor’s capacity to implement a socio-­ecological fix to promote green jobs in New York’s construction industry, particularly in the case of the statewide GJ/GNY program. Among such f­ actors is the inherent tension in the capital–­labor relation along the construction industry’s value chain, including but not limited to the highly fragmented and largely un­regu­la­ted lower rungs of the nonunion residential construction sector, where most of the retrofitting work was expected to take place u ­ nder the GJ/ GNY program. Other ­factors include the frictions between ­labor’s goal of generating higher-­wage jobs and consumers’ affordability limits, along with the tensions that derive from the equity split between property ­owners and renters. Fi­nally, I consider ­factors related to shortcomings in the design of the green jobs strategy that undermined ­labor’s goals of both growing the green economy (ecological fix) and creating employment for underserved communities (social fix). This discussion draws on the author’s own research on the construction industry and u ­ nions ­going back a de­cade, including observations from Figueroa and Grabelsky (2005), Figueroa, Cabrera, and Blair (2012), and Figueroa, Grabelsky, and Lamare (2012). It further draws on interviews of key in­for­mants from ­unions and community organ­izations, statistics from government agencies, and vari­ous reports.

The New York Landscape and the Construction Unions ­ abor strategy and policy approaches to green construction jobs, including retL rofitting jobs, are profoundly ­shaped by the structure of the construction industry and the existing bargaining regime (Weil 2010). This industry is comprised of three major sectors: commercial construction, which includes commercial, industrial, and residential buildings; noncommercial residential construction (single and multifamily); and public works. While the industrial and owner­ship structures of the commercial and public sectors have experienced significant concentration over the last twenty years, the noncommercial residential sector

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remains largely fragmented, with the presence of a large number of very small contractors, high levels of competition largely based on wages, limited access to capital, and high rates of entry and exit (Weil 2010). In the New York metropolitan area, as in most large urban centers, commercial construction is concentrated in the central city (Manhattan), while noncommercial residential proj­ects predominate in the outer boroughs and suburban rings. Union density among construction workers employed by private sector employers in the United States has declined from 39.5 ­percent in 1973 to 14 ­percent in 2014 (U.S. Bureau of L ­ abor Statistics 2014), and is minimal in the noncommercial residential sector. Currently, construction u ­ nions’ density and market share concentrates in public and downtown commercial development proj­ects. Safford and Locke (2001, 9–10) attribute ­these distinct ­union density trends largely to the open shop contractor’s movement, which leveraged urban sprawl during the 1970s and 1980s and “spread from city to city by establishing a foothold in suburban areas and then targeting ­union strongholds in the center cities.” Unions in New York responded primarily with strategies focused on protecting their base in the commercial sector in the central business districts. In addition to the growth of the nonunion sector with large open shop contractors, other trends affecting the ­union base in construction included technological change resulting in the deskilling of the workforce, corporate consolidation leading to an increasingly regional and even international owner­ ship structure, and a significant change in the demographic composition of the workforce, primarily driven by immigration (Grabelsky 2007; Figueroa and Grabelsky 2005). According to the Pew Hispanic Center, an estimated 17 ­percent of the construction workforce is undocumented, representing the largest share in any major industry category in the U.S. economy (Passel and Cohn 2009). High levels of unemployment in the construction industry during the g­ reat recession (hovering around 20 ­percent in 2009) resulted in further challenges for ­unions. All of ­these ­factors have pressured ­unions to emphasize entrepreneurial strategies. Construction ­unions’ intervention in urban politics and policy has focused on job creation, and has been characterized as “po­liti­cal ­unionism” or “po­liti­cal bargaining” by Kwon and Day (2007, 105). According to ­these authors, this approach is top down and often focused on short-­term electoral co­ali­tions, with the implicit agreement that elected officials would support specific development proj­ ects, including publicly supported construction proj­ects such as stadiums. Furthermore, they argue that this strategy has been in­effec­tive in countering capital relocation to nonunion suburban areas, resulting in the unchallenged growth of an “un­regu­la­ted, non-­union, and low-­wage market” in the suburbs (2007, 98).

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In the case of New York, po­liti­cal ­unionism might have reinforced the pattern of high ­union density in the central business district (Manhattan), and low density in the outer boroughs and suburban areas. Construction ­unions’ strategies have often clashed with the interests of communities in the central cities as a result of the growth of a “commuter economy,” which in New York and other cities of the Northeast involves rent inflation and suburbanization, accompanied by high rates of unemployment for central city residents, particularly for minority communities. This commuter economy can lead to misalignments between building trades u ­ nions’ strategies and the goals of community organ­izations and u ­ nions representing public ser­v ices and minority-­dominated occupations in the urban center, as Kwon and Day observe. For instance, minority communities have resisted gentrification or commercial development that might drive up rents or lead to displacement, and minority-­ owned contractors have waged ­legal fights to open up construction work to greater employment of nonwhites and local residents. A f­ actor contributing to t­ hese tensions is the underrepre­sen­ta­tion of eco­nom­ically disadvantaged communities (including immigrant workers) in the membership of building trades u ­ nions across the country. As a result, minority workers, including immigrants, who work in construction are likely to find employment in the noncommercial residential sector, which has not been a strategic priority for building trades ­unions ­because the relatively small proj­ects and contractors in this sector would not make ­union standards eco­nom­ically feasible. The potential for infusing both public and private funds in ­these lower rungs of the residential sector is what made the idea of green construction jobs appealing to ­unions. To address the issue of underrepre­sen­ta­tion of minorities and low-­income populations in their ranks, building trades ­unions have been working with community groups around the country and in New York to incorporate community workforce provisions into proj­ect ­labor agreements (PLAs). Over a hundred PLAs across the United States have incorporated this type of provision, including specific requirements for the hiring of residents of eco­nom­ically disadvantaged communities, p ­ eople of color, w ­ omen, veterans, and the formerly incarcerated (Figueroa, Grabelsky, and Lamare 2012). PLAs with community workforce provisions also involve ele­ments of workforce development and ­career pathways into the building trades, and are increasingly known as community workforce agreements (CWAs). In New York, building trades u ­ nions have opened their training programs to minorities and low-­income communities, with close monitoring by the New York State Department of L ­ abor. Additionally, contracts with the New York City Housing Authority have incorporated community resident hiring provisions.

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Among construction ­unions, LIUNA has historically been at the forefront in terms of or­ga­niz­ing minorities and immigrants. As part of its policy and strategic approach to the increasing presence of immigrants in the residential construction sector in par­tic­u­lar, LIUNA established a formal partnership with the National Day Laborer Organ­izing Network (NDLON) in 2008. Founded in 2001, NDLON is a network of worker centers involving twenty-­nine day-­laborer centers across the United States. To operationalize the partnership, LIUNA offered three dif­fer­ent approaches: worker center charters, whereby an existing worker center would be chartered as a local u ­ nion; worker center affiliated with a local ­union, whereby the two organ­izations would share leadership (worker center leaders would serve as ­union officers), but would preserve their own identities; and a mutually supportive relationship, in which the center and ­union local would not enter into any formal alliance but would support each other’s or­ga­niz­ ing programs (Fine 2011). In the Eastern region, LIUNA established partnerships with NDLON affiliates, forming two new locals, Local 55 in New Jersey and Local 10 in New York. T ­ hese two locals, which merged in 2013 (Barnes 2015), w ­ ere established for the purpose of or­ga­niz­ing in the residential sector, especially retrofitting work. As discussed above, the structure of the construction industry involves segmented markets (residential, commercial, and public works), and, similar to the arts and entertainment industry (see Figueroa and Gray, this volume), its production system involves networks of contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers who come together for a defined period of time to undertake par­tic­u­lar proj­ects. Like the arts and entertainment ­unions, construction ­unions are or­ga­nized along craft lines, with the difference that construction ­unions run hiring halls. By so ­doing, construction u ­ nions have played the role of l­abor market intermediaries in their highly fragmented and segmented industry. Based on the expectation that federal funding would boost job creation in weatherization proj­ects, ­unions representing occupations related to this sector positioned themselves to capture employment in the emerging market. The federal Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) was created in the 1970s, but employers ­doing work ­under this program w ­ ere exempt from paying prevailing wages. U ­ nder the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) program, weatherization received special funding directed at low-­income homeowners (­those earning 60 ­percent of a city’s median income). Total funding for the program tripled and for the first time was made subject to prevailing wages. Obama’s stimulus funds ­were seen as an opportunity for u ­ nions (and LIUNA in par­tic­u­lar) to expand ­union membership in noncommercial residential construction. In the commercial construction sector, federal incentives, such as tax credits and loan guarantees, could alone generate more than 160,000 new jobs in the ret-

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rofitting of buildings, according to the U.S. Green Building Council. Employment impacts of state and local incentives as well as of private investment ­were expected to surpass t­ hose of the federal incentives (U.S. Green Building Council et al. 2011). Industry observers estimated that the new program would exert considerable pressure on the existing capacity in the industry. Around the time of the ARRA enactment, 45,000 certified providers carried out about 200,000 retrofits per year. The consulting firm McKinsey and Com­pany estimated that full efficiency would require retrofitting 70 million homes in the United States over a ten-­year period, and engaging 1.5 million individual certified contractors (Weil 2010). Around 2005, LIUNA began focusing on the residential market nationally, in view of the low and declining ­union market share and density in that sector. On the East Coast, t­ hese efforts involved the Laborers’ Eastern Region Organ­izing Fund (LEROF), which had been founded in 1997 ­under the leadership of LIUNA’s vice president and Eastern regional man­ag­er Raymond Pocino. LEROF worked with local ­unions in Delaware, New Jersey, New York City, and Long Island to implement residential or­ga­niz­ing campaigns, deploying a team of organizers and researchers in the region. LIUNA advocated for the application of prevailing wages in all work funded with ARRA monies, and sought employment opportunities in retrofitting work (especially weatherization) for its members in the Eastern region and across the country. At the national level, LIUNA was able to gain ground in weatherization work by obtaining a card check agreement with Conservation Ser­vices Group, which performs about half a million home energy assessments per year for utilities and energy efficiency organ­izations in the United States. In New Jersey, u ­ nion strategists had estimated that the federally funded weatherization program would generate $200 million in weatherization work statewide, and believed that LIUNA was “well positioned” to capture this work ­because it “had the infrastructure, resources, and reach” to implement program activities in the city of Newark (New Jersey) and statewide (Fine 2011, 129). Thus, following the implementation of a pi­lot weatherization campaign in Newark, LIUNA set out to invest in a statewide campaign. Similarly in New York, LIUNA actively campaigned for the passage of the Green Jobs/Green New York law and established the infrastructure for training and or­ga­niz­ing workers. Clearly, ARRA’s funding for weatherization proj­ects had raised expectations among a range of stakeholders, including u ­ nions, communities, and firms. As Weil noted, it would have been naïve to believe that ­unions ­were alone in anticipating huge gains from weatherization (Weil 2010). The next section discusses how the structures of both the construction industry and the ­unions influenced the efforts to promote green construction jobs in New York.

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Retrofitting in New York: A Tale of Two Programs The spatial structure of the New York metropolitan area and of New York State provides the context for understanding u ­ nions’ involvement in the initiatives Green Jobs/Green New York (GJ/GNY) and PlaNYC (recently renamed One City Built to Last) to promote green construction jobs in the state and in New York City, respectively. Both initiatives ­were launched to provide needed economic stimulus and propel the state and city out of the ­great recession of 2008, as well as to address the growing challenge of climate change. LIUNA joined other building and construction trades ­unions to seize growth opportunities offered through PlaNYC in commercial building retrofitting, but mainly focused its efforts on forging and implementing the statewide initiative GJ/GNY to work on its own orga­nizational priority of ­unionizing the residential construction sector.

Green Jobs/Green New York The Green Jobs/Green New York (GJ/GNY) Act was signed into law in October of 2009 by then New York Governor David Patterson. This state program relied on federal recovery (ARRA) funds, but it was also supported with a range of financial mechanisms. The GJ/GNY law developed from a policy blueprint that the community–­labor co­ali­tion Green Jobs/Green Homes NY put forward with assistance from the progressive think tank Center for Working Families (CWF). The signing of the law was the result of a two-­year effort by the Green Jobs/Green Homes co­ali­tion, which involved more than two hundred groups as well as the leadership of CWF, LIUNA, the New York Apollo Alliance, and the Working Families Party. The co­ali­tion included groups with a long tradition in community or­ga­niz­ing and environmental justice. For instance, the Northwest Bronx Community Clergy Co­ali­tion (NBCCC) was founded during the 1970s, when city government intervened and worked with religious organ­izations to preserve affordable housing in the Bronx. Of the five boroughs that make up New York City, the Bronx f­ aces a disproportionate share of social issues and has confronted severe environmental challenges, including the concentration of incinerators and transfer stations, as well as one of the heaviest commercial traffic volumes in the city (interview with Taleigh Smith, executive director, Northwest Bronx Community Clergy Co­ali­tion). When the possibility arose of achieving a law to promote retrofitting jobs, leaders from low-­income and underserved communities from across New York City and the state seized what they believed was a perfect opportunity to create jobs and improve living conditions for their constituents. Through the Green Jobs/

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Green Homes NY campaign, t­ hese groups succeeded in including local employment provisions in the GJ/GNY law. In their joint campaign effort, ­unions and community-­based organ­izations shared the common goals of local job creation and the upgrading of housing. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) was charged with the administration of the GJ/GNY program, which set for itself the ambitious goals of retrofitting one million homes in five years, and the creation of 14,250 permanent jobs (approximately 60,000 jobs over a five-­year period). By making residential units and small business establishments energy efficient, the program was expected to reduce fossil fuel emissions by the equivalent of 617,000 cars. Another ecological benefit would involve the elimination of the need to site new power plants. Savings for individual ­house­holds would amount to an average of 30 to 40 ­percent of energy consumption (or approximately $1,000 per year). The GJ/GNY program established an advisory council, which includes representatives from state government agencies, community-­based organ­izations, the Center for Working Families, and u ­ nions (Ser­vice Employees International Union [SEIU], and LIUNA). In addition to NYSERDA, the program enlisted vari­ous public and private entities. Utility companies and the Public Ser­v ice Commissions w ­ ere given the role of capturing and regulating the flow of savings originating from retrofitting. The banks would provide upfront investment funds. Community or constituency-­ based organ­izations (CBOs), working with their own networks of contractors, would be the main ser­v ice providers. Fi­nally, the u ­ nions and a certifying entity ­were put in charge of regulating and implementing workforce development programs. Since the program’s inception, the private nonprofit Building Per­for­mance Institute (BPI) has assumed the role of certifying entity, developing regulations for weatherization work and training, and providing the accreditation of the training and contractors. LIUNA upgraded its training curriculum and achieved BPI certification to do the technical training for the program. To recruit trainees from New York’s target communities, LIUNA Local 10 entered into alliances with constituent-­based organ­izations, including NBCCC, La Fuente, and Make the Road-­NY. The financial sector has played a key role in both the state’s Green Jobs/Green NY and the city’s PlaNYC, as t­ hese programs require upfront financing for home and property o ­ wners to advance the payment for the retrofitting work. In the case of GJ/GNY, this financing is provided by a revolving loan fund, the Residential Retrofit Investment Fund (RRIF). RRIF is supported with relatively small state resources, ARRA funds, and private lending capital, which contributes the largest share. Seed funding for RRIF was provided in the amount of $112 million by the

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Regional Green­house Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon cap-­and-­trade auction program of nine Northeast and Mid-­Atlantic states. ­Under RGGI, states sell emission allowances through auctions and invest the proceeds in consumer energy efficiency programs such as GJ/GNY. The New York State legislature passed the Power NY Act in 2011 to establish on-­bill financing or recovery of the retrofitting costs, enabling homeowners to obtain retrofitting ser­vices at no upfront cost and pay back loans through energy bill savings. ­Under this arrangement, 80 ­percent of the energy savings originating from retrofitting mea­sures pays for the costs of the work and program, and 20 ­percent stays with the consumer as savings. In 2014, the program expanded to finance the installation of solar electric systems. The pro­cess for implementing the program begins with the nonprofit provider (CBO) marketing the ser­vices in the communities. When a consumer is interested, the provider arranges a f­ree audit of the h ­ ouse­hold to identify needed changes. Subsequently, the provider contacts a contractor to perform the work. As of June 2015, the programs comprising GJ/GNY had completed 75,400 audits in the residential sector, of which 32 ­percent resulted in ­actual retrofitting proj­ects throughout the state. According to NYSERDA, GJ/GNY’s conversion rates from audits to ­actual proj­ects are “very good” in comparison to the historic per­for­ mance of f­ ree assessment programs nationally. But it also notes that not all contracted work resulting from GJ/GNY audits is performed through NYSERDA programs, as some consumers do the improvements themselves or hire nonparticipating contractors (NYSERDA 2015, S-12). LIUNA developed a range of efforts to capture the work that the federal funding and the new state and local regulations w ­ ere initially expected to generate in New York and nationally. Among such initiatives was the creation of the OptiHome alliance, which brought together skilled workers (trained by the ­union skills program) and certified contractors who do retrofitting work. This alliance operated in five states, including New York. In 2011 LIUNA established Local 58 in Albany, New York, to train and or­ga­nize workers in the retrofitting industry. Local 58 worked with the Eastern New York Laborers Training Center and a nonprofit or­ga­ni­za­tion transitioning eco­nom­ically and socially disadvantaged individuals into the workforce, and trained new members who would be earning living wages (then $14 per hour) working for local area contractors (Nearing 2012). In New York City, LIUNA Local 10 signed a collective bargaining agreement with Community Environmental Center (CEC), the largest residential weatherization contractor in the city, and trained workers hired by that com­pany. Other notable ­labor–­community alliances beyond New York City included a partnership between Green Homes of Babylon and the Long Island Progressive Co­ali­tion, as well as efforts in Buffalo and Syracuse.

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For LIUNA, retrofitting noncommercial residential units represented a growth opportunity. But it required an additional effort in terms of obtaining wage improvements ­because GJ/GNY is only partially supported with federal funds, which limits the application of prevailing wages. Additionally, the work is performed on private properties by private-­sector contractors. Therefore, New York’s prevailing wage law does not apply ­either. This compelled LIUNA Local 10 and the New York Apollo Alliance to work with NYSERDA to incorporate l­ abor standards in the implementation of GJ/GNY. ­Because the program aimed at serving low-­ and moderate-­income housing, the payment of ­union wage scales was not feasible. Nevertheless, LIUNA was able to negotiate with contractors for rates of $17 or $18 per hour. This tension involves both ­labor standards and consumer affordability issues, and arises in other areas of construction activity, especially in affordable housing, in which the goal is for public subsidies to close the affordability gap for consumers. The issue for ­labor is to maintain standards. As in the case of affordable housing development, retrofitting proj­ects in New York State and New York City are undertaken by private-­sector contractors, who are required to pay prevailing wages only if they receive federal funds ­under a number of programs (e.g., Community Development Block Grants). The decrease in federal funding for affordable housing over the last twenty years, together with the increased use of indirect subsidies such as tax credits and the sale of tax-­exempt bonds, have further contributed to lowering construction workers’ wages and standards in the residential sector. So, though public funding for affordable housing in New York State and New York City amounted to about $19.2 billion (between 2006 and 2010), the link between t­hese funding streams and ­labor standards has consistently faded (Figueroa, Cabrera, and Blair 2012). This raises a red flag for ­unions trying to enforce prevailing wages in retrofitting proj­ects, not only in New York but nationally. In ­doing retrofitting work u ­ nder GJ/GNY, contractors found that the program offered a con­ve­nient formula to pay prevailing wages only to ­union workers. According to LIUNA Local 10’s former business man­ag­er Byron Silva, “as proj­ects ended and the grant money ran out, contractors d ­ idn’t have to pay prevailing wages to their permanent employees” (Silva interview). In other words, if the grant amount was not sufficient to cover the total cost of the proj­ect, or for any work needed ­after proj­ect completion (e.g., maintenance), only u ­ nion workers would receive prevailing wages, not necessarily the contractors’ permanent employees. Employment and standard upgrading outcomes ­under this program have been lackluster across the state and for the overall residential construction sector, although hourly wages ranged from $12.50 to $50 for ­those who ­were able to obtain employment in retrofitting proj­ects. By early 2013, the program had created

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213 new and retained full-­time-­equivalent work opportunities, with forty-­five of ­these opportunities in disadvantaged communities. NYSERDA projected a total of 1,069 of new and retained FTEs by 2015, with 171 of ­these located in disadvantaged communities (NYSERDA 2015). Unlike the New York City program PlaNYC, GJ/GNY did not include a program component focused on public properties. This exclusion of public properties, which might be explained by the fact that the impetus for both the New Jersey and New York retrofitting programs originated from the increased federal support for low-­income weatherization programs through ARRA funds, significantly limited the application of prevailing wages and other ­labor standards.

PlaNYC New York City’s green building initiatives began in the late 1990s with the construction of the first green skyscraper. In 2005, New York City passed its first local law (LL86), which required that new city-­owned buildings and renovations meet certain specified energy savings and environmental design standards (LEED). This local ordinance, together with the LEED standards, set the stage for the launching of PlaNYC, a comprehensive initiative to address citywide environmental issues and the challenges posed by the anticipated growth in population of one million new residents by 2030 (Tatum 2013). In 2007, then Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched PlaNYC, which involved 127 initiatives, ranging from retrofitting buildings and reducing waste to planting trees, with the goal of reducing carbon emissions by 30 ­percent by the year 2030. The current administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio expanded the emission reduction goals to 80 ­percent reduction by 2050. In 2009, the city government placed a major emphasis on retrofitting by introducing four new laws, mostly targeting larger buildings in the range of 50,000 square feet and up, requiring higher frequency of renovation, upgrading, and annual reporting. T ­ hese new regulations largely target commercial buildings, which generate 21 ­percent of the city’s emissions (Tatum 2013). ­Labor organ­izations played an advisory role in the development of the plan through their involvement in the Apollo Alliance and Urban Agenda (Apollo Alliance and Green for All 2008). Retrofitting in the commercial real estate (CRE) sector raised significant expectations among policymakers and the private sector at both the local and national levels in terms of its potential to generate cost savings, reach environmental goals, and create much-­needed employment opportunities ­after the ­great recession of 2008–2009. For private investors and property ­owners it also provided an opportunity to enjoy benefits such as tax abatements and even expedited permits (National Employment Law Proj­ect 2012). ­Because of its concen-

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tration of owner­ship and management, the CRE industry offers the advantages of a large environmental impact and economies of scale. However, as in the case of small residential ­owners, the investment in retrofitting requires upfront costs with deferred benefits (savings or returns). This provided the impetus for public incentives and financial mechanisms (e.g., loans repaid with f­uture energy savings), which w ­ ere facilitated by local government, public utilities, and private financial institutions. PlaNYC gave a prominent role to the private sector, while also providing employment and workforce development opportunities for construction and building ser­v ice ­unions. Initial funding for the plan came from $16 million of federal stimulus funding, and the city’s planned total investment of $1 billion over a period of ten years. In terms of outcomes, the program’s success has stemmed largely from the implementation of retrofitting proj­ects in public properties, and in universities and hospitals that voluntarily agreed to implement needed retrofitting mea­sures. To date, the private sector (CRE) has been less than responsive in implementing retrofitting proj­ects (de Blasio 2015). In addition to LIUNA, ­unions whose members do work related to retrofitting in public and commercial properties include ­those representing carpenters, operating engineers, electricians, and building ser­ vice and maintenance. ­These ­unions seized the perceived opportunity to create new and/or upgrade current jobs for their members. The Ser­v ice Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ, the ­union representing building ser­ vice workers, launched the 1,000 Superintendents program to train building superintendents in energy efficiency mea­sures and to create a ­career ladder for members. This ­union also partnered with the ­union of operating engineers (IUOE), LIUNA, and NYSERDA to offer joint seminars in energy efficiency and w ­ ater use reduction. More recently, the city’s District Council of Carpenters signed a historic new contract with Brookfield Properties, one of the largest commercial real estate developers in the United States, guaranteeing jobs for ­union carpenters for the next twenty years. Brookfield agreed to u ­ nionize its entire portfolio in New York City, covering all new construction and all interior retrofitting work. In its original format, the city’s policy proposal to retrofit commercial buildings seemed to provide ample opportunities for a joint capital–­labor socio-­ ecological fix, as it would have generated not only employment for workers, but also cost savings for the real estate industry and returns for investors, in an apparent win-­win. However, mandatory retrofits to address issues identified by energy audits ­were dropped from the proposal that passed in 2009, due to opposition from commercial real estate o ­ wners, who claimed that this mandate was not eco­nom­ically ­v iable for the industry, particularly in a recessionary environment. As a result of t­ hese pressures, the final plan kept the mandatory auditing

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of commercial buildings of 50,000 square feet or more, but rescinded the mandatory retrofits. According to the builders’ association, dropping this initiative significantly undermined the potential of the entire plan to generate employment for construction workers. Key ­factors driving the ­owners’ opposition ­were the time lag for recouping investment, the equity split between ­owners and tenants, limited financing available from the government, and low expectations about the financial benefits from investing in retrofitting (Navarro 2009). Though the building trades may be considered part of the “growth regime” in the city, this concession to real estate interests underlines the need for ­unions to increase their influence and leadership in policymaking. In this case, l­abor’s socio-­ecological fix came up against the limits of the power of the real estate industry.

Discussion of LIUNA’s Strategy In designing its strategic approach to or­ga­niz­ing green jobs in New York, LIUNA built on its previous experience in or­ga­niz­ing workers in environment-­related industries, in or­ga­niz­ing immigrant workers, and in forming and participating in alliances with community organ­izations and other stakeholders. In the mid-1990s, the ­union undertook a successful industrywide or­ga­niz­ing campaign in the asbestos removal sector in New York. This campaign involved a predominantly new immigrant workforce from Latin Amer­i­ca and Poland. LIUNA’s or­ga­niz­ing campaigns in the poultry industry in the South also involved recent immigrants from Latin Amer­i­ca. In New York, LIUNA applied an or­ga­niz­ing model that closely resembled the model implemented in weatherization or­ga­niz­ing in New Jersey, but with greater emphasis on partnering with CBOs, which would function as program ser­v ice providers for the direct consumers (i.e., the property o ­ wners). The overarching goal was the same as the campaign run in collaboration with a local affiliate of the Partnership for Working Families in Newark: address the impact of climate change, and create good jobs and paths to entry into ­those jobs for low-­income ­people who have traditionally been excluded from the building trades (Fine 2011). The key ele­ments of the strategy included: (1) the formation of new locals and establishment of special rate agreements; (2) partnerships with worker centers for outreach to the target workforce; (3) partnerships with program ser­v ice providers (constituent-­based organ­izations or CBOs), which hire from their network of contractors and do the outreach to consumers (homeowners); and (4) workforce development in partnership with CBOs to ensure entry of community residents into the ­unionized workforce.

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Formation of New Locals in Partnership with Worker Centers Based on an analy­sis of the demographic composition of the workforce, LIUNA determined that the workforce in the residential sector (where most retrofitting work would take place) was predominantly immigrant and recently arrived from Latin Amer­i­ca. Previous LIUNA efforts to or­ga­nize the residential construction industry in the Southwest also involved an overwhelmingly immigrant and Latino workforce. To prevent a potential cultural clash and re­sis­tance on the part of its current members, LIUNA deci­ded to run the or­ga­niz­ing campaign “entirely outside of the traditional [­union] structure,” without involving any of the locals in the areas of interest, and set up new u ­ nion locals to represent the newly or­ga­ nized residential construction members (Fine and Holgate 2014, 138). As Fine and Holgate argue when discussing u ­ nions’ integration of immigrant workers in their ranks, “[the] dialectics is that at the very time ­labor ­unions are most wanted and needed they are also faced with extraordinary attacks and are naturally being pulled by their members to focus inward rather than outward” (Fine and Holgate 2014). To accommodate the newly or­ga­nized members in the retrofitting industry, LIUNA formed two new locals in partnership with NDLON: Local 55 in New Jersey and Local 10 in New York. As mentioned above, ­LIUNA and NDLON shared the leadership of both locals, which eventually merged in 2013.

Partnerships with CBOs for Contractor and Consumer Outreach As in the New Jersey campaign, LIUNA established partnerships in New York with program providers (CBOs), which received the state funding and hired contractors to perform the work. This type of partnership had yielded mixed results in New Jersey and Delaware. According to LIUNA, CBOs in New Jersey did not comply with the terms of the partnership and operated on their own without notifying the ­union. In New York, the Department of L ­ abor identified providers and contractors to participate in the program by means of a survey. According to both community activists and the u ­ nion, the pool of providers and contractors in New York City has been mixed, including contractors with excellent l­ abor relations practices and pay levels exceeding prevailing wages, as well as some disappointing cases involving corruption, safety and health violations, issues of racial discrimination, and proj­ects left unfinished (interview with Byron Silva, former business man­ag­er, LIUNA Local 10).

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­Because of the limited job impacts, LIUNA and progressive CBOs are evaluating the pro­cess that is in place for the recruitment of contractors. For CBOs like NBCCC, this program has offered the opportunity to expand its own network of contractors and form an association, which currently includes twenty-­five members. But very few of ­these contractors have achieved certification ­under the GJ/ GNY program. As in New Jersey, an impor­tant challenge for the New York program has been the lack of incentives for homeowners to pay for energy-­saving systems that would be enjoyed or received by the tenants (Fine 2011). This issue highlights the need for a redesign of the program to include more effective financing and marketing mechanisms. In New York, some CBOs even had to resort to pressure tactics such as the threat of l­egal action to get property o ­ wners to address building code violations and implement improvements. CBOs would gather information about the violations and approach building man­ag­ers to advise them that they could face large fines if they did not resolve the violations, and encourage them to join the program.

Workforce Development Both NDLON and LIUNA agreed that they faced a dilemma in terms of where to focus their efforts: “job creation or training workers for ­future jobs.” They opted for the latter, and worked with the CBOs to train community residents (interviews with Nadia Marin-­Molina, former regional director, NDLON, and Byron Silva). Their community partner NBCCC created a weatherization training program for local residents. “LIUNA brought in the training resources. Prior to this collaboration, ­there ­were not a lot of good employees and contractors who could do weatherization,” said Taleigh Smith of NBCCC (Smith interview). The NBCCC created the Bronx Green Jobs Roundtable specifically for the GJ/GNY program and to bring together community residents, contractors, and other stakeholders. The roundtable has since been meeting monthly. In Taleigh Smith’s view, LIUNA’s role in workforce development has been one of the most positive outcomes resulting from the alliances with CBOs. “­These alliances created workforce and economic development outcomes that are not being mea­sured by any government evaluation,” she said. ­Under one such alliance, LIUNA conducted training in collaboration with the Osborne Association, an or­ga­ni­za­tion that provides ser­v ices to formerly incarcerated individuals. All in all, the ­union has trained more than three hundred individuals through its alliances with CBOs ­under the GJ/GNY program.

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Assessment and Lessons Learned As the retrofitting program in New Jersey has relied largely on dwindling federal funds ­under the weatherization assistance program (WAP), and in light of disappointing ­union outcomes in weatherization or­ga­niz­ing in that state, LIUNA shifted resources and efforts to focus on the Green Jobs/Green New York campaign. ­After the merger between Local 10 and Local 55, LIUNA continued its focus on green jobs or­ga­niz­ing, intensifying efforts in Long Island. New jobs ­were created, particularly as a result of retrofitting proj­ects implemented in the New York City suburbs, but ­there was ­little job creation in New York City ­under the GJ/GNY program (NYSERDA 2013, 2015). At least four ­factors have worked against job creation ­under this program. One has to do with the nature of retrofitting work, which in large part involves switching practices rather than creating new work. Second, the owner­ship structure of the New York City housing market, in par­tic­u­lar the so-­called “equity split” between property o ­ wners and tenants, discourages participation. This ­factor explains why GJ/GNY has been more successful in suburban Long Island, which has a larger proportion of owner-­occupied properties, than in New York City. With the exception of Staten Island, the percentage of owner-­occupied units in New York City is well below the state average of 55 ­percent. The Bronx has only about 21 ­percent owner-­occupied housing units, while the Long Island counties of Suffolk and Nassau have 82 and 81 ­percent, respectively (U.S. Census Bureau n.d.). This is why Stephan Edel of the Center for Working Families argues that more emphasis on engaging tenant organ­izations is needed to recruit consumers for GJ/GNY in New York City (Edel interview). Third, co­ali­tion activists assert that the pro­cess designed to distribute the program funds might result in a diversion of funds from beneficiaries to cover the nonprofits’ overhead, which can be significant. Grants are provided to homeowners or renters in the amount of $6,500 per unit for retrofitting work. Since the funds for the individual grants are distributed through the providers, 50 ­percent of the individual grant goes to pay for the administrative costs of the provider. Fi­nally, the foreclosure crisis of 2008 further depressed demand for the program ser­v ices in the noncommercial residential sector. From the CBOs’ perspective, Taleigh Smith of NBCCC drew key lessons for blue–­green co­ali­tions. In her view, ­future efforts should aim for green jobs programs in a broader range of sectors, and not be limited to one specific sector such as retrofitting residential units. Additionally, f­uture programs should require accountability from government agencies, not just from community-­based organ­ izations, and should seek to implement innovative approaches such as the alliance between LIUNA and the Osborne Association (for workforce and job

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development of disadvantaged individuals). Smith also stressed the need for “shapers of the law” to “work on the implementation of the program.” In the case of GJ/GNY, many community organizers who had worked on the legislative blueprint transitioned out of the program during its implementation. Looking ahead, CBOs are considering expanding into other pos­si­ble areas such as oil transition, using biodiesel. NBCCC is also working with the churches (as opposed to individual homeowners) for the transition to biodiesel technology. Positive GJ/ GNY outcomes identified by NBCCC included the ability to build a relationship with NYSERDA, the administering agency; enabling NBCCC to function as a watchdog in the use of carbon-­trading market funds; and the formation of the statewide co­ali­tion of ­labor and CBOs, which provided the opportunity for downstate and upstate groups to come together and learn from each other’s experiences in the pro­cess. The main ­factor limiting ­unionization ­under the GJ/GNY campaign has been the highly fragmented structure of the noncommercial residential sector, with a highly un­regu­la­ted ­labor market and a high propensity on the part of employers to “fissure” employment relations through subcontracting (Weil 2010). By contrast, the commercial construction and building ser­v ice sector in Manhattan involves a much more concentrated structure of both developers and property man­ag­ers, albeit with greater power to influence city politics. This explains why ­union outcomes ­were more successful ­under the PlaNYC. The ­union’s or­ga­niz­ing strategy did not yield the expected results b ­ ecause it underestimated the challenges that the highly fragmented and volatile structure of residential construction poses on ­unionization and enforcement of ­labor standards. The strategy also needed more effective mechanisms to reach the highly differentiated market of property ­owners and renters in the noncommercial residential sector. Fi­nally, the immigrant worker recruitment mechanisms established in partnership with NDLON ­were in contradiction to the workforce development objective of providing an entry and ­career path for community residents in the u ­ nionized construction industry. T ­ hese are two distinct workforces, one involving disadvantaged communities that have been historically excluded from the building trades u ­ nions, and the other involving recent immigrants, whose main barrier to good jobs in the u ­ nionized construction industry is related to immigration status and policies (in addition to discrimination). This was an issue that arose in New Jersey (Fine 2011), and has been a f­actor in New York City boroughs. As Nadia Marin-­Molina observed, “retrofitting is not a high priority for worker centers ­because day laborers ­don’t do that work” (interview with Nadia Marin-­Molina), and their immigration status often becomes a barrier for joining workforce development programs.

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Conclusions As in the case discussed by Nugent, the co­ali­tion for green jobs in New York attempted an ecological fix consisting in reducing emissions from residential units, as well as a social fix consisting in the creation of quality jobs for disadvantaged communities. However, ­labor’s socio-­ecological fix in this case faced substantial challenges related to the inherent limitation of green construction jobs as a job-­creation policy, the structure of the noncommercial sector of the residential construction industry, the complex public–­private structures that ­were put together to deliver program ser­v ices to a highly differentiated consumer market, and a ­labor market segmented along the lines of occupation, race, and immigration status, which required more targeted workforce development and recruitment mechanisms than t­hose established by the u ­ nions. ­These ­factors limited the effectiveness of the policies in terms of both job creation and ­union outcomes. Both the statewide GJ/GNY program for residential retrofitting and the city-­ centered PlaNYC ­were limited in their job generation potential b ­ ecause retrofitting programs primarily consist of redesigning existing facilities. This is particularly the case for retrofitting work in the construction industry and in building ser­vices, where the new work primarily entails new skills, not higher employment levels. This shortcoming has impor­tant implications for the design of green job initiatives that aim at generating new employment opportunities. Another ­factor limiting the employment of the GJ/GNY program in par­tic­u­lar derived from flaws in the design of the marketing and financing mechanisms. ­These did not include sufficient incentives to encourage program participation by o ­ wners, and diverted financial resources from job creation to pay for the administrative costs of a complex network of providers. In the case of PlaNYC, the rescission of a mandatory retrofitting ele­ment in the program significantly undermined job creation. In both cases, the equity split between o ­ wners and renters further contributed to the lack of participation, since ­owners are not always able to pass costs on to renters, and hence investment in retrofitting largely results in renters’ savings with no immediate benefits for ­owners. This ­factor was reflected in higher GJ/GNY program success in suburban areas, where owner­ship and owner-­occupied property rates are higher than in New York City. As the foreclosure crisis of 2008 reduced the number of owner-­occupied units, it also depressed participation in the program. One of the most impor­tant barriers to the success of the u ­ nion strategy in the GJ/GNY program lay in the structure of the residential construction industry, particularly its high fragmentation at the lower levels of the value chain, where multiple employers compete on the basis of low l­ abor costs. This environment f­ avors noncompliance with ­labor laws and the spread of precarious working conditions,

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posing critical challenges to raising standards and ­unionizing the new work. Adding to this challenge is the weak link between public subsidies and l­abor standards. Public subsidies and incentives for development and remodeling proj­ects in general, including retrofitting, need to be tied to the application of prevailing wages and enforcement of ­labor laws, and to community workforce provisions (Figueroa, Cabrera, and Blair 2012). But the complexity of the financing mechanisms for the retrofitting programs (with a mix of public and private funding streams) further undermined ­unions’ ability to establish this linkage. ­Here again the design of the programs undermined ­union outcomes. The implication for ­union strategy involves the need for ­unions to play a driving role in policy formation to ensure that ­labor standards and or­ga­niz­ing goals are achieved. The challenge posed by the highly segmented and racialized nature of the ­labor market and workforce in residential construction emerged in the contradiction between the GJ/GNY campaign’s goal of providing c­ areer pathways for communities of color that have been historically excluded from the building trades, and the partnership with worker centers, which focus on or­ga­niz­ing immigrant day laborers. The ­union (LIUNA) was trying to achieve employment opportunities for two dif­fer­ent populations, each facing its own specific set of barriers to ­unionized construction jobs. For historically excluded communities of color, the main barriers have been social and economic disadvantages related to racial discrimination, while for new immigrant workers the main barriers relate to immigration status and policy. In evaluating u ­ nion strategies in community alliances and immigrant or­ga­niz­ing, Fine and Holgate (2014) observe that in addition to new broader-­reaching models, ­labor needs to regain its “ability to proj­ect itself as standing for the ­whole.” The cases examined in this chapter indicate that LIUNA has taken steps in the right direction to stand for the ­whole, as it has embraced the goals of targeted employment creation for communities of color and or­ga­niz­ing of new immigrants. But the implementation of the ­union’s entrepreneurial strategy around green construction jobs revealed a mismatch between ­these two broader goals, first in New Jersey and then in New York City. The contradiction is brought about mainly by existing immigration and ­labor laws that no longer fit the realities of the construction workforce and l­abor market. This contradiction calls for an even more comprehensive approach in the design of ­labor entrepreneurial strategies to incorporate ele­ments of ­legal reform (at least at the local level) that would open u ­ nionized ­career opportunities to minorities, including new immigrants. It also reveals the need for ­unions to promote participatory forms of civic repre­sen­ta­tion for new immigrants to create accountability for public agencies in relation to this population. Developing more effective and sustainable socio-­ecological solutions requires that ­unions base their strategies on a sound analy­sis of the workforce to avoid

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the type of mismatch between or­ga­niz­ing targets and community employment goals discussed above. The ­labor strategies advanced in the case of New York retrofitting programs represent a significant departure from the traditional “po­ liti­cal ­unionism” or “po­liti­cal bargaining” that has characterized construction ­unions’ intervention in urban politics and policymaking (Kwon and Day 2007). Nonetheless, more effort is needed for both u ­ nions and community organ­izations to use their po­liti­cal connections to achieve a more proactive and influential role in policy formation in general, emphasizing high-­impact programs that would help achieve broad and inclusive economic development goals. Most importantly, and as recommended by Weil (2010) at the onset of federal stimulus funding for weatherization programs, key stakeholders (including ­unions) need to deepen their analy­sis of the forces that w ­ ill shape business models in the new markets. And during the policy design negotiations, ­unions should intentionally “try to shape the industrial relations systems” that w ­ ill emerge in such markets. Some concrete recommendations include increased emphasis on the formation of contractor associations and certification pro­cesses in new markets, simplified marketing and financing mechanisms with fewer administrative layers, and increased transparency of funding streams. T ­ hese mea­sures could help achieve better employment outcomes through increased program participation, and could strengthen the link between public subsidies and compliance with l­ abor laws, thereby contributing to economic growth that is both ecologically sound and equitable.

6 STRUGGLING FOR GOOD GREEN JOBS IN TORONTO’S DEINDUSTRIALIZING SUBURBS James Nugent

In Canada and the United States, alliances between ­labor, community, and environmental organ­izations have emerged from a failure of postindustrialism to meet both its socioeconomic and its environmental promises. On the one hand, deindustrialization has not prevented the rise of green­house gases. In Canada, emissions grew steadily between 1990 and 2007, leaving the country 31.5 ­percent above its obligations ­under the Kyoto Protocol by 2008 (Environment Canada 2013).1 Meanwhile, industrial restructuring has eliminated 300,000 manufacturing jobs—­ many of which w ­ ere unionized—in the de­cade leading up to the recent global recession.2 In Toronto, manufacturing represented only 9.6 ­percent of the city’s employment in 2012, down from 22 ­percent in 1983 (City of Toronto 2004; 2013a). This has worsened income in­equality, which now sits at historic levels and is felt especially hard by ­women and racialized communities (OECD 2011; Stapleton, Murphy, and Xing 2012). The loss of manufacturing jobs followed f­ree trade agreements and the introduction of ­labor-­saving technologies (intensified through recessions of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s). But industrial decline and a shift to a service-­based economy have also depended on the planned, strategic conversion of urban industrial employment districts into retail and residential developments. Some ­unions have responded to this transformation of urban space and the need for ­union renewal by trying to ­unionize the growing ser­v ice sector (Tufts 1998; Johns and Vural 2000; Walsh 2000), while other ­unions in Canada and the United States are forming strategic civil society partnerships at local to transnational scales to fight for the protection of ­unionized manufacturing jobs (Turner 146

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2006; Tattersall 2005). Through the formation of co­ali­tions, or­ga­nized ­labor has been an active participant in shaping the social, economic, and physical landscape of cities, what Herod (2001) calls “­labor’s spatial fix.” L ­ abor-­community co­ali­ tions have influenced land use planning decisions and won community benefits agreements with land developers while new regional ­labor-­capital partnerships have tried to attract capital into par­tic­u­lar areas (Tufts 1998; 2008; Herod 2001; Gross 2005; Whalen 2010). In the mid-2000s, ­unions and environmental organ­izations formed national co­ali­tions that drew together concerns around the loss of manufacturing jobs with growing concerns around climate change. The Blue-­Green Alliance in the United States and Blue-­Green Canada have argued for a “Green New Deal” that would create “green jobs” in the manufacturing sector through investments in renewable energy (Nugent 2009; 2011; Snell and Fairbrother 2010). T ­ hese national co­ ali­tions supported a movement by governments ­toward what Hess (2012) calls a “developmentalist” green industrial policy—­that is, a response to global competition in green industries (e.g., the renewable energy sector) that “attempts to nail global capital in place to obtain local benefit [through] [t]rade restrictions, trade complaints, domestic-­content provisions, local procurement preferences, domestic subsidies, regulations tilted against foreign competition, and currency devaluation” (9). Rather than examine ways that high-­profile ­labor–­environmental co­ali­tions like the Blue-­Green Alliance or Blue-­Green Canada produce the green economy through contributing to national policy discourses and legislative change, this chapter discusses an attempt by a l­abor–­community co­ali­tion to ground the green economy in concrete ways at the neighborhood scale. In adopting Massey’s (1995) assertion that “the geography of industry is an object of strug­gle” (7) that can only be explained by analyzing par­tic­u­lar places, I focus on a strug­gle around the redevelopment of a brownfield site in Toronto’s Mount Dennis neighborhood to highlight the concrete conditions and strug­gle through which the green economy is produced and the resulting form that green manufacturing may take. I use the term “­labor’s socio-­ecological fix” to refer specifically to l­ abor’s strategic efforts at spatially grounding green capital onto the landscape in order to create jobs, achieve social justice, and address environmental prob­lems. Neighborhoods lying in Toronto’s rust b ­ elt, such as Mount Dennis, experience industrial decline in the form of poverty and the deterioration of the urban environment: overgrown baseball diamonds, the neglect of main streets and former industrial buildings, illegal dumping of garbage in ravines, and street crime. Responding to t­ hese concerns, the Mount Dennis Weston Network formed around a vision for revitalizing the area through green manufacturing rather than gentrification. Observations draw on participatory action research I conducted with

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the Network between 2011 and 2013, in addition to key in­for­mant interviews covering the genesis and earlier activities of the Network dating back to 2004. Ultimately, the co­ali­tion in Mount Dennis failed to achieve its objective of creating good green manufacturing jobs. Examining this failure allows us to understand the incredible challenges that ­labor ­faces in trying to attract and control industrial capital, and how t­ hese challenges limit the green jobs agenda. But it is impor­tant not to see this initiative as a complete failure. Members of the co­ali­ tion gained a better appreciation for how their neighborhood is ­shaped through interrelated prob­lems of class, race, gender, and ecol­ogy. The Network learned how to fight against the conversion of industrial lands into big-­box retail developments and why this strug­gle is impor­tant. Meanwhile, the per­sis­tence and partnerships formed through the work of this co­ali­tion led to the development of Toronto’s first community benefit agreement for a five-­billion-­dollar transit proj­ect. More fundamentally, ­these types of alliances demonstrate the agency of or­ga­nized ­labor in demanding more participatory and demo­cratic planning and decision making on questions of the economy and the environment, a pro­cess that Harvey (2008) refers to as the “right to the city,” “the freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves” (23). Strug­gles led by ­labor–­community co­ali­ tions produce new scales of negotiation and, sometimes, successfully produce urban space that meets the social, economic, and ecological needs and aspirations of workers and residents. This chapter proceeds by first situating the formation of the Mount Dennis Weston Network within the context of Toronto’s industrial decline and a politics of class, race, and gender. I then examine four phases of activity through which the MDWN developed: (1) heritage conservation; (2) a land use strug­gle against the conversion of industrial lands into a big-­box retail complex, coupled with a campaign for living wages; (3) efforts to create green jobs; and (4) negotiation of a community benefits agreement associated with industrial land redevelopment. I conclude by summarizing the contradictions confronting l­ abor–­community or­ ga­niz­ing in Mount Dennis Weston, and some of the lessons and opportunities that arose.

Building a L ­ abor–­C ommunity Alliance in Mount Dennis The narrative around industrial decline has become all too commonplace for North American cities such as Toronto. Politicians and many city planners have accepted the loss of manufacturing jobs as a natu­ral, even healthy, pro­cess of economic transition from an industrial economy to a service-­and knowledge-­based

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economy. This belief is highlighted in the 2010 Toronto Employment Survey published by City of Toronto Planning: The number of manufacturing firms declined in 2010 . . . ​continuing a trend which has been recorded almost ­every year since 2000. A similar decline has been evident nationally as the North American economy has continued to shift from a goods-­producing economy to a service-­based economy. This progression reflects an evolving urban economy which remains competitive in a changing regional and global market. (City of Toronto, 2011, 3; emphasis added) If the elimination of the manufacturing sector is somehow a progressive evolutionary step, it does not seem to be helping residents living in Toronto’s adjacent Weston and Mount Dennis neighborhoods. ­After forming once-­thriving working-­ class communities along Toronto’s northwestern railway artery (Harris 1999; Gad 2004), the residents of Weston-­Mount Dennis have experienced the steady disappearance of decent-­paying factory jobs. Some of Toronto’s best-­known manufacturers ­were located in the area, but have closed their doors one by one over the past forty years: CCM (closed in 1983), Ferranti-­Packard (closed 1987), Dominion Steel Bridge (closed 1990), Continental Can (closed in early 1990s), and Kodak Canada (closed 2005), just to name a few. Where bustling factories once stood, we now see coffee shops, housing developments, grocery stores, and vacant brownfield sites. Many local small businesses that depended on the lunchtime and ­after-­work foot traffic generated by factory workers have since closed. An industrial park lying in the center of Mount Dennis was designated as one of twenty-­two employment districts across the city, with the aim of protecting the conversion of employment lands to residential and small-­scale retail uses. Named the Weston Road Employment District, it saw total employment fall from 2,734 jobs in 2002, to a low of 974 jobs in 2006, before returning to 1,900 jobs in 2012 (City of Toronto 2011). Largely due to the closure of Kodak in 2005, the Weston Road Employment District saw manufacturing jobs decrease from 1,256 jobs in 2002 to 303 jobs in 2009, rising only slightly to 410 jobs in 2012 (City of Toronto 2011). Kodak Canada had been the main economic anchor in Mount Dennis since it first opened in 1916. In many ways, Mount Dennis was a com­pany town, and Kodak worked hard to buy its workers’ loyalty through a wage dividend scheme, preferred hiring of relatives, sponsorship of baseball teams and social events, and on-­site recreational facilities. At its peak in the 1970s, over four thousand workers ­were employed at Kodak. As late as the 1990s, two thousand workers ­were producing chemicals and photographic film at the Mount Dennis plant. Eight hundred jobs ­were lost in Mount Dennis in 2005 ­after the advent of digital

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photography and a series of poor management decisions forced Kodak’s parent com­pany to consolidate operations at its headquarters in Rochester, New York. ­There was a b ­ itter strike in the mid-1970s that saw the United Steelworkers raid the International Chemical Workers Union, which had been representing the workers since 1945. ­After the strike, workers who had been opposed to the strike and the ­union takeover got rid of the Steelworkers and formed a new Kodak Employees Association that effectively silenced any further radical u ­ nion activity in the de­ cades that followed. Not surprisingly, the association did not play any role in the ­labor–­community co­ali­tions that formed to take control of the planning of the site following the plant’s closure. The initial or­ga­niz­ing force came from the community’s response to the closure. This contrasts starkly with a l­abor–­environmental co­ali­tion that formed in the early 1990s in a dif­fer­ent industrial suburb of Toronto, whose goal was to retool a recently closed factory for environmentally friendly production. In that case, a more activist-­driven ­union (the Canadian Auto Workers) took a leadership role in forming the Green Work Alliance (Keil 1994). The Kodak site was bought in August 2006 by Zeehan Capital Inc. through the well-­known Toronto land development com­pany called Metrus. The developer’s hope was to build a big-­box retail and office space complex of 75,100 square meters, anchored by a Walmart or Zellers. ­After buying the property, Metrus quickly demolished approximately one million square feet worth of factory buildings. The city’s economic development agency, called TEDCO, had made an unsuccessful bid for the site that would have preserved the factory buildings for ­future industrial development. Given Metrus’s deep pockets, and their plan to redevelop and sell the site as retail and office space, it was difficult for TEDCO to offer a competitive bid, since it was using a much less profitable business plan based on keeping the site productively zoned as industrial land. Although other industrial sites had been closed or converted into block housing without any or­ga­nized community re­sis­tance, the de­mo­li­tion of the Kodak plant in 2006 triggered a well-­organized community response. This response can only be explained through an understanding of the deeper politics of class, race, gender, and ecol­ogy that prevailed in Weston-­Mount Dennis. The socioeconomic impact of industrial decline in Weston-­Mount Dennis, and the lack of social ser­ vice providers in the area to address related prob­lems, led the city of Toronto to designate Weston-­Mount Dennis as one of its thirteen Priority Neighbourhoods in 2006. The median a­ fter-­tax ­house­hold income is among the lowest in the city, at only $38,900 (compared with a citywide average of $46,240), with one in four ­house­holds struggling below Statistics Canada’s low-­income cut off (City of Toronto 2013a).3 The negative effects of industrial decline in Weston-­ Mount Dennis have been felt unevenly. The area has the second highest percentage

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of single-­parent families (30.1 ­percent) among all thirteen Priority Neighbourhoods. Meanwhile, the lack of jobs, stores, and ser­v ices has kept rents relatively low in the area, turning it into an entry point for many immigrants, particularly ­those from Jamaica, Vietnam, Somalia, the Philippines, and Guyana, and with increasing numbers from South Asia. The factories that provided earlier waves of Canadian immigrants with ­family-­supporting jobs no longer exist. The lack of supports and job opportunities for ­these recent immigrant communities goes far in explaining why the experience of gun vio­lence in the neighborhood is racialized. Despite some funds flowing into Priority Neighbourhoods following a spate of gang vio­lence in 2005, residents of Mount Dennis seem well aware that funding for social programs is not enough to address the under­lying dilemmas facing youth in poor communities: Why do ­people join gangs? ­Because they have a sense of re­spect and belonging which they ­don’t get in the general community. . . . ​And ­these are the ­people that we hope are ­going to take over from us. ­They’re ­going to be our f­ uture citizens and w ­ e’re ­going “Oh. No.” B ­ ecause you know what? You meet them individually, t­hey’re ­great kids. ­They’re ­great, ­they’re intelligent. But the ­thing is ­they’ve become disenfranchised. And we throw programs at them which are stop-­gaps. . . . ​“Oh yeah, basketball! Yeah.” Umm, how’s that ­going to lead to something that’s ­going to pay them so that ­they’ll go to college or that ­they’ll have some kind of meaningful job when they leave? . . . ​Why ­shouldn’t they get involved in drugs? They can get an SUV, they can have the lifestyle. You know? ­They’ll do time but they ­can’t see that.4 Similarly, at public meetings following shootings in the area, a number of black residents stood up and demanded that jobs and apprenticeships be created for youth in the community. The or­ga­nized community response to the redevelopment of the Kodak lands did not first set out to address ­these deeper issues of race, class, and gender. But ­these concerns would become increasingly linked as dif­fer­ent social movement actors, including l­abor, took an interest and helped transition the community response through a series of four phases. The first phase centered around heritage conservation; during the second, the Mount Dennis Weston Network formed to fight big-­box development plans for the Kodak site while supporting a citywide living wage campaign; the third phase saw the Network champion the creation of green jobs on the site; and the final phase centered on winning a community benefits agreement linked to the public transit development that ultimately took over the site.

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The initial phase of community or­ga­niz­ing centered on heritage preservation a­ fter buildings on the Kodak lands started to be demolished in 2006. Active members in the Mount Dennis Community Association (MDCA) petitioned to preserve at least one building (the employees’ building) to symbolize the legacy of Kodak in the community and b ­ ecause “­there are very few buildings of architectural merit in Mount Dennis.”5 The resident leading the preservation effort explained how the de­mo­li­tion of the Kodak buildings stirred emotions even for ­those who had never worked at the fa­cil­i­ty: I mean, every­thing I’d heard since living in the community was that Kodak—­this is a Kodak-­built, it was a Kodak com­pany town practically when it was built. I mean, Kodak was the primary employer. All of the ­houses, our ­house and all of the ­houses immediately around us ­were built for Kodak management and employees. . . . ​And ­there’s a very strong sense of identification of Mount Dennis with Kodak. . . . ​So to see this employees’ building go as well as every­thing ­else was a huge symbolic loss.6 Mount Dennis’s industrial golden era produced a symbolic landscape in the form of the Kodak lands that was increasingly looked to for inspiration as the community suffered through industrial decline. Despite, or perhaps b ­ ecause of, the symbolic power invested in the Kodak employees’ building, the Etobicoke York Community Council sided with the developers and voted against the MDCA’s petition. But the MDCA persisted, and the Community Council’s decision was ­later overturned by City Council with support from the Toronto Preservation Board. Winning the strug­gle for heritage preservation of the Kodak employees’ building gave the MDCA confidence in their ability to participate in the planning of the Kodak site, and the Kodak lands became a standing item at f­uture meetings. The MDCA had revived itself in 2004 with a new leadership and well-­ attended monthly meetings and social events attended by residents, small business ­owners, and some agencies located in the area.7 A survey conducted by the MDCA indicated that the priorities for residents w ­ ere environmental (garbage, beautification of the main street), the need for recreation facilities for youth, and crime. As the unofficial po­liti­cal voice for the community on a variety of issues, mostly municipal, the MDCA often met with the local councillor and city staff, and hosted all-­candidate debates for vari­ous elections. The MDCA was also in contact with active members of the Weston Business Improvement Area (BIA), who would eventually help found the Mount Dennis Weston Network. When rumors surfaced that Metrus was ­going to build a big-­box retail development on the Kodak lands, opposition was raised, mainly from local small business ­owners

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within the Weston BIA who worried that a Walmart would put them out of business. As one community or­ga­nizer recalled: It was ­really coming more from the small business p ­ eople. [One leader], he’s a local resident but I think he was active in one of the business associations or community associations. You know [the leaders] ­were both Weston ­people [who] ­were all concerned about the potential of big-­box on the site. . . . ​But it did not start as a campaign that was l­ abor based at all. It was—­people ­were motivated to do something as a neighbourhood. And you know, it was locally based and anti-­big-­box, to essentially protect local in­de­pen­dent business.8 ­ fter being stonewalled for almost a year, in May 2007 the MDCA fi­nally got MeA trus to come to a meeting that was attended by more than seventy-­five residents. In a failed move to take control of the bubbling situation, the local councillor for Ward 11 announced that she would or­ga­nize a Kodak lands committee.9 But rather than put their confidence in a bureaucratic planning pro­cess, of the type that had so far failed the community on other issues including a long-­promised recreation center, community leaders came together to form the Mount Dennis Weston Network. The Mount Dennis Weston Network was led by executive members from the MDCA and the Weston BIA, a minister from the Mount Dennis United Church, ­union activists, directors from two social agencies serving the area, and other active residents. The found­ers of the Network had hoped to bring all stakeholders in the area to the ­table to better coordinate activities and “to affect decision making in the York South-­Weston area of Toronto” (MDWN n.d.). York-­South Weston is the name of the provincial and federal electoral riding that encompasses the Weston and Mount Dennis neighbourhoods. The formation of the MDWN directly challenged the type of divide-­and-­conquer politics of the local right-­wing councillor (the former mayor of York before amalgamation) and complacent, status-­quo approaches of the local MP and MPP. The founding vision of the Network clearly tied together economic development, environmental concerns, and the need for a po­liti­cally engaged community: “Through the policy and practice of sustainable development, York South Weston develops a strong economy in which all ­people can live to their potential, are engaged, are respected and can prosper within a clean and healthy environment” (MDWN n.d.). The ­labor movement was critical in the formation of the Network and in shifting it t­ oward thinking about the creation of good jobs. Mike S­ ullivan, a national staff representative with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, was the Network’s first cochair. The United Steelworkers provided ten thousand dollars to help pay for a part-­time or­ga­nizer from the community to support the

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Network’s activities, while the Toronto and York Region L ­ abour Council contributed staff resources to help with the day-­to-­day orga­nizational needs of the Network (scheduling meetings, printing agendas, sending out minutes, booking halls, ­etc.). Many interview participants recalled with admiration the consensus-­ building work of Julius Deutsch, an executive assistant with the L ­ abour Council and or­ga­nizer for the New Demo­cratic Party and Mayor David Miller’s election campaign. Deutsch was critical in shifting the community’s strug­gle over the Kodak lands from a focus on heritage preservation and small business concerns ­toward a broader strug­gle for the protection of industrial employment lands and green economic development. Deutsch also brought to the Network lessons learned from two other l­ abor–­community co­ali­tions that had recently formed in Toronto: one launched in 2006 to win a community benefits agreement for an entertainment and h ­ otel development planned in Rexdale—­also a Priority Neighbourhood (Tufts 2008a), and another that formed to block the rezoning of employment lands—­home to Toronto’s film industry—­into a big-­box development (see Wieditz, this volume). The ­Labour Council helped tie the fate of the Kodak lands to its campaign for a $10 minimum wage. Antipoverty groups outside the l­ abor movement had long been advocating for increases to Ontario’s minimum wage. But a rare po­liti­cal opportunity was created when, just before the 2006 Christmas break, Ontario Liberal and Conservative provincial legislators voted to give themselves a 25 ­percent pay raise and effectively index their salaries to inflation (which would lead to another 2 ­percent raise only a few months l­ater). The Ontario New Demo­cratic Party tabled $10 minimum wage legislation that—to the surprise of every­one—­ reached second reading. The ­Labour Council quickly formed a broad co­ali­tion across the city among agencies serving immigrants, student ­unions, worker centers, ACORN, and many other agencies. In early 2007, town hall meetings on the $10 minimum wage legislation w ­ ere held in four neighborhoods across the city, including Mount Dennis. The Network was officially nonpartisan, and politicians and party candidates of all stripes attended meetings. But participants recall meetings becoming quite heated at times, especially during elections. Dissatisfaction with the provincial government’s response to the $10 minimum wage issue gave the ­labor-­backed NDP candidate, Paul Ferriera, a narrow victory in the February 8, 2007, provincial by-­election for York South Weston. Ferriera had been an active member of the Network and his win turned the Network into a po­liti­cal sparring ring and gave it a “left-­w ing” reputation (even though many members of the Network whom I interviewed based their vote on the merits of the politician as much as on their party affiliation). It was not long ­after Ferriera’s win before the provincial government announced that it would give in on the $10 minimum wage

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demand, albeit phasing in the raise over three years. ­After the province agreed to the raise, the L ­ abour Council tried to use the momentum of the minimum wage campaign to launch a broader “RES­PECT” campaign that included demands for full-­time work, ­unionization and better housing, child care, education, and social assistance. Again, town halls ­were set up across Toronto, including in Mount Dennis. Other u ­ nions such as the CAW and UFCW also put staff resources into the RES­PECT campaign, but it failed to regain momentum ­after the government had conceded the minimum wage raise in the spring bud­get. But in Mount Dennis, the RES­PECT campaign also helped or­ga­nize opposition to the big-­box retail development on the Kodak lands. At the town hall meeting the cochair of the Network, Mike ­Sullivan, gave an effective Power­ Point pre­sen­ta­tion that illustrated the disturbing loss of manufacturing lands and full-­time jobs in the Weston-­Mount Dennis area over the previous few de­ cades. A member of the MDCA still fondly remembered this pre­sen­ta­tion four years ­later: And Mike put together a Power­Point . . . ​which just showed the job loss in the area. Over ten thousand jobs from the dif­fer­ent factories that had closed in the last fifteen years as a result of the deindustrialization along the rail corridor. And essentially it was a drawing of the line in the sand saying Kodak is the place that ­we’re ­going to take a stand.10 The princi­ples of the RES­PECT campaign w ­ ere endorsed in the Network’s founding document and promoted by its members. For community activists, the RES­PECT campaign was more than simply a call for the government to provide a living wage, u ­ nion rights, and other benefits: it was also a demand to be part of the planning and decision-­making pro­cess. Speaking on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, the minister of the Mount Dennis United Church tied together the RES­PECT campaign with demo­cratic planning around the Kodak lands: “the opportunity with the RES­PECT campaign ­really is an opportunity for the person who ­doesn’t believe they have a voice, to have a voice in consultations with a com­pany like Metrus.”11 The fact that a local minister was talking on the radio about the importance of a living wage campaign initiated by or­ga­nized ­labor also signals the success of ­labor–­community alliance formation in Mount Dennis. To be sure, ­there was still a strong contingent of ­people in the community, and some within the Network, who supported the retail development ­because they ­either wanted more shopping opportunities nearby or thought that any job creation on the Kodak site would be better than waiting for an investor to create good-­paying manufacturing jobs, jobs that might never materialize. A former Kodak employee, whose f­ amily had lived in Mount Dennis for three generations and who had lost their job at age fifty when Kodak closed, appreciated the need

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for good-­paying jobs but accepted that manufacturing was not g­ oing return to Mount Dennis: The Mount Dennis Community Association, and I’m not sure who e­ lse was part of that—­that wanted higher paying jobs for ­people in Mount Dennis. I buy that. I understand that it would be ­really nice to have higher-­paying jobs. But the real­ity is, it was never ­going to happen. So any kind of a job [is better than no job]. Certainly, many ­people are against Walmart and what Walmart does. But Walmart hires a lot of ­people. Many ­people live ­because Walmart hires them.12 Similar views w ­ ere also articulated consistently by Councillor Frank Di Giorgio, in whose ward the Kodak lands fell. At a public meeting Di Giorgio argued in ­favor of Metrus’s big-­box development plan for the Kodak lands: “­There are a lot of benefits and a lot of costs. It is office and retail jobs, but ­there are all sorts of ­people needing jobs. We ­don’t have many ­people skilled enough to fill high tech jobs and nobody is coming forward to provide ­those kinds of jobs” (quoted in Dillon 2009). In many ways, Councillor Di Giorgio’s statement reveals the way in which the government is complicit in, if not key in orchestrating, the pro­cess of industrial decline. But the remarks by the former Kodak employee and the councillor also hint at some of the uneasy politics of class, race, and gender that complicate any ­simple reading of grassroots planning and social movement building in Mount Dennis. On the one hand, or­ga­nized ­labor was helping to ensure the potential for higher-­skilled, better-­paying jobs in the ­future by trying to protect the conversion of employment districts like the Kodak lands into retail or residential land uses. This strategy sees or­ga­nized ­labor acting on behalf of certain sectors of capital (e.g., manufacturers) to protect the conditions they need for f­uture rounds of accumulation. ­These sectors are favored by or­ga­nized ­labor ­because they have historically paved the way to higher rates of ­unionization and better wages than the retail sector. But this more abstract potential, to the degree that it might help ­unionized industrial workers and tradespeople, can sometimes be at odds with the immediate needs and desires of other, marginalized members of the working class who may benefit from retail-­sector jobs. ­Women, youth, racialized, and disabled workers disproportionately fill lower-­paying retail jobs, and might also be more likely to ­favor big-­box retail stores for the cheap consumables they offer. The fundamental demand coming from ­these groups for “any job now” exists in tension with the more abstract demand by or­ga­nized ­labor for “good jobs tomorrow” achieved through the protection of employment districts for industrial capital. Moreover, in areas such as Mount Dennis, where the marginalized members of the working class make up a large proportion of the population, or­ga­nized

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l­abor may find that it depends on their po­liti­cal support to bring about the necessary response from the government. The ­labor–­community co­ali­tion forming around the $10 minimum wage campaign allowed or­ga­nized ­labor to build genuine solidarity for ­those making minimum wage in ser­v ice or retail jobs, and to thereby deflect accusations that it was being narrow-­minded or elitist in wanting to protect the Kodak employment district for good-­paying industrial jobs despite high levels of unemployment and poverty in the area. In the Weston and Mount Dennis neighborhoods, the L ­ abour Council also developed a working relationship with ACORN (Association of Community Organ­izations for Reform Now), which was already or­ga­niz­ing low-­income residents in nearby apartment buildings around tenant issues. As a ­matter of policy, ACORN had taken a stance against Walmart in both Canada and the United States. Through door-­to-­door or­ga­niz­ing and membership meetings, ACORN facilitated discussions through which poor residents in Mount Dennis began to understand the fight for good jobs on the Kodak lands as their fight. This is not to say that the Network created a space where ACORN members felt comfortable. Interview participants recall Network meetings being “too high level” or too focused on “specific policies” in ways that turned away a number of nearby residents from sustained participation. Ultimately, the involvement of ACORN did make the Network appear to have broad-­based support, which pushed at least some local politicians reluctantly ­toward accepting the idea of reserving the Kodak lands for manufacturing. But the Network’s failure to create a more relevant or inviting space for more marginalized residents, or to chart out in detail how t­ hese residents would be able to access ­these good-­paying jobs if they ever did get created, undermined the potentially lasting po­liti­cal influence that this alliance could other­wise have had.

­L abor’s Socio-­E cological Fix in Mount Dennis As the strug­gle for protecting good-­paying jobs on the Kodak employment lands gathered strength, the idea of using the site for green job creation took root. A key or­ga­nizer recalled how the group came to champion green manufacturing: Now, in the preliminary discussions, it was not just, “We want to retain Kodak for industry ­because we see this as a place where industry—­ industry is a place where you can get a job that you can raise a ­family on.” So the salary issues and the RES­PECT campaign merged in. But the green issues came forward b ­ ecause ­people ­were saying, “Well, factories

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are closing.” And the response was, “Well, t­ here’s a green economy. The city needs to get more sustainable. This is a place where ­those industries can be landed.” So that became an anchor point for “We want green manufacturing ­here, we ­don’t want a big-­box mall.”13 The fact that organizers in Mount Dennis could point t­ oward a green economy and the need for a more sustainable city should not be taken for granted. The emergence of green manufacturing as a proposal by the Network for redeveloping the Kodak lands draws from a broader discourse around green jobs advanced by or­ga­nized ­labor in North Amer­i­ca in response to the manufacturing crisis and global recession of the 2000s and as part of the response by government and capital to climate change and the 2008 financial collapse (Nugent 2009). The Network’s vision for green economic development on the Kodak site was primarily developed through the influence of u ­ nion activists, the part-­time or­ga­ nizer who was hired to work for the Network, and the city’s Economic Development Office. The Network was also l­ater joined by the Toronto Environmental Alliance, an environmental or­ga­ni­za­tion that focuses on municipal environmental prob­lems and policies. The original proposal from t­ hese groups was to build a “green centre of excellence” or “incubators” that could develop and commercialize a range of green enterprises for the ­whole city, not just on the Kodak lands. In many ways, this followed the neoliberal discourse of making Toronto a globally competitive creative city. While the idea of a “green innovation campus” remained on the ­table, the Network soon began to identify more specific types of green manufacturing that could be attracted to the site. A former chair of the Network described the pro­cess of trying to identify and attract green investment into Mount Dennis: We went to meetings and met with organ­izations and talked with universities, colleges, who ­were developing a kind of green economic training, education, and also ser­v ices. So that if we heard of a green industry that was looking for a spot [laughing] we perked up our ears. B ­ ecause basically what we ­were trying to do, and this is trying to work with the city as well, is draw jobs and industry into this par­tic­u­lar area. And we ­were told through vari­ous means that this was nigh impossible for this to happen. But that ­didn’t stop us from looking and envisioning what might happen t­ here. We looked at wind power, we looked at solar energy, we looked at ­things like retrofitting the neighborhood.14 The Network’s ideas around green manufacturing w ­ ere advanced a­ fter the L ­ abour Council and USW sent representatives, including two organizers involved in the Network, down to Pittsburgh for the first Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference held

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by the Blue-­Green Alliance in March of 2008. This conference itself emerged out of a convergence of or­ga­nized ­labor’s response to the manufacturing crisis in the United States, an ongoing push for “energy in­de­pen­dence” spurred by renewable energy investors and the Iraq War, and a wave of climate change activism leading up to the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali (Nugent 2011). ­Labor leaders began calling for a Green New Deal, while social justice advocates like Van Jones and Majora Car­ter saw green-­collar jobs as a pathway out of poverty and jails for inner-­city youth. The Toronto l­abor representatives who attended the Pittsburgh conference w ­ ere so motivated by what they heard that they went on to or­ga­nize Toronto’s first green jobs conference, which was attended by over six hundred l­abor and community activists and residents (Hogarth and Ireland 2009).15 Activists from the Network who went to Pittsburgh came back motivated with numerous ideas for how the Kodak lands could become a site for green manufacturing: We went through a pro­cess where we established an understanding that was, for us, green manufacturing could relate to anything that makes the city more sustainable. So green building developments happening, materials and supplies related to green building, fixtures, anything related within the green design world. Transit, transportation. Transit is the most green form of transportation, so t­ hings related to transit. The ­water purification. Green chemistry where ­you’re taking a look at how, instead of oil-­based plastics, you can come up with other kinds of materials for use in production. And then into the waste and recycling and energy and efficiency side of ­things.16 But while many ideas for green manufacturing w ­ ere discussed by the Network, it does not seem as if any concrete proposals ­were made or interest was ever taken by any companies. Representatives from the Network did join executives of the ­Labour Council in meeting with representatives from the USW and the business development firm that facilitated a multimillion-­dollar investment in Pennsylvania by Gamesa, the Spanish wind turbine manufacturer. A connection was also made with Green Enterprise Toronto, and a community college showed some potential interest in setting up a satellite campus in the area. But nothing ever materialized from ­these discussions. Ultimately, the Network was limited by its lack of business connections and insufficient capacity to conduct extensive outreach to potential green investors. This type of entrepreneurial activity was new for the Network and required resources of time and energy that went beyond the capacity of the coalition—­although the Network did manage to engage with the city’s economic development offices, as I discuss below.

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The hope for green manufacturing on the Kodak site was also supported by a more general shift in climate change policy by North American corporate lobbying groups and the government. Corporate lobbying groups that had successfully fought to prevent the U.S. government from adopting the Kyoto Agreement during the 1990s, and to impede the implementation of Kyoto by the Canadian government through the early 2000s, ­were now ready to accept limited emission targets and “frameworks” (i.e., state subsidies) to increase the global competitiveness of green technology firms (Nugent 2009). Following the 2008 recession, the ruling Ontario Liberal Party promised renewable energy companies massive state subsidies through the Green Energy and Green Economy Act (passed in May 2009) in return for using made-­in-­Ontario materials that would create 50,000 direct and indirect jobs, according to government projections. This further encouraged the Network that finding a green manufacturer for the Kodak lands was pos­si­ble, particularly in the renewable energy sector. Promoters of green manufacturing on the Kodak lands ­were also directly supported by the city’s bureaucracy. Municipal governments around the world ­were starting to lead the efforts to address climate change, especially in countries like Canada where ­there ­were only regressive mea­sures being taken by the federal government. Toronto’s Mayor David Miller a­ dopted ambitious waste diversion and emissions reductions targets, and would go on to become the second chair of the C40 Cities: Climate Leadership Group. In their July 2007 meeting, the Economic Development Committee passed a Green Economic Sector Development Strategy, with the ­Labour Council, the USW, and the Toronto Environmental Alliance all making supportive deputations. Part of the strategy included the formation of a Green Manufacturing Action Team that was to “be tasked with outlining a path forward to match the emerging boom in demand for green products worldwide with green manufacturing opportunities in Toronto, as well as identifying tools for promoting pollution prevention activities in Toronto’s Manufacturing sector” (City of Toronto 2007b). Despite an ambitious program, the team had not even met once a year ­after the launch of the strategy (Toronto Environmental Alliance 2009). Perhaps looking for a good news story on this file, the city’s director of business development and retention attended some Network meetings and invited the Network to participate on the Green Manufacturing Action Team. But even with the support of the mayor and the city’s Economic Development department, the Network ultimately strug­gled to find a willing green investor for the site. Although or­ga­nized ­labor was central in pushing for a vision of green manufacturing within the Network, their vision of sustainable community economic development was well-­received by other Network members b ­ ecause of ­these members’ own wide-­ranging environmental interests. A member of the clergy involved

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in the Network traced their environmentalism to ecofeminism and ecotheology. The Mount Dennis Community Association’s was formed out of a successful garbage clean-up day, and neighborhood beautification (including heritage preservation and street improvement) remained high on their agenda. The MDCA drew on the fact that Mount Dennis is located between two major river valleys to proudly rebrand the neighborhood as “Toronto’s Greenest Neighbourhood.” Meanwhile, members of the Network from Weston had helped found the Clean Trains Co­ali­tion in order to force the provincial government to electrify the polluting diesel commuter trains passing through Weston and Mount Dennis. The environmental consciousness of members in the Network, although arrived at in dif­fer­ent ways, meant that it was relatively easy for the group to collectively support the idea of green manufacturing for the Kodak lands. For some members of the Network, green manufacturing meant greater access to solar panels for their homes. For ­others, having manufacturing in the community meant that ­people could walk to work rather than having to drive. But bringing manufacturing back to the Kodak lands also drew on an ecological meta­phor of “revitalization.” Good-­paying jobs would help transform the area both socially and physically. Streets would be better maintained and economic prosperity would cleanse the area of its perceived social ills. Of course, ­whether or not a single green manufacturer could fulfill ­these fantasies is beside the point. ­Labor–community–­environmental co­ali­tions like the Network draw their strength from the creation of ­these fantasies as much as from any concrete possibility—­ what Burawoy (2003) refers to as the “mobilizing power of concrete fantasies” (207). The fact that Metrus was still the owner of the site and was pushing ahead with required market studies, architectural plans, and rezoning applications never dissuaded the Network from actively trying to plan and realize their own vision. Especially through 2007 and early 2008, the Network felt itself growing in strength. Monthly meetings ­were being held on a wide variety of community issues, town halls ­were very well attended, and the Network was receiving positive media coverage. In November 2007, the growing power of the Network even led the local right-­wing councillor to pass a motion at City Council to develop an “employment growth strategy for Mount Dennis/Kodak area.” The motion noted that “the manufacturing sector is vital to the Toronto economy,” identified “the Green/ Environmental industries sector . . . ​as significant growth sectors,” and firmly accepted that the “Mount Dennis/Kodak Employment District has been a ­viable employment district within the City of Toronto and has tremendous potential to accommodate new manufacturing companies and jobs” (City of Toronto 2007b). The Network’s fight against Metrus was also buoyed by the victories of the ­labor–­community co­ali­tion in Toronto’s east end in their fight against a big-­box

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development in 2007–2008, with Mayor Miller’s support (see Wieditz, this volume). Ultimately, the debate over big-­box retail on the Kodak lands was put to rest in the fall of 2009, when the city confirmed that the site would be expropriated for use as a maintenance and storage fa­cil­i­ty as part of Toronto’s public transit expansion plans. The city’s expropriation of the Kodak site avoided a potentially protracted l­egal ­battle over Metrus’s rezoning application, but it was nonetheless clear that the city’s planning department was preparing to contest the l­egal right of Metrus to build big-­box retail on the site. A shift in strategic planning policy in the mid2000s meant that both the province and the city ­were increasingly protective of employment districts. In response to a September 2009 written request by Mount Dennis’s local councillor, the chief planner indicated that Metrus’s application for retail use on the Kodak lands was flawed in both design and purpose. Although big-­box retail, or “power centres,” could technically be allowed within employment districts, the Metrus proposal had three faults: (1) the retail buildings w ­ ere not properly situated; (2) t­ here was too much small-­scale retail for what is allowed in an employment district; and (3) overall, the proposal did not include a “critical mass” of nonretail employment uses that w ­ ere “impor­tant for the continuing functioning of the remainder of the Employment Area/District” (City of Toronto 2009b). It therefore seemed clear that Metrus would not have received a stamp of approval from the city’s planning department. Rather than discouraging the Network, the expropriation plans of the Kodak site by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) opened up new opportunities. Thanks to a friendly relationship between the ­Labour Council and Mayor Miller, whom l­abor had first helped to get elected, the Network was able to directly approach the TTC chair and vice-­chair with their planning vision. The city and TTC agreed to expropriate the entire Kodak lands, with any land not needed for the maintenance and storage fa­cil­i­ty being given to Build Toronto—­a city real estate and economic development corporation that replaced TEDCO in 2008 with a mandate “to unlock the value in ­under-­utilized lands and use the available [publicly owned] land base to attract targeted industries, stimulate the creation of desirable employment, and regenerate neighbourhoods” (City of Toronto 2013b). The Network would then work with Build Toronto to attract green economic development onto the surplus land. The City Council also passed a motion that directed the city man­ag­er to “consult with the community and stakeholders on a strategy for maximizing green sustainable economic development, local procurement, and community employment in the development, operation and maintenance of the Kodak site” (City of Toronto 2009b). The same motion also called for the TTC to work with the ­Labour Council and the Amalgamated Transit Union in developing a preemployment training program “to

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ensure the ability to hire from local neighbourhoods, as well as priority neighbourhoods.” In many ways, this motion reflected an initial attempt at winning a community benefits agreement (CBA) for the Kodak lands. This was a victory for the Mount Dennis Weston Network, which had been fighting for over two years to prevent a big-­box development, to promote green economic development, and to create good (­union) jobs for the neighborhood. Unfortunately, soon ­after ­these motions ­were passed, the province pulled out of funding that had been dedicated to the transit expansion proj­ect, placing every­thing on hold. The province would l­ater create an entirely new transit authority, Metrolinx, which took planning powers away from the TTC and City Council and eventually purchased the Kodak lands in 2012. This effectively killed the arrangement that the Network had made with the TTC and the city regarding the green economic development of excess space on the Kodak lands as well as local hiring programs. ­After g­ oing through a year of regrouping and visioning between 2010 and 2011, the Network began working with other organ­izations across Toronto ­toward negotiating a community benefits agreement (CBA) with Metrolinx. If implemented, the CBA ­will cover not only the Kodak site, where a maintenance and storage fa­cil­i­ty would be built, but most other portions of the new five-­billion-­ dollar light rail transit (LRT) line. The goal of the CBA is to ensure that low-­ income communities in Toronto benefit from this infrastructure investment through the creation of good-­paying jobs in such a way that “the diversity of the workers on the LRT construction should reflect the diversity of residents of Toronto” (Toronto Community Benefits Network 2013). The CBA’s goal of equitable good green jobs reflects both the per­sis­tence and transformation of l­ abor– community–­environmental alliances in Mount Dennis. Moreover, Metrolinx, which initially refused to cede any of the Kodak site ­toward redevelopment plans offered by the Network, has fi­nally opened discussions following continued pressure from the community and local councillors. ­Labor–­community co­ali­tions have had some success in the United States using community benefits agreements to influence the planning and architecture of development proj­ects, to realize environmental objectives, and to achieve a more equitable distribution of jobs arising from proj­ects, along with training supports (for a summary see Gross 2005). Of course, CBAs do not fundamentally challenge the power imbalance between capital and ­labor–­community groups, which sways the outcome of negotiations in ­favor of developers. Community benefit agreements also raise the question of which communities are represented within the l­ abor–­community co­ali­tion and the balance of power between co­ali­ tion members (Been et al. 2010). Nevertheless, the strug­gle for CBAs has demonstrated to both ­unions and community groups the real potential of po­liti­cal bargaining through co­ali­tion building.

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Conclusion The progression of the Network through dif­fer­ent phases of or­ga­niz­ing reflects the transformative learning pro­cess that ­labor both helped lead and also benefited from, in terms of identifying and linking together issues of class, race, gender, and ecol­ogy. Whereas or­ga­nized community concerns over the Kodak lands began as a ­battle over heritage preservation and the concerns of small businesses about a potential big-­box retailer, the influence of l­abor’s RES­PECT campaign emboldened the fight against the conversion of the industrial site and the need for good-­paying jobs for the area’s poor, racialized residents. The Network then began to think about how green manufacturing on the Kodak site could revitalize the neighborhood and, albeit to a lesser extent, contribute to the production of a sustainable city and more abstract environmental prob­lems such as climate change. Fi­nally, the community benefit agreement being developed by the Network tied together green jobs and equity through a focus around local hiring from within the neighborhood. The takeover of the transit proj­ect by the province, and the subsequent shutting out of the Network from planning for the Kodak site, shows how a politics of scale can be used by the state to undermine neighborhood-­based strug­gles. Or­ ga­nized ­labor continues to hold po­liti­cal influence within large, liberal cities like Toronto, but this influence diminishes at the provincial scale, especially in terms of shaping provincial economic development policies and programs that could benefit par­tic­u­lar neighborhoods. If long-­talked-­about plans to devolve ultimate control over land use zoning from the province’s Ontario Municipal Board to the city ever materialize (Benzie 2013), ­labor–­community alliances could find themselves in a position of much greater strength in zoning strug­gles and the production of urban space. Still, the participation of or­ga­nized ­labor within the Network was instrumental in scaling-up neighborhood concerns by engaging the city’s administration and bureaucracy, first on the idea of green manufacturing for the Kodak site, and ­later in the development of a community benefits agreement. The wave of l­ abor–­community alliance formation in Weston-­Mount Dennis also contributed to a change in po­liti­cal party repre­sen­ta­tion in the area, helping two members of the Network win election at the provincial and federal levels u ­ nder the left-­leaning New Demo­cratic Party. The Network confronted a major challenge in attracting green investors to the site. ­There are many internal reasons for this, including a lack of entrepreneurial experience and capacity within the Network, in addition to external reasons such as the relatively small size of the Kodak lands available for redevelopment and a generally cautious investment climate following the financial crisis. The barrier to attracting green capital was similarly confronted by the Green Work Alliance,

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a ­labor–­environmental co­ali­tion formed in an industrial suburb of Toronto during the early 1990s that wanted to retool a recently closed agricultural machinery plant for environmentally friendly production (Keil 1994). Nevertheless, the experience with the Kodak lands points to ways that ­labor–­community alliances can pressure the state to better protect industrial lands and create green jobs. If more resources had been given to the city’s development agency, TEDCO (­later named Build Toronto), it could have made a more competitive bid to buy and preserve the Kodak factory buildings before they w ­ ere demolished by a speculative land development com­pany. Of course, public owner­ship of the Kodak site would not have guaranteed green industrial uses for the site, but it would have made it much easier for the Network to make the argument in ­favor of green manufacturing. The eventual expropriation of the Kodak lands by the city allowed ­labor to use its connection with the mayor’s office to begin engaging the city’s development agency around green economic development; however, by that time, the bulk of the Kodak site had been designated as the ­future light rail transit maintenance and storage fa­cil­i­ty. This suggests that ­labor–­community co­ali­tions should engage with municipal development corporations like TEDCO as early as pos­si­ble, and politicize the use of ­these public corporations if need be, in order to protect industrial capital assets in the city that could be retooled for sustainable production. The Network’s attempt to revive the blue-­collar character of the community contrasts with the cases discussed by Wieditz (this volume) and MacDonald (2011), in which the strategies of l­abor–­community co­ali­tions resulted in a “negotiated gentrification” (MacDonald 2011, 206). But ­there are many contradictions that the work of the Network could not, or did not, resolve. Even if the leaders of the Network w ­ ere firmly anti-­big-­box, a full consensus was never reached within the Network around the preference for manufacturing over retail investment on the Kodak lands. This speaks to class contradictions within the community as well as the contradiction lived out by workers in their position as both consumers and producers. Further research could better examine the ways that workers produce urban space in their capacity as consumers. The Network also admittedly strug­gled to engage the most marginalized residents in the community, such as single m ­ others and t­hose with m ­ ental and physical disabilities. In trying to fix green capital onto the Kodak lands, the Network was simply trying to regulate capital accumulation, not advance an anticapitalist politics that could more fundamentally address the situation of marginalized groups. Even if the Network had been successful in attracting green investors into Mount Dennis, as Figueroa’s chapter confirms, it is often difficult to ensure that the most marginalized residents receive the training and supports they need to successfully get hired into green jobs.

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It is in working through ­these contradictions, in a pro­cess I have termed ­labor’s socio-­ecological fix, that ­labor actively produces the green economy as a constructed vision and, where successful, a material real­ity. We must resist conceptualizations of the green economy simply in terms of the investment decisions made by capital or the abstract policy discourses circulated by environmental groups, ­unions, or national or subnational governments. To be sure, l­abor and community groups like the Mount Dennis Weston Network draw on ­these policy discourses, while the investment decisions of capital are clearly significant in the production of cities. But the green economy also emerges out of social and socio-­ecological strug­gles waged at the scale of the neighborhood and the city. Understanding ­these concrete strug­gles through which the green economy is produced helps uncover the place-­specific challenges and opportunities with which ­labor and communities are engaged, such as making the green economy more equitable, union-­friendly, and other­w ise in tune with the needs of par­tic­u­lar communities.

Part 4

­ ABOR AND THE L CARING CITY Simon Black

Cities across Canada and the United States are facing what feminist scholars have called a “care crisis”: the number of p ­ eople needing care has risen much more steeply than the number of t­ hose available to provide it (Glenn 2010, 1). While this crisis is not unique to urban centers, demographic and po­liti­cal trends have seen the care crisis develop earlier and with greater severity in cities such as Toronto and New York. Beginning in the 1960s, rising costs of living, the growth of the ser­vice sector, and what Federici (2012, 185) has called “­women’s revolt against confinement to domestic l­ abor” saw increasing numbers of w ­ omen enter the urban l­abor market, necessitating greater demand for care. As North American cities are sites of concentrated poverty, cuts to social supports and welfare reforms that recast poor single m ­ others as employable have made the crisis all the more acute. The care crisis can also be understood as a crisis for care workers. Paid care work in North Amer­i­ca is both gendered and racialized, and therefore devalued (see Glenn 2010). ­Women are assumed to have a natu­ral ability to care, and care work is typically understood as not requiring the specialized knowledge, training, and skills that are the justification for good wages. Furthermore, the reliance of the Canadian and U.S. welfare states on primarily means-­tested social programs fundamentally shapes the entire ­labor market for care. In urban ­labor markets across the United States and Canada, care work—­whether as paid employment in private homes or in institutional settings such as long-­term care facilities, hospitals, or daycare centers—is undervalued, underpaid, and more often than not precarious. We are far from realizing a vision of the “caring city,” a city in which 167

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working-­class families’ need for affordable, quality care, and care workers’ desire for good wages and decent working conditions are fulfilled. However, as the following two chapters on ­labor-­led urban child care strug­gles illustrate, ­unions have a crucial role to play in achieving ­these goals. Toronto and New York City provide unique entry points through which to explore the nexus of child care, the urban, and or­ga­nized ­labor. ­These cities are home to the largest municipal child care systems in their respective countries. In both Toronto and New York, municipal government has a substantial role in the planning, management, and delivery of child care ser­v ices, a role that has been ­shaped by remarkably similar histories (for an overview, see Michel 1999; Prentice 1989). In both cities, public child care was established during the Second World War as government-­funded day nurseries served ­children whose ­mothers ­were employed in essential war industries. At war’s end, child care co­ali­tions, with the strong presence of socialists and communists, fought to save day nurseries and cement child care as a public ser­v ice. However, ­these b ­ attles ­were ultimately lost, and in the postwar period child care became a welfare ser­vice targeted to the neediest families. While the two cities oversaw the expansion of public child care in the 1960s as part of national poverty-­reduction efforts, child care in Toronto and New York ­today is a patchwork ser­v ice in liberal-­residualist welfare regimes. In both cities, well-­managed but underfunded and over­burdened public systems exist alongside a vast non-­system of regulated and un­regu­la­ted private spaces that exhibit a wide range of quality and standards. Since the 1960s, u ­ nions have played an impor­tant role in our case cities’ child care sectors. New York’s subsidized daycare centers ­were or­ga­nized in 1966. Toronto lagged ­behind as ­unions made inroads in the child care sector in the 1970s and 1980s. Multiple u ­ nions represent child care workers in New York and Toronto. AFSCME District Council 1707 represents workers in New York’s 350 subsidized centers, while the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) represents approximately 28,000 home child care providers. In Toronto, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) represents workers in the city’s fifty-­eight municipally operated centers, while CUPE and the Ontario Public Sector Employees Union (OPSEU) represent early childhood educators and support staff in a range of nonprofit, community-­based settings and in the city’s public school system. While ­unions in Toronto and New York’s child care sectors face a number of common challenges, including municipal austerity and the rollout of full-­day (or universal) kindergarten, t­ here are impor­tant historical differences that shape their con­temporary strategies. As Simon Black discusses in his chapter on union-­led efforts to prevent the closure of municipal child care centers in the greater Toronto area, Toronto’s child care ­unions are key players in the Canadian child care

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movement, which takes the form of co­ali­tions of child care providers, social justice organ­izations, feminists, and u ­ nions at the national, provincial, and local levels. Since the 1970s, this movement’s or­ga­niz­ing and advocacy has been infused by a feminist and broadly leftist politics, which sees universal public child care not solely as an investment in c­ hildren, but as a social right and a necessary step to achieving gender equality and social justice (see Amoroso 2010). As such, while not immune to making economic arguments, or the “business case” for child care (see Prentice 2007), the movement does not have a strong tradition of working with private-­sector actors such as employers or local boards of trade. As Susanna Schaller, K. C. Wagner, and Mildred Warner point out in their chapter on con­temporary ­labor strug­gles around child care in New York, ­unions in the city’s child care sector are also united by a vision of increased public investment and expanded access, but have traditionally exhibited a less coherent politics and a more uneven history of co­ali­tion building than their Toronto-­based counter­parts. Compared to Toronto’s Co­ali­tion for Better Child Care (TCBCC), founded in the early 1980s, the New York Union Child Care Co­ali­tion (NYUCCC) was established in 1994. Whereas Schaller et al. point to the NYUCCC’s efforts to make child care an essential feature of collective bargaining and a standard workplace benefit—­later expanding to push for a broader f­amily agenda—­the TCBCC’s goal was and remains a universal, nonprofit, publicly funded system with a ­unionized workforce. This vision has allowed Toronto’s child care u ­ nions to avoid some of the strategic dilemmas facing their New York counter­parts, namely ­whether to focus resources and policy clout on extending child care benefits to all working-­class families, increasing support for the poorest families, or securing benefits targeted to child care workers themselves (see Schaller et al., this volume). In the wake of welfare reform, New York City’s publicly subsidized home child care sector experienced rapid growth (Black 2012a). In Toronto, partly due to the strength of the child care movement and complex po­liti­cal ­factors, the government deci­ded against the voucherization of child care; it also blocked the use of public subsidies for informal (i.e., unlicensed) home child care and limited their use for licensed home child care. As Schaller et al. illustrate, in New York, the UFT has been successful in or­ga­niz­ing licensed and informal home child care providers, “following the work.” While the NYUCCC and its affiliated u ­ nions have successfully campaigned to expand their members’ access to child care benefits, the UFT has partnered with community-­based organ­izations to raise the wages and working conditions of the most marginalized workers in the city’s child care sector. Both campaigns have demanded greater public investment in child care overall, combining working-­class families’ needs for access to quality, affordable child care and child care providers’ desire for quality care work.

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In contrast to the UFT’s presence in home child care, ­unions in Toronto’s child care sector remain concentrated in the city’s nonprofit and municipally operated sector. Municipally operated child care centers are of par­tic­u­lar importance to child care ­unions and the broader child care movement. ­These centers set benchmarks for both child care quality and wages and working conditions, and thus represent the model of child care delivery that the union-­backed child care movement sees as the foundation of a universal system of early childhood education and care (what one local politician has derisively called “gold-­plated” child care). Black’s chapter compares two campaigns—­one in the city of Toronto and the other in a neighboring suburb—to defend municipal child care ser­v ices against neoliberal austerity. In contrast to the campaigns discussed by Schaller et al., ­unions in Toronto have chosen to play a ­behind-­the-­scenes supportive role in ­these efforts, letting their community co­ali­tion partners lead the way, to avoid being framed as defenders of sectional interests at the expense of the public good. As Black illustrates, this strategic innovation has played out differently in a central city context in which community allies are strong, and u ­ nions have friends at city hall, as compared with the more conservative po­liti­cal landscape of the suburbs. Beyond the particulars of the case studies, the chapters raise a number of impor­tant questions. Child care is undoubtedly central to the social reproduction of the urban working class on a daily and intergenerational basis. In their strug­gles for better wages, working conditions, and expanded public investment, ­unions in the child care sector can make demands on behalf of their members and on behalf of the broader working class. Like other public-­sector ­unions, they are perhaps uniquely situated to articulate the needs of producers and consumers as a unified interest. However, we must ask ­whether the demands for quality care and quality care work at the heart of the caring city represent a high road to the competitive city or stand in contradiction to dominant urban accumulation strategies. Only contextually specific analy­sis can provide us with further insight into the relationship between ­unions, child care, and entrepreneurial urbanism.

7 CREATING A CITY FOR WORKERS Union Strategies on Child Care in New York City Susanna F. Schaller, K. C. Wagner, and Mildred E. Warner

In devising new ­labor strategies, ­unions have to strike a balance between reaching out to broader community partners and meeting the core needs of their current and f­ uture membership base. This chapter examines two New York City case studies in the child care sector to illustrate how u ­ nions formed strategic co­ali­ tions to expand access to child care, broaden subsidies and child care benefits to workers generally, and upgrade working conditions for the most marginalized home-­based child care workers in the city. The cases we pres­ent in this chapter also reflect some of the tensions that emerge as ­unions formulate new ­labor strategies that bridge home and work (social reproduction and production), and build critical links to politics and policymaking that connect neighborhood or­ ga­niz­ing to city-­level action and state-­level policy change. Child care and work/life balance are workplace and public policy issues that have seen a lot of policy movement in the United States over the last thirty years. In New York City, beginning in the 1980s, private-­sector employers began to pay attention to the work/life balance needs of their employees. The Center for ­Children’s Initiatives (CCI), New York City’s child care advocacy group, launched a strategy with private-­sector employers to extend new benefits such as maternity leave and child care to high-­end employees. At the same time, a health care ­union, with a predominately female workforce, worked with a private-­sector hospital employer in the city to make child care an essential component of a collective bargaining agreement. This led to the emergence of a ­union co­ali­tion to support child care as an essential feature of collective bargaining and a standard workplace benefit. 171

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The late 1990s and early 2000s also witnessed a major shift in U.S. public policy regarding child care. The federal welfare reform of 1997, with its directive to move recipients from welfare to work, dramatically expanded child care subsidies for low-­income workers (Mezey et al. 2002). New federal grants for child care became available to cities and states. T ­ hese subsidies made the challenge of ensuring a sufficient supply of high-­quality child care a more salient policy issue for city officials and developers, and led to new co­ali­tions to address child care in cities all across the United States (Warner and Prentice 2013; Warner 2006). In New York City, u ­ nions took the lead in collaborating with child care advocates to pursue shared interests at the state and city levels to address child care access and quality. At the same time, the precariousness of working conditions in the child care sector and incipient national-­level or­ga­niz­ing efforts provided ­unions the necessary space to move into or­ga­niz­ing home-­based child care workers in the city. ­These dynamics ­shaped the strategies employed by ­unions in our two cases. In the first case, ­unions and their collation partners focused their attention on working parents, including the u ­ nions’ membership base. A u ­ nion co­ali­tion representing low-­wage workers partnered with child care advocacy organ­izations to expand access to affordable and stable child care to improve worker job security and to achieve better work–­family balance. Inspired by a health care ­union’s (SEIU 1199) successful collective bargaining strategy with Catholic hospitals to incorporate child care benefits in the collective bargaining framework, a group of u ­ nion leaders, with the support of city and state ­labor federations, created a cross-­union collaboration and or­ga­nized a co­ali­tion to address work and ­family issues. The goal was to link individual u ­ nion efforts to a broader city-­and statewide agenda on child care. In the second case, ­union organizers focused on improving working conditions for marginalized informal, home-­based child care providers to expand ­unionization in the sector and more fully incorporate a dispersed work force into the child care system. By improving quality among ­these “alternative teachers,” the u ­ nions also sought to achieve the public good of closing the achievement gap for low-­income ­children. In this case, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) entered into a community or­ga­niz­ing partnership with ACORN to or­ga­ nize highly isolated informal home-­based child care providers, with the stated aim of improving both the lives of a severely marginalized workforce, and the quality of care and education ­children receive in New York City before their first entrance into the public school system. The case studies examine the strategic evolution ­behind the dif­fer­ent ­unions’ framework for a child care agenda and discuss the uniqueness of each approach. The two cases showcase strategies whereby u ­ nions and their allies w ­ ere able to



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forge common ground (1) to put forth an overall child care and work–­family agenda and extract child care benefits for working families, and (2) to reframe the role and gain recognition for the largely invisible informal child care providers in the system. In examining ­these strategies, we point to the innovation and entrepreneurialism u ­ nions have successfully harnessed in a shifting policy and fiscal environment. The analy­sis of ­these cases draws not only on a review of relevant policy and program documents, ­union newsletters, and public testimonies, but also on a series of in-­depth interviews and interactive discussions we undertook in 2012 and 2013 with key actors involved in devising ­these strategies, especially ­union leaders and child care advocates. This research brought into relief the dif­fer­ent interests of vari­ous ­unions and advocates and how this divergence informed their strategy choices. It highlights the impor­tant role of ­unions in engaging po­liti­cal actors at the neighborhood, city, and state levels. Social ­unionism (Turner and Cornfield 2007) as urban strategy recognizes the need to build po­liti­cal co­ali­tions at the neighborhood and city levels to build support for change, but also the need to reach out to the state level to effect the structural policy changes required to enable city action. The expressly po­liti­cal nature of ­union activity provides an impor­tant complement to the apo­liti­cal nature of nonprofit child care advocacy groups, and it expands their policy reach. However, social ­unionism is not without conflicts, especially in sectors such as child care, where the needs are g­ reat and funding is limited. We conclude this chapter with a discussion of what ­these new and sometimes conflicting l­abor strategies mean for u ­ nions and their ability to meet broader public policy objectives regarding improving access and quality as well as wages and working conditions in the child care sector.

Case #1: Workers as Parents—­T he Union Child Care Co­a li­t ion Our first case focuses on broad co­ali­tion building as a strategy to shape the citywide child care agenda. The strategy moves from the establishment of the 1199 Child Care Fund, to the creation of a multiunion co­ali­tion around the issue of child care, validating child care as a standard benefit, and promoting broader access to public child care subsidies through a collaborative facilitated enrollment model. In addition, two workplace-­based studies ­were launched to mea­ sure both the social and economic benefits of providing child care benefits to low-­wage workers. The aim was to leverage l­ abor/management workplace cooperation to build institutional partnerships to sustain long-­term workplace cultural change, recognizing child care as a key employment benefit.

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This case illustrates how the new l­ abor strategy of sector-­based co­ali­tion building reframed child care in three impor­tant ways: (1) it legitimized child care as a standard benefit in contract negotiations, (2) it established child care as a crucial ser­v ice to enhance work/life balance, and (3) it provided evidence to document the return on investment in child care for workers, ­unions, and employers. Child care has, consequently, moved from the margins of the policy agenda to the center of the ­unions’ policy work. The ­unions involved in ­these efforts had by the 1980s incorporated w ­ omen in key leadership positions, and they helped place child care squarely on the agenda at an opportune moment.

Negotiating Child Care as a Standard Contract Benefit with Private Employers The story begins in the 1980s. Strikes in 1984 and 1989 among workers in the hospital sector yielded a change both in ­union leadership and in the awareness of a religiously affiliated hospital employer. SEIU 1199, the main u ­ nion involved in ­these strikes, was highly feminized in both its membership and leadership, which led to a clear articulation of a gendered awareness of what their membership needed to achieve a better life: greater attention focused on work–­family balance and access to a safe place for workers’ c­ hildren. While this balance implied a specific spatial strategy at the neighborhood level across the city, ­women ­union leaders of 1199, with the support of their male ­union president, ­were keenly aware that child care, first and foremost, had to be reframed as a standard benefit for working families. In the late 1980s, 1199 u ­ nion leaders found an ally among the Catholic hospitals, a former nun in charge of the hospitals, who became a key broker in the negotiations to have the ­women workers’ demands met. At the same time, Cardinal John O’Connor, archbishop of New York, saw ­these negotiations as a way to improve the working conditions of a largely female workforce and to engage the larger Latino community, a crucial constituency for Catholic parishes in the city. Consequently, in 1989, 1199’s contract with the Catholic hospitals included a child care benefit for workers. Unions recognized that the 1199 child care benefit was vulnerable if it remained an isolated case, so they made the Catholic hospitals’ contract a model for the League of Voluntary Hospitals, and four (arduous) years ­later the 1199 Child Care Fund1 became available to u ­ nion members of working families in ­those hospitals as well. The long-­term goal of some of the visionary leaders involved in ­these efforts was to move child care from the margin to the center as a standard benefit that should be included in collective bargaining. The strikes provided a crucial opportunity to insert child care as part of the bargaining agenda with the Catholic hospitals. This portion of the case highlights how the u ­ nion was able to set a new



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standard for workers in the hospital sector through targeted negotiations with an employer that controlled a substantial portion of the sector in the city.

Broadening Access to Public Child Care Subsidies: Eligibility and Facilitated Enrollment In 1994, inspired by the creation of the 1199 Child Care Fund, the New York Union Child Care Co­ali­tion (NYUCCC) was formed as a co­ali­tion of ten ­unions and several child care policy and advocacy groups who w ­ ere committed to a child care/ work and ­family agenda; it now includes twenty-­five ­unions with official recogni­ tion from the New York City ­Labor Council and the New York State AFL-­CIO.2 Its three-­pronged, broad-­based approach included expanded access to child care assistance for low-­and moderate-­income working families, wage supplements for child care workers, recruitment and retention of a qualified workforce, and increasing quality child care programs through capital construction and renovation funding (NYUCCC 1998, 2002). We focus h ­ ere on one illustrative component of the agenda: the broader co­ali­ tion building around public child care subsidies. The u ­ nions’ goal was to expand eligibility for the public subsidy and reshape the public ser­v ice delivery system through a community-­based facilitated enrollment pro­cess. The aim was to broaden access to public child care subsidies to include not only welfare leavers, but also the working poor who ­were also ­union members (NYUCCC 2002). The key challenge was to reframe child care in the eyes of policymakers and employers. Child care subsidies at this time ­were embedded in the welfare system and carried many of its trappings—­stigma, difficult paperwork, and complex bureaucratic procedures (Warner, Ribeiro, and Smith 2003). The u ­ nion co­ali­tion’s goal was to shift the subsidy program from a “poverty program” to a “worker-­friendly system”; this involved reframing child care access as a broader working parents’ issue. Broadening access meant changing eligibility requirements, such as expanding income criteria, at both the city and state levels. It also required devising a delivery system at the city level to address the urban spatial dynamics that create hardships for working parents, who must manage their work schedules and arrange for care in their neighborhoods. The co­ali­tion included a broad set of players. Unions (1199, DC 37, UFT, 237 [Teamsters], and 1707), which had already used their po­liti­cal leverage to fight for a general increase in child care subsidies during bud­get negotiations, sought to expand access to child care benefits for their members, and realized they needed to advocate for the working poor more broadly (NYUCCC 2002). Child care advocates, such as the Center for C ­ hildren’s Initiatives—­the city’s child care resource and referral agency (previously Child Care Inc.)—­saw this as a way to improve

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access to quality child care for all workers. Employers (the hospitals) saw expanded child care as a means to reduce absenteeism and increase productivity. Agencies within the city government came aboard as they saw how the co­ali­tion was able to create a more streamlined pro­cess for eligible families to secure benefits. Fi­nally, university researchers ­were recruited to provide careful study of program impacts to document the value added for all stakeholders. Through po­liti­cal work at the city and state levels, the co­ali­tion was successful in institutionalizing impor­tant changes in the public child care subsidy program. They mobilized enough support (through postcard campaigns, educational lobby days, and awareness events) to persuade New York State legislators in 2000 and 2001 to make a change in the subsidy eligibility requirements, increasing income eligibility caps from 200 ­percent up to 275 ­percent of poverty. The co­ali­tion also fought for additional subsidy dollars at the state level.3 The change would allow subsidies to flow to a broader sector of low-­and moderate-­income working parents. The co­ali­tion, aware of the broader benefit for all working families, also began to advocate for a multimillion-­dollar facilitated enrollment pi­lot proj­ect in the fall of 2000 to enhance broader worker access to the child care subsidies. The co­ali­tion recognized that in addition to supporting the multistakeholder legislative agenda of the statewide Child Care That Works campaign, addressing the child care needs of working families would mean concrete gains for ­union members as well. This placed the l­ abor movement front and center in the fight for quality, affordable child care. Moreover, in order to maintain a broad co­ali­tion for the effort at the city and neighborhood levels, the proj­ect strategically hosted facilitated enrollment at community-­based sites such as schools and fairs, which implemented a spatial strategy that embedded the benefits of the u ­ nion’s po­liti­cal or­ga­niz­ing efforts in neighborhood and district politics.4 Unions consciously employed the language of “constituency” and “citizenship” to signal their willingness to employ their substantial resources and po­liti­cal capital to secure benefits for working parents beyond their own membership, and to advocate for a ser­v ice delivery model located in specific neighborhoods. Working parents in par­tic­u­lar require a spatial strategy that makes accessing benefits easier. Taking the facilitated enrollment proj­ect to neighborhood schools, community centers, and worksites did just that. Facilitated enrollment helped shift child care subsidies not only from a welfare frame to a frame that recognized that working families also need child care support to maintain their economic security, but also focused on how to get benefits to ­these families. ­These strategies shift the focus from the poorest welfare leavers to working parents more broadly and crucially recognize and begin to bridge the spatial



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mismatch between the care and work economies that working families must navigate. While this strategic focus to make child care subsidies available to a broader spectrum of families raises questions about who gets priority access given the limited pool of child care subsidy dollars, the expansion of child care as a worker right (not just a welfare right) was part of the broader co­ali­tion strategy, and in the long term may incorporate more “benefit constituents” to lobby for more funding for child care. ­There was a pre­ce­dent for this, since ­unions had already successfully lobbied for more funding in the 1990s. Continued work in this direction by union–­advocate co­ali­tions at multiple levels could further institutionalize child care funding at state and city levels. Fi­nally, as the next section ­will illustrate, the co­ali­tion’s work was instrumental in helping mainstream child care as a crucial worker benefit good for both employees and the broader local economy.

Research: Making the Case for Productivity Enhancement In order to legitimize child care as a standard workplace benefit, the co­ali­tion also used research to demonstrate that stable access to child care benefits both workers and employers. The co­ali­tion, with the ­unions at the forefront, garnered funding to launch two initiatives. The Working Parents for a Working New York (WPWNY) proj­ect demonstrated that access to reliable child care can lessen work–­family conflict and enhance worker productivity (WPWNY 2010a). The second study, Excellent Health Workers/Excellent Parents: A ­Labor/Health Industry Consortium to Address Work/­Family Conflict (EHWEP), focused on the health care sector and highlighted low-­cost ­labor–­management strategies to improve relationships between employees and employers through facilitated dialogues and workshops around work/­family issues. We focus on the first study ­because it directly linked child care provision to productivity. The WPWNY study evaluated the effects of subsidy receipt on low-­income worker productivity in the hospital, home health care, and school crossing guard sectors—­sectors where scheduling and absenteeism ­were prob­lems. The ­unions helped raise a total of $1.525 million from the New York City Council during the 2007–2008 and 2008–2009 fiscal years for the WPWNY Initiative. The study chose specific worksites based on cooperative l­abor–­management relationships and the number of ­union members who ­were income-­eligible for child care subsidies at ­those sites. Child care subsidies ­were provided to a randomly selected group of income-­eligible employees (employees of both the city and subcontracted agencies), and a control group which did not receive t­ hese benefits.5 The research proj­ect relied on gaining access to existing employer data on

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employee productivity indicators and on qualitative data collected through in-­ person interviews. Given the vulnerability workers might feel in having their employers monitor their per­for­mance, ­union leaders framed the study in terms of the broader common good the results could create for child care benefits and used this to convince employees to participate. The findings of the study indicate that access to child care subsidies had a positive impact on worker per­for­mance and reduced both absenteeism and “presenteeism” (WPWNY 2010a, 2010b).6 Additionally, the study showed conversations about work–­life balance in the workplace improved both perceptions of the work environment and employee productivity (WPWNY 2010c, 2010d). ­These research studies would not have been pos­si­ble without the co­ali­tion. Advocates could not have conducted e­ ither study b ­ ecause they did not have the constituency of parents as an or­ga­nized group, a database of workers, or relationships with employers to connect to income-­eligible working parents and engage management’s cooperation. Advocates are nonprofit organ­izations that depend on public funding for their child care resource and referral work. They cannot engage in direct lobbying. Unions, by contrast, are in­de­pen­dent po­liti­cal organ­ izations with strategists, funding, and an orga­nizational mechanism that can mobilize constituents and, ultimately, voters. While advocates try to effect change through broad improvements to policy, ­unions are on-­the-­ground person-­to-­ person, worker-­to-­worker organ­izations willing to use their po­liti­cal power to extract resources and leverage the support of l­ abor–­management committees. As one child care advocate leader said, “I think that if ­you’re being a wise strategist and advocate, and live in New York City, you need to figure out the ways that you work with the ­unions and try and find as much common ground as you can.” In the end, the common framing, the imperative to show policymakers and employers the impact of access to child care on both working families and work per­for­ mance, resonated among all the dif­fer­ent stakeholders.

Case #2: Organ­i zing Child Care Providers—­U nited Federation of Teachers (UFT) The ­union strategy in this case focused on improving working conditions for marginalized home-­based child care providers through a direct worker or­ga­niz­ing strategy. We tell the story of the United Federation of Teachers’ (UFT) or­ga­niz­ing efforts to link improvements in the education readiness of young c­ hildren with improvements in the remuneration and status of home-­based, informal (legally exempt) child care providers. The case highlights an innovation in or­ga­niz­ing,



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with the attendant challenges that emerge when a u ­ nion expands its tent to include informal child care providers, now defined as “alternative teachers.” It also shows the potential for divergent strategic foci among u ­ nions, given the dif­fer­ent interests they represent in the child care sector. The UFT strategy focused on membership expansion to informal child care providers, who, like the paraprofessionals or­ga­nized by the UFT in the mid-1960s, are seen as part of a broad public education mission, creating linkages between community-­based providers with cultural expertise and the education bureaucracy (Juravich 2012; Amlung 2010). By ameliorating working conditions for marginalized home-­based providers, the UFT also consciously framed the or­ga­ niz­ing effort around the notion of a continuum of “educational readiness” using higher-­quality child care to bridge the achievement gap of low-­income ­children. The UFT sought to empower an other­wise invisible group of informal home-­based child care workers as it tried to respond to restructuring of the field of early education in the city, which was threatening the stability of center-­based care through privatization and voucherization. Moreover, by d ­ oing so, the UFT also sought to improve the quality of care, particularly for low-­income ­children, who are overrepresented in informal child care settings. The UFT’s strategy articulated explicit linkages between the interests of home-­based child care providers and teachers the UFT represents in the city’s formal public school system. Focusing on increasing reimbursement and training to improve quality, the UFT reasoned that c­ hildren would be better prepared to enter the formal school setting. This case highlights a community-­based or­ga­niz­ing strategy in an increasingly difficult po­liti­cal and fiscal environment.

Background on New York City Child Care Structure The New York City child care system is characterized by a mix of a few city-­run public centers (with u ­ nionized workers) within a primarily private, market-­based child care system of centers and home-­based ­family providers. The city has increasingly shifted its focus away from ­running its own centers and ­toward vouchers. In addition, the city’s publicly subsidized centers have been tasked with caring for younger ­children to increase access for this age group, while older ­children ­were moved to school-­based ­after-­school programs. This created challenges for parents who have to pick up ­children at multiple sites when school-­aged and younger c­ hildren used to be served at one location. It also negatively affected the financial viability of the city-­run centers. The staff ratio is higher for younger ­children, so the loss of ­after-­school ­children undermined the financial model for city child care centers. Centers had to hire additional staff to care for infants and toddlers, increasing costs significantly. In addition, centers faced capital invest-

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ment to renovate classrooms to make them appropriate for infants and toddlers. ­These requirements, and the corresponding rising cost structure, made the centers more expensive. The city proceeded to push ­toward a voucher system, which parents could use with home-­based providers or informal providers in their neighborhoods. Ostensibly, for parents with multiple ­children, this system si­mul­ta­neously increased their choice and reduced their burden of having to negotiate multiple stopovers between work and care sites. For the ­union that represents center-­based child care workers (District Council 1707), however, the move t­ oward voucher-­based care posed a threat, as it had the potential of decimating their membership. Consequently, District Council 1707 focused on defending the publicly funded child care centers, a legacy of Mayor Lindsay’s administration, and the high-­quality child care t­ hese centers provide. The UFT, as the case below outlines, followed a dif­fer­ent strategy. Recognizing the federal focus on “parental choice” and the city’s focus on voucherization, the UFT’s or­ga­niz­ing strategy worked within ­these par­ameters to carve out a space that sought to improve conditions for marginalized informal providers and provide better-­quality care for low-­income parents trying to balance f­ amily responsibilities with demanding, precarious jobs.

UFT/ACORN’s Community Organ­izing Model In 2005, the UFT entered into a community or­ga­niz­ing partnership with ACORN to or­ga­nize isolated, informal child care providers in New York City. Organ­izing drives had led to executive ­orders facilitating the ­unionization of child care workers in several states, such as Illinois, Oregon, and New Jersey, by 2005 (Gregory 2008). The UFT/ACORN partnership leveraged national-­level or­ga­niz­ing experience in the child care sector to develop their strategy. Through its partnership with ACORN, UFT brought its message into local neighborhoods and into the homes of low-­income families as well as microentrepreneurs in the care economy, thus forging an urban strategy that highlighted the relevancy of u ­ nions to the daily strug­gles of ordinary ­people. This alliance lived on in the UFT/New York Communities for Change partnership ­after the official dissolution of ACORN in 2010.7 In New York, t­ here ­were approximately 28,000 home-­based child care providers, of whom about 20,000 w ­ ere legally exempt from regulation (meaning they care for just two ­children beyond their own). During the spring of 2006, ACORN began its canvassing efforts, and by the summer hundreds of providers attended a meeting to discuss ­unionization. By the fall, over 1,300 providers, with the support of clergy and legislators, rallied to lay out the issues faced by f­amily-­based providers. That same fall, grassroots joint u ­ nionization efforts by the UFT and ACORN (“massive door-­knocking and canvassing”) began in New York City to



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convince providers to sign authorization cards. By May 16, 2007, according to the UFT, 12,000 providers had signed authorization cards to allow the UFT to represent them in bargaining negotiations, and by May 24, then Governor Spitzer signed the executive order officially legitimizing t­ hese ­unionization pro­cesses.8 Informal home-­based child care providers have made some impor­tant gains as a result of the UFT’s ­unionization efforts. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in public subsidy reimbursement that the Administration for ­Children’s Ser­v ices (ACS) owed providers ­were recovered. Providers can now count on a negotiated market rate, which locks in higher pay rates. Providers who commit to a certain number of hours of professional development are eligible for enhanced reimbursement. Providers have also gained access to a health insurance program. Irregular payments from ACS, which was one of the key challenges child care providers faced in managing their operations and ensuring their survival, w ­ ere fi­nally rectified. Fi­nally, the ­unions’ efforts resulted in improved interface with regulatory agencies, which alleviated some “unnecessary” regulatory burdens, such as license renewal e­ very two years, which was extended to four years with two-­year inspection periods, and the discontinuation of posting minor infractions for public view on public websites. The UFT is representing an isolated workforce composed largely of immigrant ­women of color, who themselves are parents trying to make ends meet while providing a crucial community ser­v ice. Low-­income and minority families rely heavi­ly on informal home-­based child care ­because ­these providers are more responsive to t­hese families’ needs—­accommodating nontraditional hours and providing a continuum of care from infancy to school age in f­amily homes located in con­ve­nient neighborhood locations. UFT representatives emphasized that ­these ­unionization efforts have given providers, who ­were largely invisible to the public, a platform to speak out, and more importantly to speak with one another, share their concerns, and think about solutions collectively. The key is both to support t­ hese workers in securing their own livelihood through negotiated contracts and to provide professional development to improve the quality of care the c­ hildren receive. The UFT characterizes its or­ga­niz­ing efforts as “bottom up listening and a constituency-­driven agenda and strategy building,” wherein the UFT serves a bridging function, connecting the livelihood needs of isolated community-­based workers and politicians to build agreement. Union meetings and activities w ­ ere confidence-­building and empowering, as they created places where ­women could meet, break out of their isolation, and talk to other adults.9 The UFT explic­itly centered its or­ga­niz­ing strategy on the needs of low-­income families, who often need care for multiple ­children of dif­fer­ent ages. The UFT’s rhe­toric focused on “closing the achievement gap” through the redefinition of

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early child care providers as education “prac­ti­tion­ers.” By focusing on raising the quality of care through training and material support for ­these home-­based providers, the UFT also framed its strategy as serving long-­term educational policy goals. The UFT had both the capacity and the w ­ ill to create economies of scale in providing professional development training for home-­based providers. The UFT made this training available both to UFT members and to other non-­UFT home-­ based providers who accept nonsubsidy c­ hildren. In this way, the UFT linked its early child care efforts to its base membership—­teachers in the public school system—­who are now held accountable for bridging the achievement gaps.10

Defining the Po­liti­cal Space for Strategic Action The UFT/ACORN partnership built on preexisting personal relationships across the two organ­izations and forged a power­ful or­ga­niz­ing alliance in New York City to rally support among child care providers, local officials, and community leaders. At the same time, UFT developed an effective relationship with the Civil Ser­v ice Employees Association (CSEA) to build a downstate/upstate co­ali­tion for po­liti­cal lobbying work at the state level (Gregory 2008). Each partner leveraged its po­liti­cal capital to lobby legislators and two successive governor’s offices to bring informal child care providers into the u ­ nion’s fold. The policy strategy the partners deployed initially focused on passing legislation to inscribe the right to repre­sen­ta­tion and bargaining in law. Cognizant of complications that had arisen in other states, the legislation that was moved forward did not classify child care workers as public employees for the purposes of pensions or health care, but did allow child care providers to vote on formal repre­sen­ta­ tion for contract negotiations (Gregory 2008). While the co­ali­tion was surprisingly successful in garnering support for the legislation in both the State Assembly and the Republican-­controlled Senate (which was willing to override Republican Governor Pataki’s initial veto of the legislation), the timing of the gubernatorial elections blocked this effort. Ironically, it was Demo­cratic gubernatorial candidate Spitzer who scuttled the legislative strategy, promising to issue an executive order instead. Though the UFT/ ACORN partnership and the co­ali­tion with CSEA upstate formed a power­ful po­liti­cal alignment, their strategic focus changed in response to Governor Spitzer’s election. Po­liti­cal opportunity structures, such as elections and ­union successes in other states, condition the space in which ­unions can maneuver. Legislation would have been preferable to ensure long-­term or­ga­niz­ing rights, but the executive order allowed ­unionization of the sector to move forward (Rivin 2014).



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Emerging Tensions: Are We Formalizing the Informal? The UFT has worked consciously to frame their or­ga­niz­ing as a “big tent education ­union approach” (Amlung 2010). In the case of the informal home-­based child care providers, the UFT has been a game changer, bringing power and savvy to administrative and policy negotiations with the city and the state regarding the benefits, reimbursement, and oversight of this large group of care providers. However, incorporating informal child care providers raises a question regarding the formality and professionalism of the early education sector overall. The UFT must balance the interests of members who are teachers in the public system with ­those of informal care providers. UFT’s big tent educational ­union approach goes back to the ­union’s history of or­ga­niz­ing paraprofessionals in the 1960s. In the case of paraprofessionals and school aides, the ­union was able to bridge ­these apparent internal contradictions by framing paraprofessionals as pedagogical assistants, who could effectively bridge the community–­bureaucracy gap (Juravich 2012). Similarly, the UFTs framing of home-­based child care providers as “alternative teachers,” crucial to closing the achievement gap for low-­income ­children, integrates ­these caregivers into the UFT’s broader educational mission. As with its 1960s strategy, the UFT has expanded professional development opportunities for ­these informal child care providers, leading both to skills upgrading, including working ­toward national accreditation, and better reimbursement rates (Amlung 2010; Juravich 2012).11 The question of formalizing the informal may have long-­term implications for the field of early childhood education. Child care advocates in the city, as well as statewide, expressed concern that the legitimization of the informal sector of the industry might undermine support for the expansion of universal prekindergarten (UPK), with formally credentialed teachers at centers and in the public schools. The UFT’s effort to u ­ nionize a largely informal workforce illustrates the tensions between quality and access, and highlights the differing interests among the dif­ fer­ent ­unions and advocates.

Discussion The two cases pres­ent two dif­fer­ent sets of strategies—­coalition building versus direct ­labor or­ga­niz­ing. The dif­fer­ent or­ga­niz­ing histories of the ­unions, their po­liti­cal capital, and their relative strength and capacity ­were key ­factors in explaining the ­unions’ par­tic­u­lar choice of strategies. In the first case, ­unions engaged in co­ali­tion building, in which their po­liti­cal clout and their resources ­were key to the co­ali­tion’s success. The second case pres­ents a Saul Alinsky–­style,

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community-­organ­izing model, in which ­unions bring crucial resources to or­ga­ nize informal workers in low-­income urban communities. In evaluating the effectiveness of ­these two models, it becomes clear that u ­ nions are searching for strategies to revitalize their presence in the social policy arena, both to stem the erosion of social benefits and to reframe social benefits as worker benefits and thus broaden their appeal among politicians, employers, and low-­income workers across the city. In the first case, the co­ali­tion was able to shift the standard of what u ­ nions bargain for and place child care squarely on the agenda, moving it from a peripheral benefit to one that is now a legitimate subject for collective bargaining. The co­ ali­tion also focused on involving employers in order to convince them of the importance of stable child care for workers. In reframing child care as an employee benefit, policy initiatives may have more sticking power. The research study focused on demonstrating the impact of child care on worker productivity. The public policy effect was significant: not only did the co­ali­tion manage to change subsidy eligibility requirements through the facilitated enrollment proj­ect, but it also moved city agencies to change their procedures for enrollment. T ­ hese changes are indicative of a change in how child care subsidies are viewed. The facilitated enrollment pi­lot shifted public subsidies from a punitive welfare frame to an economic productivity frame that treated subsidy recipients as deserving workers. The co­ali­tion achieved many gains for all partners in the streamlined subsidy enrollment process—­more access for working families and additional money targeted to child care.12 However, given a limited pool of subsidy dollars, the co­ali­tion strug­gled with the trade-­off between expanding child care access for all workers and meeting the needs of the poorest families. Overall, the work of the co­ali­tion created a win-­win-­win for u ­ nions, advocates, and politicians. Unions targeted programs in certain legislative districts and sought to match high-­need, low-­income districts with supportive legislators to move policy agendas. The ­unions understood that their membership represents a potential constituency for local politicians, who want to build a broad base of electoral support. The interunion co­ali­tion expanded the co­ali­tion’s po­liti­cal reach, since dif­fer­ent ­union leaders have relationships with dif­fer­ent politicians. Thus, the co­ali­tion, as a strategic urban actor, understood and leveraged its po­liti­cal relationships with legislators at both the city and state levels to promote funding for specific programs and policy change. Structuring the program to expand worker access to the child care subsidy was a useful or­ga­niz­ing strategy, as subsidies ­were available to both u ­ nion members and nonunion workers. T ­ hese synergies placed ­unions in a constructive role with advocates who acknowledged the benefit of partnering with ­unions in their quest to shape both state-­and city-­level child care policy. However, in leveraging their po­liti­cal clout, ­unions have the potential to



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use their power to sideline the interests of child care advocates as well as potentially weaker ­unions. ­These tensions come out more clearly in the second case. In that case, the ­union strategy focused specifically on child care workers. It centered its activities on incorporating a new population into their ranks—­largely informal, home-­based child care providers who in New York City are primarily low-­income ­women of color. In the case of the UFT/ACORN or­ga­niz­ing efforts, the intense focus on or­ga­niz­ing in low-­income neighborhoods elevated the presence of ­unions beyond a circumscribed membership and made vis­i­ble the potentially impor­tant role ­union organ­izations can play in achieving targeted social justice goals. According to the UFT, the ACORN partnership improved the conditions of precarious workers as well as supported a care economy that allows working families to bridge the spatially separated realms of production and social reproduction. At the same time, the UFT’s considerable resource base and partnership with ACORN allowed it to engage in an aggressive or­ga­niz­ing campaign. However, UFT may have crowded out weaker ­unions that ­were not as po­liti­cally connected or as resource rich (Gregory 2008).13 Instead of fighting the restructuring of the sector, the UFT focused on or­ga­niz­ing to bring informal providers into the ­union’s fold. In improving reimbursement conditions, raising regulatory re­spect for providers, and implementing a skills-­upgrading strategy, the ­union attempted to elevate the status and quality of informal home-­based providers. The lack of a broader interunion–­advocate co­ali­tion strategy meant the opportunity for a broader co­ali­tion to push for expansion of professional universal preschool was missed at that time. However, the election of Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2013 may be an indication that UFT’s partnership-­building model, incorporating a Saul Alinsky–­style or­ga­niz­ing strategy, raises the profile of u ­ nions as urban po­liti­cal actors. In this case, a look at UFTs role in electing a progressive mayor warrants closer examination.14 This election, moreover, presented a new opportunity to successfully push for universal preschool for all New York City ­children, a goal also pursued by the co­ali­tion.15 The institutionalization of UPK dovetails with the interests of the UFT. Neither case was effective in stemming the neoliberal shift t­oward privatization and voucherization of the child care system. In 2010, the Bloomberg administration introduced the Early Learn program, which blends federal, state, and city funding streams. The justification for the program was framed as a response to fiscal crisis and continuing retrenchment in education and child care funding at the state and federal levels, leaving the city to find innovative ways to continue the provision of child care, especially to the most vulnerable populations (Rosenberg 2012). Yet instability and uneven distribution of funding across the city, as well as the confusing eligibility requirements ­under the Early Learn program,

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continue to impede the provision of affordable, quality child care across the city (Rosenberg 2012). The city is retooling the funding allocation mechanism and introduced an RFP pro­cess that has led to increased contracting out of child care provision to nonprofit and for-­profit providers. The city also introduced a new reimbursement system for centers based on enrollment (rather than capacity) and targeting by zip code, which creates bud­get uncertainty for publicly funded centers. This effort to further privatize the sector stands in ­great contrast to the publicly funded, center-­based, and professional care, for which ­unions, especially District Council 1707 in New York City, had successfully or­ga­nized in the 1960s. The UFT’s strategy recognizes ­these changes and has sought to safeguard a continuum of care and to lobby for greater equity within the system given t­ hese restructuring pro­cesses.16

Conclusion It is critically impor­tant to assess the potential of new ­labor strategies contextually to understand the trade-­off ­unions have to accept in terms of achieving benefits for ­union members or promoting broader social benefit given limited public bud­gets and po­liti­cal opportunity structures (MacDonald 2010). This tension is particularly salient in the child care sector, where the three goals of access for parents, quality care for c­ hildren, and better wages and working conditions for child care providers all compete for the same limited pool of public dollars. While ­under the new l­abor strategy ­unions are pushing for broader working-­class ­family supports, they are also seeking to or­ga­nize a sector where wages and working conditions are quite poor. Unions thus face a challenge, with limited resources and policy clout, as to ­whether to extend benefits to all working-­ class families, increase support for the poorest families, or secure benefits targeted to child care workers themselves. When pressed, ­unions do their best to advance a broader social agenda while attending to the par­tic­u­lar needs of their membership. Thus, ­union strategies are necessarily narrowed to focus on u ­ nion member benefits, but this can improve the conditions of low-­income workers who need this type of advocacy. This shows both the limits and the importance of new ­labor strategies in the context of austerity politics and policies, where basic social safety net ser­v ices such as child care are being restructured. As ­these cases illustrate, u ­ nions continue to be critical urban actors. Unions’ po­liti­cal power reaches beyond the local neighborhood where community-­based partners may focus their work. Yet the synergy that can emerge from ­union support of community or­ga­niz­ing can usher in po­liti­cal change, as the election of Mayor Bill de Blasio illustrates. Unions also work at multiple po­liti­cal scales, from



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the city to the state to the federal arena, and can use their resources and po­liti­cal connections to affect the very policy environment in which cities have to operate. ­Labor–­community co­ali­tions are key to both ­union revitalization and policy change. Differences in style, approach, and strategy choice reflect the power and focus of the dif­fer­ent ­unions and which part of the child care sector they are or­ ga­niz­ing. The raw po­liti­cal power of the ­unions, and their willingness to exercise it, also creates a new dynamic for child care advocates that is more expressly po­liti­cal. This leads to more aggressive policy pushes, which can result in new funding and programs. But, as we have demonstrated, strategy choices sometimes create conflicts among members of the co­ali­tions. Some of the tensions and challenges that are so salient in the New York City case are less so in the Toronto case b ­ ecause Canadians enjoy a wider set of social rights around child care, and the child care sector in Toronto is largely public-­sector, center-­based, and ­unionized. In the more privatized and increasingly informal child care system in New York City, new ­labor strategies, by necessity, are more differentiated. The ascension of the de Blasio administration in 2014 created an in­ter­est­ing new po­ liti­cal conjuncture; as general chair of the Welfare Committee on the City Council, he proved to be a staunch supporter of the co­ali­tion’s child care agenda; and most recently his campaign as well as newly inaugurated administration placed UPK front and center on his policy agenda, aligning his goals with ­those of a broad ­union co­ali­tion, including the UFT.17 Broad local support, built in part by social ­union activities, enabled the mayor to push the state and the governor to provide state funds to allow him to implement truly universal preschool by the fall of 2014. Multiple points of strategic focus are crucial in effecting change. The co­ali­tion’s work to move child care to center stage, legitimizing it in the eyes of city officials and agencies as well as employers, helped shift societal perceptions regarding child care access and work–­life balance. At the same time, or­ga­niz­ing low-­wage informal child care providers, who work at the fringes of an increasingly fragmented industry, may be a forward-­looking strategy that attempts to counteract the decimation of the sector as it continues to be privatized and fragmented through the voucherization of care. Any effort at co­ali­tion building or community or­ga­niz­ing requires a balancing act. As such, the ­union strategies discussed ­here illustrate the challenges that emerge as diverse stakeholders, dif­fer­ent ­unions, child care advocates, parents, and workers, as well as public officials and administrators, engage in the arduous pro­cess of shaping child care policy in a city characterized by an increasingly fragmented ser­v ice delivery system. Both the coalition-­building and community-­organ­izing models discussed h ­ ere created significant synergies, promoted policy change in the child care arena, and

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established a broader constituency base for worker or­ga­niz­ing. The new ­labor strategies we highlight ­here reaped impor­tant gains in the social policy arena. They began to institutionalize the right to a minimum of work–­life balance for working parents by direct workplace bargaining, promoted research showing the benefits of child care to both workers and employers, and changed policy to broaden working-­class access to public subsidies. They also empowered and improved the working conditions of an isolated, home-­based child care workforce. It is not fair to expect new l­ abor strategies to address the broad economic dislocation that economic restructuring and neoliberal policies have visited on many urban communities. The strength of u ­ nions as urban actors may reside in their willingness to explore some of the overlapping interests they share with other urban actors, be they child care advocates or the working poor in strategic sectors. New ­labor strategies thus focus on where worker interests overlap with t­ hose of strategic partners to benefit society more broadly.

8 IN DEFENSE OF “GOLD-­P LATED” CHILD CARE Union Strug­gles to Preserve Quality Care and Quality Care Work in Toronto Simon Black

In 2003, the city of Toronto’s Commission on Early Learning and Child Care proclaimed, “Childcare is a must for a modern city” (Coffey and McCain 2002, 14).1 A de­cade ­later, Toronto’s mayoral administration announced plans to cut two thousand subsidies from the city’s child care system and privatize its fifty-­seven municipally operated child care centers. In the neighboring Region of Peel, local politicians pursued a similar agenda. This chapter examines con­temporary trade ­union strategies in the greater Toronto area’s child care sector.2 In par­tic­u­lar, I focus on the ability of child care workers’ ­unions and their community allies to defend high-­quality public child care ser­v ices in a context of neoliberal austerity and a child care system in crisis. In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008, the neoliberal restructuring of municipal social ser­v ices has intensified. In response, many public-­sector ­unions have ­adopted strategies and tactics associated with social u ­ nionism, including outreach to ser­v ice users and community allies in the hopes of building broad-­based co­ali­tions capable of defending city ser­v ices (see Ross and Savage 2013). In Canada, such co­ali­tion building is a long-­standing strategy of child care workers’ ­unions. However, the electoral success of urban, right-­wing populists—­ achieved in part by scapegoating public-­sector workers and fomenting taxpayer backlash—­has led ­these ­unions to rethink their tactics and to innovate. Rather than risk public hostility, child care workers’ ­unions have increasingly chosen to play the role of “unacknowleged legislators” (MacDonald, this volume), providing community and advocacy organ­izations with financial and orga­nizational resources, while leaving ser­v ice users (i.e., parents) and allies (i.e., child care 189

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activists and advocates) as the public face of campaigns to defend municipal child care ser­vices. Yet, as this chapter suggests, while l­ abor–­community co­ali­tions are a necessary—if not sufficient—­condition for success, in contexts where community allies are weak, child care workers’ u ­ nions must continue to play a leading role in campaigns despite the danger of being cast as defenders of sectional interests rather than the public good. One such context is the suburbs. The po­liti­cal and economic geographies of the North American suburb pres­ent a number of barriers to ­labor-­led efforts to build a socially just (sub)urbanism. The prospects for ­labor–­community co­ali­ tion success are improved when ­labor’s community partners are well established and have a history of successful or­ga­niz­ing for social change (see Black 2012b). While most major North American cities are home to some form of progressive community-­based or­ga­ni­za­tion, such organ­izations may be weak or non­ex­is­tent in the more conservative po­liti­cal landscape of the suburbs, which tends to be dominated by ratepayer associations and a narrow homeowner politics. The conservative tilt of the suburbs also means that l­ abor is less likely to find allies among local elected officials or have the “po­liti­cal insider status” ­unions enjoy in big cities (see Kwon and Day 2007). Inadequate public transit infrastructure (as it impacts the particpation of low-­income ­people in community campaigns), low-­density suburban sprawl (which requires resources to or­ga­nize fewer p ­ eople across larger geographic areas), and a lack of public space (where dissent is expressed, rallies or­ga­nized, ­etc.) are all obstacles to effective ­labor–­community campaigns in suburban space.

Municipal Child Care in Canada In the province of Ontario, twenty-­seven of forty-­seven municipal and regional governments directly operate child care centers (hereafter referred to as “municipal centers”).3 In Canada’s largely private, patchwork system of regulated and un­regu­la­ted child care, municipal centers are recognized for being leaders in child care quality and innovation, and often serve higher-­needs, underserved, and/or hard-­to-­serve populations (Muttart Foundation 2011). The vast majority of municipal centers are ­unionized, compared to only 17 ­percent of community-­based nonprofit centers and even fewer for-­profit centers (Doherty and Forer 2002). Workers in nonunion municipal centers typically receive wages and benefits that are equivalent to their ­unionized counter­parts.4 Canada’s child care sector is plagued by prob­lems of recruitment and retention, with early childhood educators (ECEs) earning low wages and experiencing a high degree of precariousness in employment (see Kass and Costigliola 2004).



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Unionization and municipal owner­ship are proven to have a positive influence on wages, benefits, working conditions, and program quality (Doherty and Forer 2002). Workers in municipal centers are the highest paid in the sector. They are also more likely than their private-­center counter­parts to receive paid breaks, paid preparation time, and paid overtime, and have greater access to in-­service training and off-­site professional development (Young 2009).5 As a result, municipal centers have lower rates of turnover than private centers and find it easier to recruit and retain good staff.6 Furthermore, studies have shown that municipal centers consistently obtain the highest scores in the sector on several predictors of child care quality (see Doherty and Forer 2002; Muttart Foundation 2011). However, the daily cost of caring for a child in a municipal center can be up to twice the cost of care in a community-­based nonprofit or for-­profit setting. As municipal centers provide subsidized care as a public ser­v ice, this is a cost borne by governments. Innovation and program quality—­and decent wages, benefits, and working conditions for center staff—­all come at a price (see Cleveland 2008). One prominent Toronto-­area politician has derisively referred to municipal centers as “gold-­plated child care.” Yet in an economy that systematically devalues the care work of ­women and in a sector characterized by low levels of compensation and a gendered precariousness—96 ­percent of Canada’s child care workforce are w ­ omen (Ser­ vice Canada 2013)—­gold-­plated child care is of ­great strategic importance to child care workers, u ­ nions, and the broader child care movement. In their emphasis on innovative, high-­quality programming delivered by highly qualified and well-­compensated ECEs, municipal centers articulate the relationship between quality care and quality care work that is at the heart of the Canadian child care movement’s vision of a socially just system of early childhood education and care. This movement, which includes many of the country’s trade ­unions, has long fought for a social demo­cratic child care model such as that which exists in the Nordic countries or in the province of Quebec. Municipal centers thus represent a model to be defended and expanded upon—­a ­little bit of Quebec or Sweden in an other­wise liberal, residualist Canadian welfare state.

The Cases In Toronto, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 79, working with co­ali­tion partners and community allies, successfully fought the privatization of the city’s fifty-­seven municipal centers, preserving u ­ nion jobs and child care funding in the pro­cess. However, this fight was part of a much broader community mobilization against a conservative mayoral administration’s cuts to

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municipal ser­v ices and social programs, cuts that threatened the livelihoods of thousands of municipal workers represented by Local 79 and its s­ister ­union CUPE Local 416. I contrast this case with an unsuccessful campaign to stop the closure of municipal centers in the Region of Peel, a suburb of Toronto. Child care workers and support staff in Peel’s centers are not u ­ nionized. However, in recognition of the strategic importance of t­ hese centers, CUPE and the Ontario Co­ali­tion for Better Child Care (OCBCC) or­ga­nized a campaign to oppose the closures. Lacking allies in local government, and in the absence of a strong local child care co­ali­tion and broader community-­based mobilization against austerity, this campaign ultimately failed. The broader po­liti­cal context of t­ hese strug­gles was ­shaped by successive public-­ sector strikes. In 2009, Toronto’s municipal workers went on strike, including ECEs and support staff from the city’s municipal centers. As Fanelli (2011) has argued, Toronto’s municipal workers suffered from “widespread resentment and po­liti­cal antipathy” in the wake of their strike. In Peel, the campaign to save municipal centers overlapped with a ­bitter ­labor dispute between the region and its ­unionized workers. In both disputes, municipal governments stressed the need for fiscal responsibility and public-­service restraint. ­These po­liti­cal dynamics informed ­union strategy in the two campaigns: CUPE played a support role by working through their co­ali­tion partners, leaving community allies and concerned parents to take the lead. Before examining the cases in further detail, I describe the current challenges facing public child care in Ontario that shape the policy environment in which the province’s child care workers’ ­unions must operate.

A System in Crisis Ontario’s child care system is in a state of flux. Two developments are fueling uncertainty and change: First, the historic underfunding of public child care has been exacerbated by an agenda of neoliberal austerity. At the municipal level, austerity takes the form of cuts to child care subsidies, higher copayments for families, and longer waiting lists for subsidized care. For the child care workforce, austerity means wage freezes, cuts to wage grants, the loss of benefits, and, for ­unionized workers, the erosion of gains made in previous rounds of collective bargaining. Arguably the most disturbing trend for ­unions and the broader child care movement is efforts by cities to close and/or privatize their municipal centers. Such efforts have been successful in the city of Windsor and the Regional Municipality of Durham, are currently underway in Ottawa, and as demonstrated



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by the findings presented in this chapter, have been attempted with differing results in Toronto and the Region of Peel. Since 1980, Ontario’s municipally operated child care sector has diminished in both real numbers and relative to the overall number of licensed spaces in the system: from 5,932 spaces (21 ­percent of all spaces) in 1980, to 18,143 spaces (10 ­percent of all spaces) in 1998, to the current count of 10,230 spaces (6 ­percent of all spaces). This trend is paralleled by the growth of for-­profit child care in the province, from 17 to 25 ­percent of all spaces in just the last five years.7 This has led CUPE and the Ontario Co­ali­tion for Better Child Care to call on the provincial government to issue a moratorium on the licensing of for-­profit corporate child care companies and to invest in strengthening the capacity of the public and nonprofit sectors (CUPE 2012b). For the child care movement, closures in the municipally operated sector, and the disproportionate expansion of for-­profit centers, threatens both quality care and quality care work. Second, since 2010, the gradual rollout of Ontario’s full-­day kindergarten (FDK) program has precipitated child care center closures. While the child care movement has long fought for a comprehensive system of early childhood education and care, and ­unions have successfully or­ga­nized school-­based ECEs, the provincial government’s approach to FDK has led to numerous prob­lems in the sector, including fee hikes, longer subsidy waiting lists, and the closure of centers that do not have the resources to transition to serving younger ­children (Friendly 2011). The call for austerity and the arrival of FDK have been invoked by municipalities seeking to justify the closure and/or privatization of their publicly operated child care centers. This chapter w ­ ill now turn to the campaigns to save ­these centers in Toronto and the Region of Peel.

Toronto: The “Save E ­ ver y Child Care Dollar” Campaign Toronto’s child care system is recognized as one of the most extensive and dynamic in Canada (Jenson and Mahon 2001). The city’s child care movement has combined with a tradition of urban reform in City Hall to shape a “citizenship model” of child care considered to be unique in Canada outside Quebec (Mahon 2005, 289). ­Under this model, child care is defined as an essential public ser­v ice that should meet high quality ser­v ice standards and be accessible and affordable to ­those who need it. Furthermore, the model posits that municipal government is well suited to administer child care ser­v ices and ensure that ser­v ices are sensitive and accountable to local needs and priorities; the city of Toronto is thus mandated with demonstrating leadership in child care planning and development

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(Mahon 2005). Bureaucrats in the city’s ­Children’s Ser­vices Division are committed to this citizenship model and for the most part maintain a good working relationship with child care advocates. The pride of Toronto’s child care system are its fifty-­seven municipal centers, considered to be among the highest-­quality and most innovative programs in the country. Beyond ­these centers, the city has a patchwork of private nonprofit and for-­profit daycares, with a very wide range of child care staff wages, benefits, and working conditions (Friendly 2011, 2). However, all child care centers and home day care facilities in the city must operate ­under the municipal government’s regulatory standards, which are known to consistently exceed t­ hose established by the province. But despite its achievements in quality and standards, Toronto’s child care system remains underfunded, with upwards of 20,000 families on the waiting list for a subsidy. Only a minority of the city’s c­ hildren have access to high-­ quality child care (Friendly 2011). Since the 1970s, CUPE has been or­ga­niz­ing workers in Toronto’s child care sector. A patchwork system of care has translated into a patchwork system of collective bargaining: ­there are seven CUPE locals—­many with multiple bargaining units—­representing child care workers and support staff across a diverse range of settings, including the city’s elementary schools and community-­based nonprofit, for-­profit, and municipal centers. This has not stopped the ­union from winning some impor­tant victories. Working with their allies in the Toronto Co­ali­tion for Better Child Care (TCBCC), CUPE convinced the city in 2004 to issue a moratorium on purchase of ser­v ice agreements with for-­profit providers, effectively bolstering the nonprofit and public sectors, where ­union density is highest.8 Yet with multiple employers, and in the absence of sectoral bargaining strategies, Toronto’s child care workers face competitive pressures that can undermine solidarity and act as a barrier to collective action. For instance, the closure of municipal centers is a potential boon to community-­based nonprofit providers, as displaced c­ hildren could be shifted to t­ hose settings. Some organizers have suggested that t­hese tensions have undermined campaigns to prevent municipal center closures elsewhere in the province. While CUPE recognizes the need for coordinated and central bargaining (see Young 2009, 85), such a strategy has yet to be fully developed and implemented in the child care sector.

The Context In Toronto’s 2010 municipal election, a social demo­cratic mayor leading a center-­ left City Council was replaced by a right-­wing populist mayor with a center-­



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right council majority. Since the neoliberal restructuring of the 1990s, Toronto, like other municipalities in Ontario, has had to deal with inadequate funding arrangements, a lack of public investment, the downloading of ser­v ice provision from upper levels of government, and growing fiscal pressures in a context of increasing need. As a number of commentators have suggested, this dynamic fosters a neoliberal politics of tax revolt that ­favors right-­wing politicians, as local tax increases appear to do ­little to improve municipal ser­v ices in the absence of sustained funding for cities from the upper levels of government (see Albo 2009; Fanelli 2011). In addition, two public-­sector strikes ­were thought to harm the municipal left’s per­for­mance in the 2010 campaign: a 2007 transit strike was followed by a lengthy municipal workers strike in 2009 as 24,000 workers represented by CUPE Local 79 and CUPE Local 416 walked off the job for thirty-­nine days. The new mayor was elected on a promise to cut taxes and eliminate perceived wasteful spending at City Hall, the so-­called “gravy train.” In the context of an austerity agenda pushed by the federal and provincial governments, in 2011 the mayor ordered a review of the city’s core ser­v ices by the auditing firm KPMG. The primary goal of the review was to find 750 million dollars in savings for the 2012 municipal bud­get (Fanelli 2011). The push for municipal austerity was also fueled by the administration’s antipathy ­toward or­ga­nized ­labor. Throughout the election campaign, the new mayor had pledged to “stand up to Toronto’s ­unions, privatize assets, contract out ser­v ices and reduce the financial burden for Torontonians by showing ‘Res­pect for the Taxpayer’ ” (Fanelli 2011). The core ser­v ices review set up one of the biggest bud­get ­battles in Toronto’s history, with a wide range of municipal ser­v ices and social programs put on the chopping block. In the area of child care, KPMG recommended, among other mea­sures, reducing the number of quality inspections, cutting over two thousand child care fee subsidies, and divesting the city’s fifty-­seven municipal centers to the private sector (TCBCC 2011a)—­all of which ­were hastily endorsed by the mayor and his executive. According to the Toronto Co­ali­tion for Better Child Care (2011a), if implemented the cuts would have resulted in an increase in child care fees across Toronto, a major drop in the quality of child care ser­v ices, and longer waiting lists for child care spots. For CUPE and TCBCC, KPMG’s recommendations marked a direct assault on Toronto’s citizenship model of child care, the city’s status as a leader and innovator in child care quality, and the municipal center workforce who set sector-­ wide benchmarks for wages, benefits, and working conditions. In response, the TCBCC established the Save ­Every Child Care Dollar campaign, to which CUPE pledged its support.

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The Campaign CUPE had to carefully strategize its participation in the campaign. While ECEs make up a significant segment of Local 79’s membership, the proposed bud­get cuts ­were to affect a wide range of municipal ser­v ices and impact the u ­ nion’s members in a variety of sectors. CUPE thus had to wage a ­battle on multiple fronts. In addition, the ­union was concerned about its public image, damaged in the recent municipal worker strike, the unpopularity of which had emboldened the new mayoral administration to attack public-­sector workers in the first place. The parents of c­ hildren in the city’s municipal child care centers w ­ ere part of the broader public who had been incon­ve­nienced by the strike, and CUPE could not take their solidarity for granted. With ­these dynamics in play, the ­union developed a strategy that emulated that of other successful social ser­v ice campaigns. The focus was to be on mobilizing community allies, including the direct consumers of ser­vices, to tell decision makers about the negative impact cuts would have on their daily lives. In the TCBCC, CUPE had a co­ali­tion partner with experience in mobilizing community members and the vari­ous stakeholders in the child care sector, including parents. CUPE was to play what one or­ga­nizer called an “enabling role,” providing crucial resources such as meeting space and campaign materials. As another or­ga­nizer put it, “we all know the ­people who have the most credibility with the politicians are t­ hose ­people who are g­ oing to be directly affected and that was the parents. So it w ­ asn’t a strategy to not have them [the ­union] play a lead role but just a wise recognition that the message was most power­ful coming from the community.” With the 2012 bud­get vote scheduled for January of that year, in the fall of 2011 the TCBCC embarked on a campaign of public outreach. Among other tactics, organizers leafleted parents outside municipal centers at drop-­off and pick-up times. The messaging of the campaign was clear: stopping cuts and privatization was not about saving ­union jobs, it was about making sure the mayor and City Council knew that parents could “not afford to lose ONE dollar, or ONE space, or ONE subsidy, or ONE grant out of this child care system!” (TCBCC 2011a). As a result of its outreach, the co­ali­tion marshaled a large group of parents prepared to make deputations at City Hall’s bud­get hearings and engage in a mass phone call and email campaign, bombarding city councillors with messages of support for public child care, saying “no” to cuts and privatization, and telling politicians, “child care is a ‘must have’ ser­v ice for our families” (TCBCC 2011b). The city’s child care bureaucracy also played a role in the campaign. Bureaucrats in Toronto’s ­Children Ser­v ices Division provided the public with data on the potential impact of cuts on child care access and program quality. This information found its way into the TCBCC’s deputations and made a compelling



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evidence-­based argument to centrist councillors—­City Council’s so-­called “mushy ­middle”—­who had yet to decide w ­ hether to vote for or against the mayor’s bud­ get. In addition, CUPE and the TCBCC worked with council allies who had a strong rec­ord of support for public child care. As the TCBCC mobilized parents and other concerned members of the public, t­ hese allies worked to convince the “mushy m ­ iddle” to vote against the cuts. While they may have been in the minority on the council, a number of progressive councillors had years of experience as advocates for child care and ­were active on the city’s ­Children and Youth Action Committee. One influential left-­winger was past president of the OCBCC and had worked on child care policy at Toronto’s public school board. TCBCC joined a burgeoning grassroots mobilization against the mayor’s bud­ get. The child care movement became part of a broader network of antipoverty activists, community organ­izations, tenants’ groups, social ser­vice providers, and trade ­unions that fanned out across the city to or­ga­nize opposition to the cuts neighborhood by neighborhood. This broad community mobilization had two main wings, the Stop the Cuts Network, founded by a radical antipoverty or­ga­ ni­za­tion, Occupy activists, and an immigrant rights group, and Res­pect Toronto, which was composed of public-­and private-­sector ­unions, the city’s ­labor council, and more moderate community organ­izations such as ACORN (Ruiter and Kinch 2012). CUPE devoted organizers to both campaigns and held a full day anti-­austerity orientation and or­ga­nizer training session as part of its solidarity actions labeled “Keep Toronto Public!” In short, the KPMG report and the mayor’s bud­get had become lightning rods for community and trade ­union or­ga­niz­ing and activism. While child care advocates and concerned parents w ­ ere front and center in the child care campaign, CUPE was actively engaged in the strug­gle to defend the city’s public ser­v ices and ­union jobs. The fight to save the city’s municipal centers and stop the cuts to child care was firmly embedded in this broader strug­gle.

Turning the Tide against Austerity The impact of anti-­austerity or­ga­niz­ing became evident in the months leading up to the final council bud­get meeting in January 2012. The mayor had been elected in 2010 with 47 ­percent of the vote, and had received relatively high approval ratings in his first few months in office, including ­after he privatized a portion of the city’s garbage collection, breaking the sanitation workers’ ­union. However, a September poll conducted by a respected in­de­pen­dent polling firm—­ commissioned by CUPE 79—­found a strong majority of Torontonians opposed the administration’s cuts. Furthermore, some of the strongest opposition proved to be in the mayor’s executive members’ wards, which w ­ ere the target of intensive

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outreach by anti-­cuts groups. Emboldened by the poll, a Rally for Toronto, the second in a series of mass mobilizations, brought thousands of activists, trade ­unionists, and other community members to march on City Hall, demanding that the mayor back off his agenda of cuts, closures, user fees, and privatization. As or­ga­niz­ing intensified and City Hall’s bud­get wrangling continued, the mayoral administration scaled back its child care plans from the privatization of all fifty-­ seven of the city’s municipal centers to the closure of only three. The advocacy and or­ga­niz­ing of the TCBCC was bolstered by an in­de­pen­dent group of concerned ­mothers known as the ­Mothers’ Task Force on Child Care. The task force was launched on ­Mother’s Day 2011 as a grassroots proj­ect to investigate the accessibility, quality, and affordability of child care ser­v ices in Toronto (MFCC 2011). The group had the support of the TCBCC, the OCBCC, and was endorsed by a range of social ser­vice organ­izations, including the YWCA and one of the largest community-­based nonprofit child care providers in the city. Importantly however, CUPE was not directly involved in the group; the task force spoke as an in­de­pen­dent voice representing the interests of m ­ others as the consumers of child care ser­v ices. ­Mothers for Child Care held a series of discussions across Toronto to hear the perspectives of parents struggling with access to affordable, quality child care. The group also conducted an online survey, did outreach through social media, and included a downloadable volunteer tool kit with campaign materials on its website. The results of the hearings and online survey w ­ ere gathered into a public report distributed to the media, City Council, and the general public. The report concluded that Toronto needed more, not less, municipal and nonprofit centers, lower child care fees, and centers with more flexible arrangements to accommodate the work schedules of the modern ­family (see MFCC 2011). Overall, ­Mothers for Child Care urged government at all levels to step up to “ensure quality, affordable child care is available in a comprehensive system” (MFCC 2011, 18). In addition, the group did outreach to parents at the three municipal centers slated for closure, or­ga­niz­ing “flying squads” of m ­ others to protest the administration’s scaled-­down plan. This or­ga­niz­ing dovetailed with the work of the TCBCC, and when it came time for public deputations to the city’s bud­get committee, some fifty-­plus parents and child care advocates packed the room to make arguments against subsidy cuts and center closures. They w ­ ere joined by hundreds of other community members, trade ­unionists, tenant organizers, and ­others who testified in support of municipal ser­v ices and social programs. The day before the first bud­get meeting, ­Mothers for Child Care held a “Keep Your Mittens Off Our Child Care” news conference at City Hall, to “let decision makers know how parents, ­children, and child care workers feel about the threatened closures” (MFCC 2012). At the news



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conference, a M ­ others for Child Care spokesperson argued, “With 20,000 c­ hildren on the waiting list for a space at a child care center—­not one space, not one subsidy can be lost. We need ­every Councillor to stand up for the city’s child care centers. If ­these closures are happening in Wards 1, 14, and 20 you can be sure the Mayor ­will be planning on closing child care centers in ­every neighbourhood of the city” (MFCC 2012). This was to be the final proclamation in what was ultimately a successful campaign. In mid-­January 2012, the Toronto City Council voted to reverse $20 million in proposed bud­get cuts, preserving child care funding and maintaining the three municipal centers. An alternative omnibus bud­get bill put forward by a centrist councillor narrowly passed, twenty-­three votes to twenty-­one. As participants in a broader mass mobilization against austerity, the city’s child care movement, with the u ­ nion representing child care workers in municipal centers playing an impor­tant role, had pushed back against the mayor’s privatization agenda and won.

The Region of Peel: The “Save Peel Child Care” Campaign The Politics of a Toronto Suburb Peel is a regional municipality consisting of two cities (Mississauga and Brampton) and a township (Caledon) situated directly to the west and northwest of Toronto. The region is part of the greater Toronto area (GTA) and is home to 1.2 million ­people, making it the second-­largest municipality in the province of Ontario a­ fter Toronto. Developed as a suburb and long considered a m ­ iddle-­class bedroom community, Peel is now one of the fastest-­growing municipalities in Canada, and also one of the most unequal. In 1980, Peel had just two low-­income neighborhoods; by 2010, 45 ­percent of the region’s neighborhoods ­were considered low-­income or very low-­income, nearly the same proportion as Toronto (Mendelson 2012a). Peel experienced a period of rapid population growth and economic development in the 1990s, just as the neoliberal restructuring of Canada’s economy and welfare state intensified. Successive provincial and federal governments have downloaded the costs and responsibilities for social ser­v ices onto municipalities. In Peel, the impacts of downloading have been exacerbated by an outdated funding formula for calculating provincial–­municipal transfers, leaving the region receiving far less than its fair share of provincial funds. According to one estimate, residents of Peel are underfunded, relative to other Ontario residents, by $350 million per year in per capita provincial funding (Mendelson 2012b).

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Peel is facing acute social pressures such as homelessness, rising poverty, youth vio­lence, and a lack of affordable housing typically associated with central cities rather than suburbs. Some 14.5 ­percent of residents are living on low incomes, and the groups most vulnerable to poverty are also among the fastest-­ growing segments of the region’s population, including racialized communities, recent immigrants, unattached se­niors, single parents, and young families with ­children (Region of Peel 2010). Furthermore, Peel’s rate of newborns is the highest in Ontario; yet 20 ­percent of all c­ hildren aged birth to five live in poverty, a 57 ­percent increase from 1996 (Region of Peel 2010). The combined ­factors of a growing youth population and rising poverty have put intense pressures on the region’s social ser­v ices, particularly subsidized child care. ­There are almost ten low-­income ­children in Peel for ­every subsidized child care space, the worst ratio among large and medium-­size cities in the country (Region of Peel 2010). While Peel’s social realities reflect its status as a large North American ­urban region, its politics are stuck in its white, conservative, suburban past. First, while racialized communities make up approximately 40 ­percent of Peel’s population, ­there are no p ­ eople of color on the twenty-­four-­person regional council. Second, corporate money, and particularly money from the development industry, dominates municipal politics. Corporate donations have made up between 60 and 70 ­percent of contributions to candidates in recent municipal elections, compared to 12 ­percent in Toronto (MacDermid 2009). This corporate influence is not counterbalanced by an active citizenry. In Peel, voter turnout in municipal elections rarely breaks the 30 ­percent mark, compared to an average turnout of 40 ­percent in recent elections in Toronto (MacDermid 2009). Compared to Toronto’s tradition of po­liti­cal pluralism, Peel’s councillors are aligned with ­either the hard-­right Conservative Party or the center-­right Liberals. At upper levels of government, Peel has only one member of the provincial legislature from Canada’s social demo­cratic party, the NDP, and federally, all of the region’s Members of Parliament are Liberals. Furthermore, progressive civil society groups are weak. While nonpartisan, nonprofit social ser­v ice agencies hold some sway in local decision making, small social justice groups and the region’s ­labor movement, lacking a strong activist base, have relatively ­little influence in municipal politics. Fi­nally, unlike Toronto, Peel does not have an established child care advocacy group that brings together the interests of parents and ECEs. Thus, the campaign to save Peel’s municipal centers faced a very dif­fer­ent po­liti­cal opportunity structure from that of its ­sister campaign in Toronto.



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The Campaign In late January 2012, just weeks ­after Toronto’s historic bud­get ­battle concluded, Peel Region’s executive tabled a motion to close the region’s twelve publicly operated child care centers, known as Learn-­Play-­Care centers (LPCs). The motion was one in a series of recommendations contained in a report on the ­future of child care produced by KPMG, the same consulting firm b ­ ehind Toronto’s core ser­v ices review. The report recommended that subsequent child care savings be directed ­toward fee subsidies for close to a thousand ­children, including 582 new subsidized spaces, and increased support for c­ hildren with special needs (Slack 2012). Yet overall, the closures w ­ ere to result in the removal of 850 spaces from the region’s child care system and the loss of nearly three hundred jobs, including 246 ECEs (Slack 2012). In marked difference from Toronto, the recommendations ­were publicly endorsed by the region’s commissioner of ­human ser­v ices, the highest-­ranking municipal bureaucrat with oversight of child care. The report cited unpre­ce­dented and growing need for child care subsidy in Peel, with four thousand ­children on the region’s waiting list, leaving eligible families with a twelve-­month wait for a subsidized space (Slack 2012). However, KPMG predicted that the demand for daycare spaces for c­ hildren ages four and five would decline considerably upon full implementation of full-­day kindergarten in 2014 (Slack 2012). Yet in the ensuing public debate over child care closures, the issue of fluctuating demand became secondary to the question of cost. In defending the regional executive’s move to close the centers, the long-­serving mayor of Peel’s largest city, Mississauga, referred to LPCs as “gold-­plated child care” that supported an “elitist group [of ­children and parents]” (as quoted in Grewal 2012). The mayor cited statistics from the KPMG report which showed the cost of care for a single child in an LPC was $83 per day, compared to an average of $40 per day at one of the region’s for-­profit or community-­based nonprofit programs. While councillors in f­ avor of the closures repeatedly stated that se­nior governments needed to provide the region with more funding for child care, they also argued that Peel’s money could be better spent in partnership with private daycare operators (Grewal 2012). As this logic went, the private sector could provide greater bang for the region’s subsidy buck, serving more c­ hildren for less money. From the perspective of the child care movement, this meant sacrificing both care quality and the quality of care work. Activists recognized the region’s attempt to undermine “gold-­plated child care” as a thinly veiled effort to slash the municipal payroll. As one advocate put it, “this is totally about l­abour costs. T ­ hese centers are non-­union but are prob­ably non-­union ­because they pay the same rates and provide the same benefits as ­unionized municipally-­operated centers

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in other cities.” In fact, the region had recommended that $800,000 in provincial wage subsidies, which supported decent wages for municipal-­center ECEs, be immediately redirected into the broader system (Region of Peel 2012, 44). Regional councillors claimed to have broad community support for the closures, arguing that consultations with parents, providers, and other stakeholders—­ conducted by KPMG—­had made clear that “Peel does not need to be in the business of direct delivery of child care” (Grewal 2012). But in the eyes of child care advocates, the consultation had been a sham: according to an or­ga­nizer with the OCBCC, “[t]he in­ter­est­ing ­thing about the consultation is that they (the Region of Peel) did not go out and ask the question ‘Should we close our municipal child care centers?’ They went out and asked ‘What can the Region do better?’ In my mind, they have not begun the consultation” (as quoted in Grewal 2012). In effect, the region had structured the terms of the consultation to ensure public support for its policy objective. Despite overtures to “consultation,” the council deci­ded to put the recommendations to a vote less than a week ­after their tabling in what looked like an effort to catch LPC parents and child care advocates off guard. Opponents of the closure had only a few days to build opposition to the region’s plans. As one concerned parent put it, this move was designed “to short-­cir­cuit the demo­cratic pro­cess and limit the mobilization of public support against t­ hese recommendations” (as quoted in Monsebraaten 2012). The OCBCC and CUPE’s provincial division, CUPE Ontario, quickly mobilized their resources to build community support to fight the closures. While ECEs and support staff at Peel’s centers w ­ ere not ­unionized, CUPE was committed to maintaining as many municipal centers as it could, and hoped to build on the recent success of the Toronto campaign. The ­union devoted a full-­time or­ga­nizer to Peel to work alongside the OCBCC. Not surprisingly, the campaign replicated many of the tactics employed in Toronto. However, organizers had a much shorter period of time in which to work, and they did not have the benefit of an already established local child care co­ali­tion. The first step was to notify parents of the proposed closures. Organizers and CUPE volunteers did public outreach at the LPCs at drop-­off and pickup time. They also coordinated with the LPCs parents’ councils, the only real child care advocacy infrastructure in place in the region. Next, the OCBCC identified all potential allies in the community—­including a local antipoverty group and the local ­labor council—­and ­those few politicians on regional council deemed to be friendly. In a remarkable feat of grassroots or­ga­niz­ing, in the space of a week the OCBCC and CUPE held five well-­attended parent information sessions. Given the stealth nature of the pro­cess by which regional council had pushed the proposed closures



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to a vote, such public education and outreach was vital if the child care movement was to build a successful campaign. At ­these meetings, parents expressed shock and outrage at hearing the region’s plans. They felt blindsided by their elected officials (Monsebraaten 2012). More than three hundred parents attended the first information session. The coordinator of the OCBCC told an audience of parents and c­ hildren, “Peel Region has been a leader in early learning and child care. . . . ​Even considering closing 12 child cares, is a reckless decision.” Parents lined up at the microphones to express their frustration at the apparent haste with which the decision was being made and the region’s lack of transparency. The OCBCC directly confronted the region’s claim that full-­day kindergarten would reduce the demand for child care, citing growing need across all age groups and a lengthy waiting list—­evidence that the region was underserved and needed more, not less, high-­quality child care. Out of ­these sessions, the OCBCC and CUPE built an activist base among a group of parents new to advocacy and or­ga­niz­ing. As in Toronto, the next step was a mass phone and email campaign. Parents and community allies w ­ ere to bombard their councillor with phone calls and emails expressing dissatisfaction with the proposal and to demand that the council invest more in public child care. The CUPE local representing some of the region’s social ser­v ice workers also lent its support, allowing the campaign to use its office space as a makeshift headquarters. Without the local resources of the Toronto campaign, the OCBCC and CUPE drew support from the provincial and national federations of ­labor as well. In addition, a number of community allies signed on. The campaign received positive coverage in both the local press and Toronto’s major newspaper. The pressure was on the regional council as an editorial in a local newspaper chided politicians for the “sneaky” way in which they w ­ ere ­going about their business (see Brampton Guardian 2012). The campaign was successful in conveying the message that the KPMG report was being used as a cover for privatization, and that the implementation of its recommendations would result in fewer families being able to afford good-­quality care and would particularly impact access to care for families in high-­needs neighborhoods, where the majority of the LPCs ­were located. In addition, organizers pointed out that the most affected families would be t­hose with c­ hildren with special needs, as many community-­based and for-­profit providers did not have trained staff with the expertise needed to provide appropriate care (CUPE 2012a). In its materials and outreach, the campaign raised the specter of poor-­quality for-­profit child care expanding to fill the void left by municipal closures. Already, more than 54 ­percent of available child care for ­children ­under six in Peel was for-­profit, compared to 25 ­percent province-­wide (CUPE 2012a). A for-­profit,

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big-­box child care com­pany from the province of Alberta had recently announced the purchase of four Mississauga daycares and had plans for rapid expansion in Ontario. To bolster its argument, CUPE cited the example of Windsor, where the City Council’s decision to shutter its municipally operated centers had been followed by the same com­pany’s purchase of three centers.

Decision Day On the day of the vote, protestors gathered outside the regional government’s headquarters with picket signs reading “Cuts Hurt Kids” and “LPC Centers Provide Quality Care. D ­ on’t Give It Up.” Over two hundred parents and supporters packed the council chambers. Fifty-­nine individuals made deputations to the regional council—an unpre­ce­dented number, according to the clerk’s office (Monsebraaten 2012). They urged politicians to keep the centers open and expressed how much they valued the high-­quality child care Peel offered. Parents ­were joined by deputants from the region’s antipoverty or­ga­ni­za­tion, the Ontario Federation of ­Labour, and the CUPE local representing Peel’s u ­ nionized social ser­v ice workers. The usually sleepy Peel council chambers w ­ ere filled with opponents of the closures. In response to this mass mobilization, the regional council voted for greater public consultation, putting off the closure decision ­until September, nine months away. In response to a recommendation by the OCBCC, the region or­ga­nized a child care task force, which included a representative from the co­ali­tion and a mix of proclosure councillors and undecideds. The task force was to study alternatives to the KPMG recommendations and report back to the council prior to the September vote. It was an impor­tant, although partial victory for parents, CUPE, and the OCBCC. While they had failed to secure a commitment to keep the centers open, in a very short period of time they had pushed the council to reconsider the issue.

From Mass Mobilization to Death by Delay Between January and September, the OCBCC sought to sustain the campaign’s momentum. This proved difficult. Through their participation in the task force, child care advocates had become convinced that the region would close the LPCs regardless of their recommendations. In addition, fearful of being caught without secure child care, many LPC parents had begun to make alternative arrangements for their c­ hildren. Some who had played a vital role in advocacy and or­ga­niz­ing in January had moved their ­children into alternative child care settings by September. Organizers attempted to do outreach to the parents of newly



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enrolled ­children, but ­these efforts produced mixed results. The activist base that had been so crucial to the January victory had dissipated by September. Six weeks prior to the vote, organizers ramped up their efforts, but the momentum had gone: according to one key or­ga­nizer, “a near year-­long effort of endless meetings sucked all the energy out of the fight to save the centers.” Acting on the recommendations of the KPMG report, regional council voted twelve to five to gradually close the LPCs over two years and spend the savings on an extra 580 subsidized spots in private centers, both profit and nonprofit (Grewal 2012). One LPC parent said she c­ ouldn’t bear the thought of g­ oing back to a private fa­cil­i­ty for her ­children: “Private centers are about profit; you get poorly trained, low-­paid staff with high turnover” (as quoted in Grewal 2012). In the absence of a broader community mobilization against austerity, and an established child care advocacy community in Peel, the campaign had failed to convince the regional council to maintain its municipal centers. In subsequent months, the regional council deci­ded to divest eleven of the twelve centers to the private sector and made arrangements for nonprofit providers to take over the operation of the LPCs. The region had moved from closures to privatization. One of the council’s original justifications for the closures, that t­here was no demand for LPC spaces due to the rollout of full-­day kindergarten, had proved to be an argument of con­ve­nience. As predicted, ECEs at the new centers are to make substantially less than t­ hose who w ­ ere employed directly by the region. As one child care advocate put it, “turns out, the high wages paid to ECEs is what the ­whole ­thing was about ­after all.”

Discussion and Implications The two cases raise a number of questions. Most obviously, why ­were ­unions and their allies able to successfully defend municipal child care centers and public-­ sector jobs in Toronto and not in the neighboring suburb of Peel Region? And second, what might t­ hese differential outcomes tell us about the f­ uture of u ­ nion strategy in the child care sector and the role of public-­sector ­unions in urban social policy formation and urban governance more broadly? Campaigners faced very dif­fer­ent po­liti­cal opportunity structures in Toronto and Peel Region. In Peel, opponents of the closures found few allies on the council. While not all regional councillors w ­ ere ideologically predisposed to privatization, few had the history of defending quality public child care, and quality care work, that marked the rec­ord of progressives on Toronto City Council. Put differently, in the traditionally more conservative suburbs, CUPE lacked the “po­liti­cal insider status” that it enjoyed in the city of Toronto proper. While

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progressives did not form the majority on the Toronto council, they did play a role in convincing their more moderate colleagues—­council’s “mushy m ­ iddle”— to vote against cuts and privatization. As one child care advocate put it, the case of Peel shows the importance of “electing child care champions.” However, electing such champions requires the type of progressive po­liti­cal base that is well established in the city but weak in the suburbs. Second, while bureaucrats in Toronto’s ­Children’s Ser­vices division have a reputation as staunch defenders of public child care, and traditionally maintain good working relationships with progressive councillors and the TCBCC, civil servants in Peel pushed the recommendations of the KPMG report, urging councillors to get the region out of the direct delivery of child care. One veteran or­ga­nizer claimed that Peel’s bureaucrats had been the “worst in the province” on this par­tic­u­lar issue. This difference impacted campaign dynamics. For instance, in Toronto, data showing the potential impact of cuts and privatization was made available to the public. In Peel, such information was hard to come by, and campaigners had difficulty finding out when the closures would be brought before the council, hindering or­ga­niz­ing efforts. In Toronto, campaigners relied on what Sears (2011) has called an existing “infrastructure of dissent”—­that is, the range of formal and informal institutions through which activists develop their capacities to analyze, communicate, and take strategic action in real solidarity. Such infrastructure nurtures collective action, and in the TCBCC t­ here was a well-­established co­ali­tion of u ­ nions, child care advocates, and activist parents with a tradition of mobilizing to defend public child care in the city. In the suburbs, this infrastructure had to be built from scratch and over a very short period of time. Without it, parent activism proved difficult to sustain over the length of the campaign. Furthermore, the Toronto fight was part of a broad-­based community mobilization against cuts to municipal ser­v ices. In Peel, defenders of public child care ­were isolated in their fight, waging a single-­issue campaign in a hostile po­liti­cal climate. The question remains as to ­whether the Toronto campaign would have been successful if extracted from the larger po­liti­cal context. As one of the campaign’s organizers has said, “in Toronto, I cannot say we would have won if every­ one ­else had lost. . . . ​Luckily we w ­ ere part of that broader strug­gle; but if we ­were entirely on our own? I’m not sure.” Fi­nally, child care workers in Peel’s LPCs w ­ ere not ­unionized. At first glance, given the emphasis on community-­based mobilization in both campaigns, and the similar “unacknowleged legislator” role played by CUPE, this difference appears to be of less import than o ­ thers. However, what the failure of the Peel campaign might tell us is that while the strategic tilt ­toward community-­led mobilization is understandable in a po­liti­cal climate hostile to public-­sector



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­ nionism, ­labor–­community campaigns to protect municipal ser­v ices and jobs u require the full muscle of the l­abor movement in a context in which community allies are weak and co­ali­tions underdeveloped. It may be true that in the conservative-­leaning suburbs, public-­sector ­unions are even more likely to be the target of public hostility if they play a vis­i­ble role in t­hese campaigns. However, rather than a retreat from the ’burbs, this points to the necessity of a social ­unionism that can build a more socially just suburbanism through engagement with nascent but or­gan­i­za­tion­ally weak community allies, and concerted union-­ led efforts to foster “infrastructures of dissent” in suburban space. In other words, if public-­sector ­unions want to successfully defend ser­v ices and promote employment growth, and want to stay b ­ ehind the scenes while d ­ oing so, they must devote resources to long-­term grassroots community or­ga­niz­ing and co­ali­tion building. The child care crisis—as acute in the suburbs as it is in the city—­ provides a strategic opportutinty for child care workers’ u ­ nions to do just this. Sustained or­ga­niz­ing with parents who are in desperate need of quality, affordable child care ser­v ices, could allow ­unions to make inroads into hostile terrain. In sum, for public-­sector ­unions intent on defending high-­quality municipal ser­v ices in an age of austerity urbanism, the lessons of ­these strug­gles are clear: allies at city hall are a must; the bigger the fight, the broader the mobilization, the better the chances of victory; and in the absence of strong community allies and an infrastructure of dissent, ­there is no substitute for the power and resources of or­ga­nized ­labor.

Conclusion Ian Thomas MacDonald

­ here is an optimistic reading to all of this that goes beyond a narrow accounting T of what was gained in a specific strug­gle. The ­labor strategies discussed in this volume speak to a level of creativity and effectiveness that most would not expect of ­unions ­today. We have seen u ­ nions take a broad survey of how power is or­ga­ nized in cities and use this practical knowledge to leverage ­labor’s interests and capacities. In some cases, u ­ nions have sought to negotiate the urban planning pro­ cess and shape policy decisions in ways that address a broader working-­class agenda, while in other cases ­unions have acted more narrowly to secure their institutional and workplace interests. Our research does not sustain the most optimistic accounts of the potential of urban strategies to lead to a broad revitalization of the ­labor movement. But neither does the research sustain the most pessimistic accounts—­that ­unions are inconsequential urban actors or no longer able to reproduce themselves as ­labor market institutions ­under the current capitalism. Many of our cases have successful trade ­union outcomes, if success is defined as defending existing employment levels, ­labor standards, and bargaining relationships. In New York, the ­hotel workers have been moderately successful in keeping the low-­cost, nonunion h ­ otels from competing with the u ­ nionized properties. The ­union has established itself as a power­ful actor in the negotiation of neighborhood change, and the real estate titans w ­ ill have to reckon with this u ­ nion in ­future rezoning. Even in Toronto, where pro-­casino ­unions “failed” to secure postindustrial megadevelopment in the downtown core, it was the subsurface multiple agendas of u ­ nions that limited l­abor’s agency—­something that can 208

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be addressed with institutional reform. The film workers have met the competitive challenge of low-­cost locations, have recouped all of the employment lost in their sector, and have similarly bolstered their po­liti­cal capacity at the local and state levels. In Toronto, the child care workers fended off the threatened privatization of their workplaces in very trying po­liti­cal circumstances. The film workers successfully defended the ground on which their employment security and bargaining regime rests. Even in our green manufacturing study, a ­labor–­community co­ali­tion managed to secure a significant public transit investment on their site. Evaluating ­labor strategy from a l­abor renewal perspective requires that we come to an understanding of its longer-­term impact on u ­ nion bargaining power, as well as its social impacts beyond trade ­union members to the vast majority of unor­ga­nized workers. It is difficult to do this, b ­ ecause in e­ very successful case ­labor’s role has been interwoven with the activity of other classes and class fractions. For example, in our New York hospitable city case, the h ­ otel workers would not have prevailed in Midtown East if more power­ful elites and urban gentry had not been opposed to the rezoning. The film workers’ tax incentive strategy benefited from the support of local studios and urban boosters, and in any case the turnaround in employment is not reducible to the tax incentives alone. Likewise in Toronto, u ­ nions accomplished their goals when they w ­ ere allied with the urban gentry, as in our film study, and have not prevailed when they directly confronted gentrifiers, as in our casino study, although some new casino development in the inner suburbs may be forthcoming. In the caring city cases, ­unions built broad co­ali­tions and, in Toronto, effaced themselves in the public ­battle against austerity. It is not always evident whose agency is being expressed. In a smaller number of our cases, we see u ­ nions succeed in advancing progressive, class-­wide demands. As expected, this is most clearly the case in our social reproduction sector cases, where ­unions play a much more central role in defining urban policy. In New York, both the teachers’ ­union and the union–­child care co­ali­tion expanded access to child care and played an impor­tant role, along with advocates, in raising the po­liti­cal salience of child care in local politics. This was made evident by Bill de Blasio’s decision to focus his mayoral campaign theme—­rising urban in­equality—on better child care policy. This is also a case in which ­unions claimed a significant or­ga­niz­ing win. An increasingly impor­tant segment of the child care workforce now benefits from collective repre­sen­ta­tion and can draw upon additional public resources. In Toronto, the ­union child care campaign that we studied was more defensive in nature, but the ­union’s success in blocking privatization of the city child care centers demonstrates that ­union po­liti­cal muscle is necessary to defend quality public ser­v ices. ­Whether ­these centers ­will form the building blocks of a universal public child care system,

210 Conclusion

expanding the benefits of quality child care to a broader population ­will depend on po­liti­cal developments at the provincial and federal levels. In short, our survey of l­abor’s urban strategies has revealed significant variation. We have successes of a defensive sort, defined in terms of trade ­union goals, along with some failures, and modest cases of ­unions advancing their workplace and institutional interests within the terms of an urban social justice agenda. This confirms our understanding that urban space offers possibilities for l­ abor renewal while also posing constraints that seem to encourage ­unions to choose between institutional and social goals, or make short-­term at the expense of longer-­term calculations. We might also conclude that this variation supports a perspective that ­union strategy—­the choices that ­union actors make and the goals that they seek to achieve—­matters significantly to outcomes. Before we consider how l­ abor might overcome some of ­these dilemmas, it is worth reflecting on what accounts for ­these variations. Three key findings emerge. First, u ­ nions are more likely to achieve u ­ nion goals in profit-­led sectors, but t­ hese narrower strategies are found to conflict with the broader class strategies that are associated with l­ abor renewal. Second, u ­ nions are more likely to f­ avor broader class strategies in sectors that are not profit-­led. In ­these cases, u ­ nions are capable of reconciling u ­ nion and social goals. Outcomes are, however, less impressive in ­these cases. Third, regardless of sector, urban ­labor strategies are more likely to succeed when the nature of urban space is taken into consideration by ­labor campaigners in designing or adapting strategy to the local context. Narrow ­labor strategies in profit-­led sectors are more likely to succeed in central locations and at the top of the urban hierarchy. Broader class-­wide strategies must scale up their strategies to subnational and federal levels of government in order to overcome the limits of what can be accomplished at the local scale.

­L abor, Competitiveness, and Urban Regimes It is striking that in none of our cases has ­labor achieved trade ­union goals within a competitiveness policy framework, in alliance with employers, developers, and urban gentry, while also advancing broad working-­class interests or laying the groundwork for increasing u ­ nion bargaining power. Our most successful cases of ­unions defending their institutional and workplace interests occur in profit-­ led sectors, and it is in t­ hese sectors where we see the sharpest contradictions between ­labor’s institutional goals and the broader class strategies that have been associated with ­labor renewal. The fact that this is so suggests that ­labor’s urban

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strategies, at least in the private sector, are not pathways to ­labor revitalization. They are about reproducing the existing u ­ nions in place. This is brought out most clearly in our creative city studies. Union support for payroll tax incentives in the film industry has worked as a sector development strategy when combined with other locational advantages—­notably an existing skilled ­labor pool and studio infrastructure and favorable exchange rates, in the case of Toronto and Vancouver. But as an employment-­maximizing strategy, tax incentives are subject to rapidly diminishing returns as subsidies are generalized across jurisdictions, and the previous level and geo­graph­i­cal distribution of employment is reestablished as competition falls back on stronger forms of competition that are rooted in par­tic­u­lar places: deep local l­abor pools and physical infrastructure. The national leaderships of each of the local u ­ nions involved in this see-­saw ­battle see no scalar contradiction to their strategy, ­because competitive local tax cuts lower social production costs (as opposed to wages) across the domestic market, reaffirming a competitive position in the world economy. But this does not address the nature of the contradiction: competitive strategies that lower the local (or national) l­abor costs of production by their nature ­favor studio ­owners with global production options and ambitions. Local studios benefit directly from t­ hese policies, but the largest Hollywood studios benefit in turn. This is a policy that is likely to further the concentration of bargaining power in the hands of the large studios, to the detriment of film l­abor everywhere. Furthermore, once it is established that ­unions ­will compete for work on the basis of ­labor cost, t­ here is no reason why competition cannot then shift from social costs to direct wage and benefit costs as tax concessions run up against the limits of their po­liti­cal legitimacy. As Figueroa and Gray point out in their chapter, although the current governor of New York is a strong supporter of film production tax credits, a $460 million annual tax subsidy to a high-­wage and geo­graph­i­cally concentrated industry employing a mostly white male workforce may become more difficult to justify as the politics of austerity unfold. The unintended consequences of ­union support for competitiveness strategies figure centrally in our Toronto film study, this time along the urban planning dimension of l­abor strategy. Benefiting from an already developed skilled l­abor pool, studio infrastructure, and generous tax incentives, Toronto urban boosters set their sights on winning more big-­budget Hollywood productions with the publicly subsidized development of new studio space. Film l­abor supported this strategy on the understanding that any new proj­ect would add to Toronto’s studio space and thus expand employment in the sector. When this turned out not to be the case, and instead the new, more expensive studio space would simply replace cheaper and more locally accessible space, film ­unions ­were forced to reverse course.

212 Conclusion

As Wieditz explains in his chapter, the be­hav­ior of the vari­ous city agencies involved in the development of Filmport (now Pinewood Studios) does not make sense if the concern was to maximize employment in the sector. The proj­ect appears to be much more concerned with opening up publicly owned, deindustrialized land for private development, and largely for more profitable residential and commercial uses rather than film production. As a subordinate player in the politics of real estate development, ­labor is unable to exert enough po­liti­cal control to ensure that employment—­and not developer profits—is the guiding rationale for public policy, even when the policy in question is ostensibly all about employment growth in a favored “creative” industry. As in New York, in this case a “strong” competitiveness strategy would have resulted—­and may yet result, depending on what the ­future holds for 629 Eastern—in concentrating bargaining power over local ­labor in the hands of the big studios. Our Toronto film study also reveals the discursive contradictions for l­abor when ­unions line up ­behind competitiveness strategies. Unlike New York, Toronto has ­until recently retained a significant and diversified industrial sector within its metropolitan area, and this has provided an impor­tant source of union-­scale employment for urban residents. Toronto growth interests show ­little concern for protecting this sector and have supported real estate–­led policies that seek industrial displacement in f­ avor of higher-­rent commercial and residential development, a policy that is rationalized in part through creative city discourse. The defeat of SmartCenters in Leslieville is a rare instance where ­labor has prevailed over this policy orientation, and the L ­ abour Council evidently hoped that this would provide a pre­ce­dent in ongoing ­battles to preserve industrial land use designation in the city. However, as Wieditz argues in his chapter, success in this case owed much to the specific urban context of the film industry: “[t]he nature of the film industry is that it has one foot in the past and one foot in the ­future. In land use language, a film studio is considered an industrial manufacturing use, which points to Toronto’s manufacturing past. In urban policy language, it is considered a creative industry impor­tant to Toronto’s global economic competitiveness, which points to the city’s f­uture.” This creative city status made it easier to defend an industrial site by enlisting the support of local gentry and the local government, key f­ actors in l­abor’s victory. But when even l­abor couches its arguments within a policy discourse that rationalizes its own displacement, the immediate victory is purchased at the cost of raising this discourse to the level of a social consensus. Contradictions between ­union and broader class agendas are not just of academic interest. We have seen l­ abor being forced to recognize the po­liti­cal salience of ­these contradictions throughout our research. When city councillors in New York asked film ­unions why the beneficiaries of the tax incentives looked

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nothing like their constituents, an answer came in the form of an equity job placement program for production assistants. But city tracking of the racial, ethnic, and gender composition of the screen-­based workforce since the provisions ­were enacted as yet show l­ittle pro­gress on equity goals. Nor does this address the question of what generous tax incentives mean for competing public demands for health care and education spending. ­These contradictions take on a sharper po­liti­cal relevance to ­unions when the opponents of l­ abor use them to drive wedges between ­unions and a broad working-­ class public. Real estate developers, right-­wing populists, and neoliberal policy advisers are not above making the equity case that unor­ga­nized low-­income residents are best served by “kicking out the interests,” “stopping the gravy train,” and letting the market provide the cheapest ser­v ices and the most realistic employment opportunities. When film l­abor in Leslieville found itself allied with upper-­income, predominantly white residents opposed to the entry of a Walmart in their neighborhood, the developer seized on the po­liti­cal opportunity this afforded. As Wieditz describes, in testifying before the OMB, his ­legal counsel “painted the members of the ETCC [­labor–­community co­ali­tion] as elites, turned Walmart into the victim, and essentially accused the ETCC of waging class warfare against low-­income communities who wanted his client’s proposal to advance b ­ ecause it would bring employment opportunities and affordable goods.” As we have seen, the same logic was reprised in the KPMG recommendations to Peel Region that public child care centers be privatized and replaced with a voucher system. What works in one place may not work in another, and u ­ nion actors must be aware of how their strategies depend on their geo­graph­i­cal context for success. This insight emerges most clearly from our study of l­abor in land use planning disputes. In our hospitality city cases, u ­ nion actors understood that the leverage they could build over developers varies according to the area of the city. Developers may be brought to the bargaining t­able in places like Midtown East, where large profits are to be had in rewriting zoning rules, but this strategy does not work in suburban locations where the potential of capitalizing on differences in land prices is much smaller. The variation in rent gaps across urban space explains why UNITE ­HERE favored a downtown location for a Toronto casino, even if this preference positioned the ­union against power­ful downtown community groups, planning professionals, and public-­sector ­unions, undermining the ­union’s po­liti­cal effectiveness. In both our New York and Toronto hospitable city cases, ­unions devoted significant po­liti­cal resources in urban planning conflicts with the goal of simply defending bargaining relationships and standards. Even in the most advantageous circumstances, ­these land use strategies only seem to succeed in blocking

214 Conclusion

nonunion development, rather than steering investment ­toward the ­union sector or expanding u ­ nionization. Is ­there a high-­road competitiveness strategy for ­labor that accomplishes ­these goals? The strongest evidence in f­avor of a high-­road strategy for ­labor that nevertheless remains bound within a neoliberal policy framework is found in our New York child care study. In both the co­ali­tion building and worker or­ga­niz­ing cases discussed in Schaller, Wagner, and Warner’s chapter, ­labor developed strategies that improved conditions for child care providers, expanded access to care for working parents beyond a trade ­union membership, and improved the quality of care that ­children receive. Beyond ­these immediate gains, ­labor strategy has shifted perceptions of child care’s importance and social status among elected officials, employers, and the public, with benefits for both consumers and producers of care that ­will r­ ipple beyond a trade ­union membership. That ­labor was able to achieve all of this in a context of austerity and multiple claims on scare resources testifies to what l­abor can accomplish in the city when workplace, community, and po­liti­cal leverage is strategically aligned, and ­unions address themselves to the lives of their members beyond the workplace. The successful outcomes in this study owe more to the po­liti­cal power of the u ­ nion and its mobilization of low-­ income residents through a gendered and racial justice frame, rather than to the support of large employers and the growth interests. Advancing child care policy in an economic competitiveness frame exploits a rhetorical contradiction of urban competitiveness strategies: urban regimes claim to f­avor growth policies, but the power­ful economic actors that comprise them are more concerned with firm-­level profits and cutting social costs. Although improved access to child care has proven local economic benefits, both in increasing female ­labor market participation and in boosting productivity at work, only ­unions and advocates are sufficiently motivated and well-­organized to advance better child care policies. This is a sector where competitiveness and equity goals can be reconciled to some extent if u ­ nions are able to push urban regimes t­ oward a high-­road growth strategy. This has its limits, however. As Schaller, Wagner, and Warner note, neither the co­ali­tion nor the or­ga­niz­ing case “was effective in stemming the neoliberal shift t­ oward privatization and voucherization of the child care system,” a policy direction that draws its support from rhe­torics of competition and choice. Organ­izing marginalized home-­based care workers may be forward looking to the extent of preempting “the decimation of the sector as it continues to be privatized and fragmented,” but raising standards in the informal and home-­ based system in this campaign did not address the continued retrenchment of the municipal centers, whose workers are represented by a rival u ­ nion. The promise of ­labor strategy reconciling growth interests and equity in urban policymaking appears in our study as a limited exception to the rule. Our

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finding that u ­ nions are able to address narrow institutional goals by playing elites off one another, or by appealing to competitiveness logics and the allied interests of employers and other growth interests, challenges the notion that u ­ nions ­will be forced to engage in the kinds of ­labor–­community strategies that are associated with ­labor revitalization, simply in order to survive. If the broader lit­er­a­ture on ­unions and the city tends to be more optimistic for ­labor revitalization in urban space, perhaps it is ­because it is more pessimistic about the prospects of narrower trade ­unionist strategies. As power in our society continues to shift in ­favor of employers and property o ­ wners and against workers, u ­ nions have found ways to continue to maintain themselves by burrowing deeper into the warp and weft of cap­i­tal­ist regulation. As discussed in the introduction to this book, this is ­viable in part b ­ ecause regulation continues to play a crucial role in urban economies, and this regulation does not overcome, but rather institutionalizes within the state, contradictions and conflicts that are fixtures of our society. It is not irrational for u ­ nions, as ­labor market institutions, to choose ­these narrower strategies.

­ abor Renewal beyond L the Competitive City Exploiting conflicts among elites and contradictions in neoliberal growth strategies may be enough to defend the existing institutions in some cases. Of course, the ­labor movement was not built this way, and it ­w ill not be rebuilt this way ­either. Without any longer-­term plan to contest the dominance of neoliberal rule and ideology, ­these strategies do not prepare the ground for a renewal of ­labor’s workplace and po­liti­cal power. The best that can be hoped of such a strategic orientation is to slow the pace of decline by reproducing some of the existing institutions in place. As we move from the profit-­led sectors to ­those that address social and ecological needs, the tension in all u ­ nions between the “sword of justice” and vested interest does not dis­appear. On the contrary, l­ abor must directly address conflicts between ­union goals and the demands of nonunionized workers they seek to mobilize. Promoting an employment-­rich green transition and expanding the social provision of child care are not profit-­led growth strategies, and they cut against the grain of ­free-­market capitalism. Elites and growth interests are less interested in promoting t­ hese sectors, and divisions among them ­will offer fewer opportunities to advance ­labor’s vision of a socially just and sustainable city. ­These sectors are nevertheless promising for ­labor renewal ­because they offer a strong social logic to expanding ­union employment and create multiple opportunities to forge ­labor–­community co­ali­tions and build po­liti­cal power.

216 Conclusion

­Because ­labor figures much more centrally ­here than in film and hospitality, the task ­unions set themselves is more ambitious. The viability of “­labor’s socio-­ ecological fix,” for example, hinges on creating the conditions for profit making in a green industry, and union-­scale employment, while working with social justice movements and mobilizing marginalized and low-­income residents to secure the necessary po­liti­cal support. As Figueroa notes in her chapter, the difficulties that confront l­abor’s socio-­ecological strategies multiply at the local level, with scalar tensions appearing between local and national ­union bodies, orga­nizational culture differences between ­unions and environmental and community-­based organ­izations, conflicting financial incentives facing property ­owners and renters, and differences in policy preferences between financial capital, industrial capital, and commercial real estate. All of this increases the coordination burden on ­unions. This is only aggravated by the overly complicated nature of the private–­ public partnerships favored in market-­led approaches to the climate crisis. ­Labor is drawn to socio-­ecological strategies b ­ ecause they hold out the tantalizing possibility of reor­ga­niz­ing large urban industries such as residential construction and building ser­v ices, or putting in place policy supports to stop the hemorrhaging of u ­ nion employment in what remains of industrial manufacturing. While advancing ecological strategies strains ­labor’s existing po­liti­cal capacities, they also offer ave­nues for ­labor to rebuild ­these capacities, given the role that ­unions are uniquely suited to play in relating neighborhood-­level demands to vari­ous levels of government. In both Toronto and New York, ­labor has strug­gled with this role. In par­tic­u­ lar, u ­ nions have confronted a difficulty in matching the employment they seek to generate with the diverse low-­income populations they are mobilizing. In the New York weatherization study, the immigrant workers whom ­labor or­ga­nized and trained w ­ ere not the same population as the similarly marginalized residents with citizenship status who are likely to secure work in the industry. The prob­ lem ­here lies partly in immigration and l­abor laws, which lie outside of l­abor’s direct control, but as Figueroa argues, this difficulty also “calls for an even more comprehensive approach in the design of l­abor entrepreneurial strategies to incorporate ele­ments of l­egal reform (at least at the local level)” and “the need for ­unions to promote participatory forms of civic repre­sen­ta­tion for new immigrants to create accountability for public agencies in relation to this population.” Nugent’s land use planning study highlights the same dilemma. In this case, industrial ­labor sought to block the entry of a Walmart into a low-­income inner-­ suburban neighborhood in hopes of preserving lands for high-­wage green manufacturing. As Nugent explains, the employment potential that l­ abor strategy thus creates for the trades and industrial workers “can sometimes be at odds with the immediate needs and desires of other marginalized members of the working class

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who may benefit from retail-­sector jobs. . . . ​The fundamental demand coming from ­these groups for ‘any job now’ exists in tension with the more abstract demand by or­ga­nized ­labor for ‘good jobs tomorrow’ achieved through the protection of employment districts for industrial capital.” Drawing on lessons learned in Leslieville, the L ­ abour Council confronted this dilemma at an early stage of the strug­gle by linking a particularist and site-­specific demand for good jobs to a broader social movement campaign to raise the provincial minimum wage, and a subsequent campaign for increased public spending on education, housing, child care, and social assistance. The affordability and employment equity dilemmas that confront ­labor’s urban strategies would be less of a concern if they succeeded in generating higher levels of employment. In the New York weatherization strategy, this gap was partly due to prob­lems of policy design and implementation—­the specific urban property structure, ­labor market segmentation patterns of the city, and the po­liti­cal implications following from ­these, ­were poorly considered. However, ­there is a more general prob­lem of generating enough demand to sustain investment in this sector. In New York, real estate resolutely opposed mandatory retrofits that could have led to significant employment gains, in part b ­ ecause banks w ­ ere uninterested in financing the investment. Residential weatherization is considered insufficiently profitable, and what employment is generated in this sector is subject to the relentless competitive pressures that squeeze l­abor at the bottom of supply chains. In Toronto, the l­ abor–­community co­ali­tion failed to secure private-­sector industrial investment on the site they fought so hard to protect. Generating green jobs that are also ­unionized, high wage, and equally distributed in urban ­labor markets is a tall order. It is difficult to see how this agenda would not reduce firm profit rates below the average, undercutting investment and employment growth. This underscores the limits of relying on private incentives and the profit motive to accomplish socio-­ecological goals. L ­ abor did ultimately generate u ­ nionized green jobs in Mount Dennis, but with higher-­order government investment in public transit. We see ­here that urban ­labor strategies are capable of reconciling institutional ­union goals with broader class strategies, of seizing the potential for leading a broader working-­class proj­ect in urban space. But ­these broader class strategies are less successful to the extent that they remain trapped in local space and reliant on profit-­led investment. They are more successful to the extent that they build power locally that takes into consideration the quality of the space in which ­unions are acting, and then scale this up to subnational-­or national-­level politics with a stronger role for public investment in economic development. Our less successful New York weatherization case was undermined by the withdrawal of federal supports and policy design prob­lems in terms of matching actors with employment

218 Conclusion

and addressing the equity/owner split in central-­city housing markets. Our more successful outcomes in the Toronto case depended on u ­ nion actors taking into consideration the par­tic­u­lar nature of the urban spaces in which they act—­the employment and income security concerns of low-­income marginalized workers in inner-­suburban locations—­and ­were able to overcome a conflict between the goals of ­unions and unor­ga­nized workers by broadening the green jobs campaign and scaling up to the subnational level. ­These crucial lessons—­the importance that difference in urban space makes to the outcomes of u ­ nion campaigns and the need to scale up u ­ nion campaigns to avoid local traps—­are underscored again in our Toronto child care case. In English-­speaking Canada, the ­labor movement and child care advocates have been determined to block the growth of private for-­profit care, and remain committed to an expansion of the publicly funded and operated system. The municipal centers are key to advancing a vision of a socially just system of child care and education, ­because only the municipal centers offer high-­quality and innovative care, often to lower-­income parents and high-­needs ­children, in a ­unionized workplace environment that provides decent working conditions and wages. But, of course, this is a high-­cost model. Notwithstanding the business case for child care, Black’s chapter shows that neoliberal policy advisers and austerity-­minded local governments ­favor a low-­cost and more differentiated system, good enough to sustain local ­labor supply. In the current po­liti­cal climate, it is difficult to see how a residual high-­cost/high-­quality municipal child care system can survive the drive to austerity. And indeed, in suburban Peel Region it could not. The line of attack, “gold-­plated child care” for “elitist parents”—­absurd though this may be— is first to emerge in a place like Peel Region, where the contradiction between cost and accessibility is very real and the l­abor movement is largely absent from local politics. In this study, the high road was successfully defended in much wealthier Toronto, with its large and diversified tax base, by public-­sector ­labor, mobilized recipients of public ser­v ices, and an assist from progressive local government officials. ­Labor and advocates recognize that program spending by higher o ­ rders of government ­will be required to expand quality public child care beyond the central city municipal centers.

Results and Prospects It may not be fash­ion­able to say so, but ­there is no question that class conflict ­will continue to play an impor­tant role in our society and politics, giving rise to new forms of class or­ga­ni­za­tion and strug­gle. As long as our economy is based on wage ­labor, it ­will be pos­si­ble to contest workplace relations that rely partly

Conclusion

219

on coercion and partly on consent. At pres­ent, the existing forms of ­union or­ga­ ni­za­tion and strug­gle no longer correspond to what is required to advance even a very traditional concept of what trade u ­ nions are good for: defending a decent quality of work life and standard of living for the majority in our society. T ­ here is a widely held recognition among ­union actors that this is so, and this recognition makes pos­si­ble a radical reimagining of the ­union proj­ect and many local experiments in ­doing ­things differently. North American l­abor history suggests that when some proj­ect somewhere is shown to have worked, it ­will be generalized rapidly across the landscape. This is likely even more true ­today given the speed at which images and ideas are communicated not just continentally but globally. We have chosen in our study to take a broad survey of what the existing ­unions are ­doing in leading sectors of the economy and in the remaining centers of ­union power. The ­union strategies we have studied may not represent the most innovative or radical experiments in d ­ oing ­things differently. As noted in the introduction, other ­unions have gone further to urbanize ­union action, including strikes and workplace or­ga­niz­ing, in a few cases with impressive results. We wanted to know if this urban reimagining of ­union or­ga­ni­za­tion and strug­gle went beyond ­these exceptional, usually left-­led proj­ects, and we wanted to better appreciate some of the tensions and contradictions that this involves for ­unions that have one foot firmly planted in the industrial relations framework and the other, more tentatively, in social innovation. The f­uture of l­abor is likely to involve organ­izations that emerge outside of the industrial relations framework, along with the existing institutions that have found a way to adapt to a changed set of opportunities and challenges. Our results reveal how common it is for ­unions to engage with urban politics, planning, and policymaking. This involves a more po­liti­cal and geo­graph­i­cal set of repertoires that takes u ­ nion or­ga­ni­za­tion deeply into the contentious pro­cess of urban change. The left has long lamented the absence of u ­ nions from po­liti­cal activity, and in par­tic­u­lar from local and neighborhood-­level politics that address a working class beyond the u ­ nion membership and beyond the membership’s workplace identities. We see in this volume that it is not unusual for u ­ nions to advance such strategies. We expect that sector-­based studies in other North American cities would find the same turn t­oward urban strategies and that the same dilemmas would emerge in ­these studies. It is impor­tant to recognize t­ hese dilemmas and contradictions ­because they underlie the importance of making choices that are po­liti­cal and even ideological in nature. The politics of linking workplace demands and identities to urban working-­class life in policymaking and planning disputes is extraordinarily complex. ­There is nothing automatically progressive in the shift. Union interventions

220 Conclusion

in urban space can e­ ither or­ga­nize or disor­ga­nize, unite or fragment diverse sections of the working class. In a number of cases, we see ­unions becoming entangled in contradictions that are directly related to the fact that their strategies are designed to work within neoliberal capitalism and thus unable to benefit or or­ ga­nize a working class beyond the ­union membership. ­Whether or not ­unions should be involved in urban politics and urban strug­ gles is not so much the question. The question is, what kind of politics and what kind of city does ­labor stand for? The strategies we have studied relate workplace interests to other spheres of social life. In d ­ oing so, u ­ nions are playing a part in the transformation of our cities. The dilemma for ­labor renewal is that ­these strategies can work in narrow trade ­union terms without challenging dominant urban policies that are driving in­equality, displacement, and disenfranchisement. A strategy for l­abor renewal would run the logic the right way around: identify the class contradictions of the dominant policies, use workplace or­ga­ni­za­tion and resources to build social strug­gles around ­these contradictions, and through ­these strug­gles renew and transform ­union structures to become what they should be: organ­izations of workers to accomplish a common purpose. Instead of burrowing into the fabric of the regulatory state, u ­ nions should take up their old role as social centers of re­sis­tance to concentrations of economic and po­liti­cal power, and strike what compromises remain pos­si­ble in a more open and politicized bargaining pro­cess.

Notes

1. L ­ ABOR STRATEGY AND THE POLITICS OF ELITE DIVISION IN MIDTOWN MANHATTAN

1. The famous phrase is taken from Schattschneider’s (1960) rejoinder to pluralist theorists of po­liti­cal science, namely “[t]he flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-­class accent.” 2. OR­G A­N IZED ­L ABOR AND CASINO POLITICS IN TORONTO

1. Councillor Mike Layton has said this repeatedly, but most recently on a town hall panel sponsored by the Peterborough, Ontario, New Demo­cratic Party riding association on July 9, 2013, at which the author also made a pre­sen­ta­tion. 2. John Cartwright, president of the Toronto and York Region ­Labour Council, quoted in Goldsbie (2013). The ­Labour Council was neutral on the issue despite support by major affiliates. 3. ­Here I play on the term “vulgar Marxism,” which refers to a reductionist economism explaining the unicausal relationship between the economic base and superstructure. 4. Members of UNITE ­HERE Local 75 did stand ­behind Mayor Rob Ford in one pro-­ casino speech to the press in April 2013, but this was a rare example of vis­i­ble ­union support for the Mayor. 5. Almost immediately, the Ontario Horse Racing Industry Association and some ­unions representing workers at the racetracks initiated an aggressive campaign against the decision to end the profit-­sharing program between racetracks and the state. 6. Preamalgamation Toronto voted 70.6 ­percent against the idea, with the boroughs showing only slightly more support. Toronto has debated dif­fer­ent types of gambling since the Criminal Code of Canada banned most gaming in the 1890s (Giambrone 2013). Again, the referendum was held in the midst of the 1990s casino craze, when a New Demo­cratic government in Ontario, facing recession and rec­ord deficits, limited its gambling expansion to charitable and government-­owned casinos in border towns and o ­ thers in cooperation with First Nations. 7. It was often brought up by anti-­casino advocates that both MGM and Caesar’s had a significant debt ser­v ice requirement that would have limited their capacity to invest. 8. Letter to City of Toronto Executive Committee, November 2, 2012, re: Casino in Toronto, from Brian Ashton, president, Canadian National Exhibition Association (CNEA). Of concern was the loss of youth employment and a primary tourist attraction. The city and the province continue to discuss how the revitalization of the provincially owned Ontario Place lands could be linked to redevelopment of the CNE grounds. 9. See Stolarick and Brydges (2013), which was the Martin Prosperity Institutes review of twenty-­seven casino and economic development articles assessing the impact of casinos on urban development. The report was an anchor reference for anti-­casino groups. 10. The panel Casino City? was sponsored by York University’s City Institute on February 1, 2013, and featured six anti-­casino speakers. 11. MPP Peter Tabuns was particularly vocal in the anti-­casino movement, and was concerned about a casino in the Port Lands. 221

222 NOTES TO PAGES 64–146

12. Paul Godfrey had made a number of gaffes throughout the campaign. It was re­ ouldn’t want a casino in ported in the National Post on January 8, 2013, that he said, “I w my neighbourhood.” His dealing with the Mayor for a “special hosting fee” for Toronto was also unpopular with Premier Wynne (Radwanski 2013). 13. ­There is a risk of editorializing ­here, but the author witnessed Adam Vaughan at several debates and committee meetings where he confronted ­unionists. One could speculate he took the opportunity to “center” himself po­liti­cally at the expense of his ­labor supporters. Vaughan successfully ran for Member of Parliament as a Liberal in a by-­election in Trinity-­Spadina, replacing Olivia Chow as she launched her unsuccessful bid for mayor of Toronto. 14. Again, in full disclosure, the author was a signatory and appeared in the list published in the Globe and Mail in May 2013, just prior to the vote. 15. Submission to the Executive Committee of Toronto City Council: Toronto Casino Proposal. SEIU Local 2 (BGPWU), October 22, 2012. 16. Robert K. J. Orr, 2012, Submission to the Executive Committee of Toronto by the Canadian Auto Workers, re: EX24.1 Considering a New Casino in Toronto, submitted ­November 5, 2012. 17. The website www​.­10000jobsnow​.­com and Facebook pages ­were temporary, but it is reported that lawn signs and flyers mimicking the No Casino campaign w ­ ere produced with the support of the casino companies. 18. Quoted in Betsy Powell, 2015, “Council Approves Expanded Gambling at Woodbine Racetrack,” Toronto Star, July 8. 4. FILM UNIONS’ STRUG­G LE TO DEFEND STUDIO SPACE IN TORONTO

1. Research participant (ID21), interview by author, August 21, 2013. 2. Research participant (ID25), interview by author, August 22, 2013. 3. Research participant (ID16), interview by author, June 5, 2013. 4. Research participant (ID12), interview by author, May 12, 2013. 5. Research participant (ID12), interview by author, May 12, 2013. 6. Research participant (ID28), interviewed by author, August 28, 2013. 7. Research participant (ID4), interviewed by author, February, 26, 2013. 8. Research participant (ID9), interviewed by author, March 17, 2013. 9. Research participant (ID8), interviewed by author, March 16, 2013. 10. Research participant (ID4), interviewed by author, February 26, 2013. 11. Research participant (ID30), interviewed by author, November 11, 2013. 12. Research participant (ID30), interviewed by author, November 11, 2013. 13. Research participant (ID26), interviewed by author, August 22, 2013. 14. Research participant (ID25), interview by author, August 22, 2013. 15. Research participant (ID20), interviewed by author, June 19, 2013. 16. Research participant (ID14), interviewed by author, May 14, 2013. 17. Research participant (ID30), interviewed by author, November 11, 2013. 6. STRUGGLING FOR GOOD GREEN JOBS IN TORONTO’S DEINDUSTRIALIZING SUBURBS

1. Although Canada’s green­house gas emissions declined following the 2008 financial crisis, in part due to the decline of manufacturing activity and a shift away from coal power, Canada was still an embarrassing 25.8 ­percent above its Kyoto targets in 2011, just before the federal conservative government pulled out of the protocol altogether. 2. Statistics Canada, CANSIM, Series V2113886, ­Table 2820078.

NOTES TO PAGES 150–177

223

3. For an explanation of how Statistics Canada determines the low-­income cutoffs, see Statistics Canada, 2011, ­Table 1, “Low-­Income Cut-­Offs (1992 base) ­after Tax,” http://­www​ .­statcan​.­gc​.­ca​/­pub​/­75f0002m​/­2011002​/­tbl​/­tbl01​-­eng​.­htm. 4. Research participant (ID008), interview by author, September 4, 2013. 5. Research participant (ID003b), interview by author, August 10, 2012. 6. Research participant (ID003a), interview by author, August 10, 2012. 7. The MDCA was largely a white, ­middle-­class group of homeowners, but, being conscious of this, had tried to welcome into meetings the largely poor and black residents of nearby apartment buildings, with mixed success. 8. Research participant (ID007), interview by author, July 23, 2012. 9. The committee was to be hand-­picked by the councillors for Wards 11 and 12, and was to meet in private so as to avoid an angry public. Neighborhood leaders in Ward 11—­including the MDCA and the Weston Business Improvement Area—­were generally opposed to a big-­box development. The leadership of the Greenhills Community Association in Ward 12, viewed by participants as a wealthier neighborhood less concerned with blue-­collar jobs, welcomed some kind of commercial development and would l­ ater be vigorously opposed to keeping industrial activity on the site. 10. Research participant (ID002), interview by author, October 23, 2012. 11. Louise Mahood, interview by Andy Barrie, Metro Morning, 99.1FM, June 22, 2007, recording from CBC Archives. 12. Research participant (ID009), interview by author, February 22, 2013. 13. Research participant (ID002), interview by author, October 23, 2012. 14. Research participant (ID002), interview by author, October 23, 2012. 15. The conference was named ­after the or­ga­niz­ing committee, Good Green Jobs for All, of which the author was a member. The committee also tried unsuccessfully to create apprenticeship and job opportunities for marginalized residents through a pi­lot proj­ect to install solar panels on the roofs of municipal buildings. 16. Research participant (ID001), interview by author, August 7, 2012. 7. CREATING A CITY FOR WORKERS

1. The 1199 Child Care Fund is a Taft-­Hartley Fund, consisting of u ­ nion and employer contributions. 2. New York Union Child Care Co­ali­tion (NYUCCC), a committee of the New York City Central ­Labor Council and New York State AFL-­CIO; District Council 37, AFSCME; Local 237 Teamsters; Local 1199 SEIU; Transit Workers Union; Local 100 United Federation of Teachers; UNITE ­HERE; RWDSU; Local 153 OPEIU; CWA Local 1180, District 1, and Local 1105; District Council 1707, AFSCME; CSEA; NYSNA; CSA; Amalgamated Transit Union. 3. “Additionally, the NYUCCC supported the statewide Child Care That Works Campaign (with a group of child care advocates, providers, community organ­izations and resource and referral agencies) which helped to win $282 million in child care subsidies, $40 million for a wage supplement for child care workers, benefiting over 35,000 workers, most of whom are ­women, $30 million for construction and renovation proj­ects and increase in the child care and in­de­pen­dent care credit” (King and du Cote 2001, 3). 4. This pi­lot of the facilitated enrollment program was so successful that the city Administration of C ­ hildren’s Ser­v ices changed its procedures and introduced a user-­friendly application and enrollment pro­cess, with the co­ali­tion serving as an agent to sign workers up for the child care benefit at work. ­ ere DC37/NYC 5. The three l­abor–­management partnerships involved the study w Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC); 1199 SEIU/NYC Homecare Subcontractors,

224 NOTES TO PAGES 178–189

and Local 237 IBT/NYC Police Department School. The three institutional partners w ­ ere Cornell’s ILR, which directed the team d ­ oing the case study research; the Consortium for Worker Education, which administered the child care subsidies; and Child Care Inc. (now the Center for C ­ hildren’s Initiatives), which provided information in workshop and phone formats. 6. Presenteeism refers to workers coming to work sick due to lack of adequate sick-­ leave days; some workers may use up the sick leave they do have to bridge child care gaps. 7. Bob Adelman, “Bill de Blasio: New York City’s ‘Progressive’ New Mayor,” http://­www​ .­thenewamerican​.­com​/­, January 2, 2014. See also the UFT website, http://­www​.­uft​.­org​/­get​ -­involved​/­community​-­partners. Both accessed on September 21, 2015. 8. See “Providers’ Timeline in the Pursuit of Justice, Res­pect & Fair Wages, Unionization & a Contract,” provided by Tammie Miller, chapter chair, F ­ amily Child Care Providers. 9. This approach was similar to another or­ga­niz­ing campaign, the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which was focused primarily on nannies and informal home health care aides for the el­derly. The state passed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2010, and UFT supported the expansion of domestic workers’ rights, as it was consistent with the princi­ ples and focus on the rights of home-­based workers. 10. See “The Time Is Now for Pre-­K,” by Michael Mulgrew, New York Teacher, January 16, 2014, http://­www​.­uft​.­org​/­presidents​-­perspective​/­time​-­now​-­pre​-­k, accessed September 25, 2015. 11. See “­Family Child Care Providers Earn National Accreditation,” New York Teacher, January 8, 2015, at UFT​.­org. Last accessed September 25, 2015. 12. “Since 1999, the Co­ali­tion helped to win $282 million in additional child care subsidies . . . ​as well as $40 million for a wage supplement for child care workers” (King and du Cote 2001, 3). 13. DC 1707 brought a claim against UFT, but the AFL-­CIO determined or­ga­niz­ing informal child care providers was within UFT’s jurisdictional right. 14. Ross Barkan, “NYCC, Reincarnated Acorn, Rises in de Blasio’s New York,” Observer News: Progressive Nuts & Bolts, March 5, 2014, http://­observer​.­com​/­2014​/­03​/­reincarnated​ -­acorn​-­calling​-­the​-­shots​-­in​-­bill​-­de​-­blasios​-­new​-­york​/­, accessed September 25, 2015. 15. For statements from UFT, see http://­www​.­uft​.­org​/­insight​/­universal​-­pre​-­k​-­totally​ -­doable. For the initial De Blasio proposal, see http://­files​.­uft​.­org​/­parents​/­DeBlasioEduca tionInvestmentFactSheet​.­pdf. For a New York statewide initiative proposal, see Center for ­Children’s Initiatives, www​.­centerforchildrensinitiative​.­org. For a more recent UFT statement, see Michael Mulgrew, “The Time Is Now for Pre-­K,” New York Teacher, January 16, 2014, http://­www​.­uft​.­org​/­presidents​-­perspective​/­time​-­now​-­pre​-­k, accessed September 25, 2015. 16. See UFT Director of Child Care Policy Jeremy Hoffman testimony regarding the FY 2016 preliminary bud­get relating to the Administration for ­Children’s Ser­v ices, March 17, 2015. Accessed September 28, 2015, at http://­www​.­uft​.­org​/­testimony​/­testimony​ -­regarding​-­f y​-­2016​-­preliminary​-­budget​-­relating​-­administration​-­childrens​-­services. 17. See January 6, 2014, news reports: http://­newyork​.­cbslocal​.­com​/­2014​/­01​/­06​/­unions​ -­on​-­board​-­with​-­mayor​-­de​-­blasios​-­universal​-­pre​-­k​-­plan/ and http://­www​.­crainsnewyork​ .­com​/­article​/­20140106​/­BLOGS04​/­140109942, both accessed January 7, 2014. 8. IN DEFENSE OF “GOLD-­P LATED” CHILD CARE

1. While ostensibly a community initiative, the Commission on Early Learning and Child Care was endorsed by the City of Toronto and cochaired by a prominent Canadian philanthropist and a vice president of one of the country’s big banks.

NOTES TO PAGES 189–194

225

2. The greater Toronto area is Canada’s largest city region, encompassing the central city of Toronto and the surrounding four regional municipalities of Durham, Halton, York, and Peel. 3. In Ontario, several municipalities in a par­tic­u­lar area may be part of an upper tier of municipal government—­known as a regional municipality—­which provides regionally oriented ser­v ices, including social ser­v ices and police. The governing body of a regional municipality is a regional council, which is made up of the directly elected city councillors and mayor of each city and/or town in the region, plus a regional chair appointed by council members. 4. Furthermore, nonunion municipal centers tend to pay higher wages and overall provide more benefits to their workers than ­unionized community-­based nonprofit centers and for-­profit centers (Doherty and Forer 2002). 5. The term “private centers” is inclusive of both for-­profit daycares and community-­ based nonprofits. 6. Compared to private centers, municipal centers have a higher percentage of teaching staff with a two-­year early childhood education credential or higher (Doherty and Forer 2002). 7. Thanks to Martha Friendly, executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, for ­these statistics. 8. This means that child care subsidies can no longer be used to purchase care in for-­ profit centers.

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Contributors

Simon Black is Assistant Professor, Centre for ­Labour Studies, Brock University. Maria Figueroa is Director of L ­ abor and Policy Research and Co-­Chair of the Precarious Workers Initiative at the Cornell Worker Institute. Lois S. Gray is Jean McKelvey-­Alice Grant Professor Emerita of Labor–­ Management Relations, Cornell School of Industrial and L ­ abor Relations. Ian Thomas MacDonald is Assistant Professor, École de relations industrielles, Université de Montréal. James Nugent is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography, University of Toronto. Susanna F. Schaller is Assistant Professor, City College Center for Worker Education. Steven Tufts is Associate Professor, Department of Geography, York University. K. C. Wagner is the Director of Workplace Issues and Co-­Chair of Equity at Work Initiative at the Cornell Worker Institute. Mildred E. Warner is Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University. Thorben Wieditz is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University.

243

Index

1199 Child Care Fund, 173–75, 223n1 629 Eastern, 106–10, 113, 115, 117–19, 212 ACORN (Association of Community Organ­izations for Reform Now), 154, 157, 172, 180, 182, 185, 197 Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Tele­v i­sion and Radio Artists (ACTRA), 78, 105, 110, 116–17, 119 Alliance of Motion Picture and Tele­v i­sion Producers, 101 Amalgamated Transit Union, 162 American Federation of ­Labor–­Congress of Industrial Organ­izations (AFL-­CIO), 87–89, 99, 175, 223n2, 224n13 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), 130–33, 136 American urbanism, 19–20 Amman, John, 93, 99 anti-­casino, 22, 53–55, 58–59, 62, 65–66, 69–70, 73, 221n1 Association of Motion Picture and Tele­v i­sion Producers, 82–83 bargaining power, 23, 78, 94, 100–101, 209–12 bargaining regime, 21, 29, 35, 37–39, 77–79, 100, 127, 209 Bloomberg, Michael, 11, 31, 33, 44, 46, 62, 86, 89, 125, 136 Blue-­Green Alliance, 122, 126, 147, 159 Blue-­Green Canada, 122, 147 Boston Consulting Group, 79, 80, 91 Brooklyn Workforce Innovations (BWI), 90, 95 Building Congress, 44 building trades, 13, 28, 46, 66, 70, 123, 125, 129, 138, 142, 144 Building Trades Congress, 47 Building Trades Employers’ Association, 44, 47 Build Toronto, 162, 165 Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), 26, 69–70, 168, 191–98, 202–6 Canadian urbanism, 19–20 card check neutrality, 38–40, 51 care crisis, 167, 207 Car­ter, Majora, 159

CAW (Canadian Auto Workers), 68, 70, 155 child care centers, 168, 170, 179–80, 189–90, 193–94, 196, 199, 201–2, 205, 209 child care ­unions, 168–70 ­Children and Youth Action Committee, Toronto, 197 ­Children’s Ser­v ices Division, Toronto, 194, 196 Christopherson, Susan, 76, 80, 81, 84, 85, 86, 96 CineSpace Studio, 77, 117 City of Toronto Planning, 149 City Planning Commission (New York), 40, 44, 47 Clean Trains Co­ali­tion, 161 climate change, 121–22, 125–26, 132, 138, 147, 158–60, 164 Co­ali­tion for a 21st ­Century Midtown, 47 Coe, Neil, 9, 22, 76, 82 commercial real estate (CRE), 27, 34, 38, 63, 108, 136–37, 216 Commission on Early Learning and Child Care, Toronto, 189 Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, 153 community benefit agreement (CBA), 148, 163–64 Community Boards, 32, 42, 44–49 Community/constituency based organ­izations (CBO), 133–34, 138–42 competitiveness strategies, . . . ​strategy, 23, 211–12, 214 creative class, 15, 62, 75, 77 creative destruction, 33, 34, 51, 54 Cuomo, Andrew, 89 Daily News, New York, 34, 45 de Blasio, Bill, 34, 49–50, 89, 136–37, 185–87, 209, 224n7 Department of City Planning, New York City (DCP), 31, 42, 49 Deutsch, Julius, 154 Directors’ Guild of Amer­i­ca (DGA), 77, 82, 87–88, 91, 96, 107–10 Disney (The Walt Disney Com­pany), 81

245

246 INDEX

early childhood educators (ECEs), 190–93, 196, 200–202, 205 East Midtown, 22, 28, 30, 31–34, 41–50 East Toronto Community Association, 102–4, 110–15, 117, 119, 213 Economic Development Office, Toronto, 158–59 economic regulation, 10–11 Empire State Development, 95 Empire Zones, 87 employment levels, 13, 16, 18, 21, 78, 83, 86, 91, 101, 143, 208 Ferriera, Paul, 154 Fifth Ave­nue Committee, 90 Filmport, 105–7, 115, 117, 119, 212 Film Production Capital, 79 Fiscal Policy Institute, 96 Florida, Richard, 45, 62–63, 75, 112 Ford, John, 91 Ford, Rob, 54, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 70, 72, 221n7 Friends of Leslieville, 109–10, 114 Fry, Ed, 87, 89, 93 full-­day kindergarten (FDK), 193 Fur District, 40 gambling addiction, 58, 64–65 Garcetti, Eric, 89 Garodnick, Dan, 46, 49 gentrification, 104–5, 111–14, 120 gentry, 78, 102, 104, 109, 112–14, 209–10, 212 Glaeser, Edward, 45 Godfrey, Paul, 63–64, 222n12 “Good Jobs, Green Jobs,” conference, Pittsburgh, 158–59 Good Jobs Alliance, 110, 115 Grabelski, Jeff, 99, 129, 212 ­Grand Central Station, 31, 41–43 green economy, 72, 121–22, 126–27, 147, 158, 160, 168 Green Energy and Green Economy Act, Ontario, 122, 160 Green Enterprise Toronto, 159 green jobs, 20, 24, 69, 121–24, 126–27, 138, 141, 143, 147–48, 151, 158–59, 163–65, 217–18 Green Jobs/Green New York (GJ/GNY), 24, 123, 125, 127, 131–36, 140–44 Green Manufacturing Action Team, 160 Green New Deal, 147, 159 Green Work Alliance, 150, 164–65 Harvey, David, 13, 99, 148 high-­road strategy, 11, 14, 22, 28–30, 33, 35, 37, 51, 72–73, 91, 101, 123, 214

High School for Film and Tele­v i­sion, Brooklyn, 96 Historic Districts Council, New York City, 38, 44 Hollander, Russ, 91–92, 95 home-­based child care providers/workers/ workforce, 25, 171–72, 178–81, 183, 185, 188 ­Hotel Association of New York City, 33–38 ­Hotel Employees Action Team (H.E.A.T.), 46 ­Hotel Voice, 48–49 Hudson Square, 38, 40 Hudson Yards, 42–43 Hughes, Dennis, 87 informal child-­care providers, 173, 179–80, 182–83, 187, 224n13 intellectual property rights, 83 International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE), 76–77, 82–83, 85, 87, 89–91, 93, 96, 107–10, 118 International Brotherhood of Carpenters, 82 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), 82 International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), 82, 87, 90, 224n5 International Cinematographers Guild, 82, 85, 87 James, Letitia “Tish,” 90 Jones, Van, 159 Kimmelman, Michael, 45 Kodak Canada, 149–50 Kodak site, lands, 103, 150–65 KPMG, 195, 197, 201–6, 213 Kyoto Protocol, 122, 146, 160, 222n1 labor-­community co­ali­tions, 121–23, 132, 134, 147–48, 150, 154–55, 157, 161, 163–65, 187, 190, 207 ­labor–­community strategies, 215 Laborers’ Eastern Region Organ­izing Fund (LEROF), 131 Laborers International Union of North Amer­i­ca (LIUNA), 24, 66, 123, 125–26, 130–35, 137–41, 144 ­Labour Council (Toronto), 154, 155, 157, 158–60, 162, 212, 217 Lamare, R., 99, 129, 212, 213 Landmark Conservancy and Historic Districts Council, 44–45 land use, 10–11, 15–16, 19, 21–22, 24, 29–30, 34, 39–40, 46, 49–51, 69, 76, 102–3, 105, 108, 111–13, 117, 119, 123, 147–48, 156, 164, 212–13 Lastman, Mel, 105

INDEX 247

Layton, Jack, 109 Layton, Mike, 64, 221n1 Learn-­Play-­Care centers (LPCs), 201–6 Leslieville, 102–5, 109–10, 113–14, 119–20, 212–13, 217 Logan and Molotch, 13, 14, 45 Made in NY Media Employee Training program, 96 Made in NY Scholarship Fund, 96 Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, 44, 47 Mayor’s Task Force on Diversity in Film, Tele­v i­sion and Commercial Production, New York City, 95 McDonald, Adrian, 76, 84, 85 McGuinty, Dalton, 57, 64 MDCA (Mount Dennis Community Association), 152–53, 155, 161 Metrolinx, 163 Metrus, 150, 152–53, 155–56, 161–62 MGM, 60, 66, 69, 71 Milkman, Ruth, 6, 7, 20 Miller, David, 114, 154, 160, 162 Moore, Paul, 94–95 Morrison, Sara, 96 ­Mothers for Child Care (MFCC), 198–99 ­Mothers’ Task Force on Child Care, 198 Motion Picture Association of Amer­i­ca (MPAA), 85, 87, 91, 99 Mount Dennis, 103, 123, 147 Mount Dennis United Church, 155 Mount Dennis Weston Network, 123, 147–53, 158–66 Municipal Art Society (MAS), 44 National Day Laborer Organ­izing Network (NDLON), 130, 139–40, 142 National ­Labor Relations Board (NLRB), 6, 39, 50–51 NBC Universal, 81 neoliberalism, 25–26, 58–59, 105, 112, 119, 124, 158, 170, 185, 188–89, 192, 195, 199, 214 New Demo­cratic Party, Ontario (NDP), 56, 154, 200 New York City Central ­Labor Council, 87, 89, 223n2 New York City College of Technology, 96 New York City Department of City Planning (DCP), 31, 42, 48, 49 New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting (MOFTB), 84, 86, 90, 95 New York ­Hotel Trades Council (HTC), 29, 32–33, 35, 38–39, 46–51

New York Production Alliance (NYPA), 80, 87–88 New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), 133–36, 141–42 New York State Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Tele­v i­sion Development, 84 New York Times, 35, 45 New York Union Child Care Co­ali­tion (NYUCCC), 169, 175, 223n2 NIMBYism, 102, 112–14 No Casino Toronto, 60, 65–66, 68, 71, 222n17. See also anti-­casino Northwest Bronx Community Clergy Co­ali­tion (NBCCC), 132–33, 140–42 Occupy Wall Street, 44 Ontario Co­ali­tion for Better Child Care (OCBCC), 192–93, 197–98, 202–4 Ontario Federation of ­Labour, 204 Ontario Liberal Party, 160 Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), 55, 57–61, 63–64, 69–70 Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), 103–5, 108, 110–17, 119, 164, 213 Ontario Place, 57, 60–62, 69, 221n8 Paramount decision, of the US Supreme Court, 81 Partnership for New York City, 44 Peel, Region of, 189, 192–93, 199–206, 213, 218 Perkins, Bill, 90 PlaNYC, 24, 133, 135, 136, 137, 142, 143 Port Lands, 57, 61, 69, 105–8, 221n11 Priority Neighbourhoods, 150–51, 163 privatization, 2, 25, 57, 63, 179, 185, 191, 193, 196, 198–99, 203, 205–6, 209, 214 pro-­casino, 22, 29, 54–55, 59–60, 63–66, 68–73 proj­ect ­labor agreements (PLAs), 129 public child care, 26, 168–69, 173, 175–76, 189, 192, 196–97, 203, 205–6, 209, 213, 218 racial discrimination, 90, 139, 142, 144 Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), 31, 41–49 Reisman, Sam, 106, 108, 115–16, 119 renewable energy, 121–22, 147, 159–60 rent gaps, 30, 33, 50–52, 69, 72, 213 “RE­SPECT” campaign, 155, 157, 164, 195, 197 Re­spect Toronto, 197 retrofitting, 24, 121, 123, 125–27, 130–39, 141–45, 158, 217

248 INDEX

Revival 629, 117–20 Rexdale, 72, 153–54 right-­to-­work states, 85 Rose Corporation, 106–8, 116 runaway productions, 22, 76–77, 80 S&L Green, 43 Save ­Every Child Care Dollar, 193, 195–97 SCOPE (Strategic Concepts in Organ­izing and Policy Education), 91, 127 Screen Actors Guild–­American Federation of Tele­v i­sion & Radio Artists (SAG-­AFTRA), 82–83, 86, 87, 93 sectoral framework, 17–18 Seeber, Ronald L., 80–81 Ser­v ice Employees International Union (SEIU), 47, 68, 70–71, 133, 137, 172, 174, 222n15, 223n2 Shoreline Studio, 77 Silvercup Studios, 87 SmartCentres, 102–4, 108–11, 113–18, 212 social ­unionism, 4, 16, 68, 173, 189, 207 socio-­ecological fix, 121, 126–27, 138, 143–44, 147, 157, 166, 216–17 Soja, Ed, 28, 51 Sony, 81 special permit, 32–34, 40–41, 46–52 Spinola, Steven, 49 Steiner Studios, 87 Stern, Robert, 45 Stop the Cuts Network, 197 Storper, Michael, 11, 37, 76, 81, 112 Stringer, Scott, 46, 48–49 Studio Mechanics, 82, 87, 96 ­Sullivan, Mike, 153, 155 Tannenwald, Robert, 84 tax incentives, 11, 22, 23, 76–77, 83–91, 94, 96, 99, 100, 105, 116, 209, 211–13 tax subsidies, 79, 80, 83–91 Times Square, 33, 41, 51 Toronto and York Region L ­ abour Council, 68, 72, 154, 221n2 Toronto Central ­Labour Council, 102–3, 110, 115, 154–55, 157–60, 162, 212, 217 Toronto City Council, 72, 199, 205 Toronto Co­ali­tion for Better Child Care (TCBCC), 169, 194–98, 206 Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO), 106–8, 116, 150, 162, 165 Toronto Employment Survey, 149 Toronto Environmental Alliance, 158, 160 Toronto Film Studios (TFS), 102–8, 111, 119–20 Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), 162–63

transferable development rights (TDRs), 43–44, 49 Tribeca North, 38, 40 Tri-­Board Taskforce, 44 UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers Canada), 109, 155 UNIFOR (Merger of Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW) + the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), 24, 32, 40, 68 Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), 40 United Federation of Teachers (UFT), 25, 168–70, 172, 175, 178–83, 185–87, 224n2 United Steelworkers, 122, 126, 150, 153 UNITE ­HERE Merger of Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) + ­Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (­HERE), 21, 22, 55, 66–73, 110, 213, 221n4, 223n2 urban planning, 10, 20, 22–23, 34, 40, 45–47, 51, 208, 211, 213 urban regime, 18, 210, 214 U.S. Department of Commerce, 83 Vaughan, Adam, 64, 222n13 Viacom Inc., 81 Vornado Realty Trust, 43 voucherization, 25, 169, 179–80, 185, 187, 213–14 Wall Street Journal, 45 Walmart, 77, 78, 102, 104, 108–10, 113, 117, 150, 153, 156–57, 213, 216 weatherization, 130–31, 133–34, 136, 138, 140–41, 145, 216–17 Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), 130, 141 Weston Business Improvement Area (BIA), 152–53 Weston Road Employment District, 149 Woodbine Entertainment Group (WEG), 57, 61, 65, 72 Woodbine Raceway, 53, 57, 60–63, 65, 68–69, 72, 222n18 Working Parents for a Working New York (WPWNY), 177–78 work/life balance, 171–72, 174 World Trade Center, 42–43 Wright, Erik Olin, 35 Writers Guild of Amer­i­ca–­West (WGA), 82 Wynne, Kathleen, 64, 222n12 Zeehan Capital Inc, 150