As the New Rochelle City Council makes plans for the next phase of development, unionized construction workers and their supporters turned out in force to the council meeting Tuesday, March 10, to send a clear message: “We want to get on these jobs,” according to Carpenter Local 279 member Shawn McGhee.

Union construction workers turned out in force at the New Rochelle City Council meeting Tuesday, March 10 to send a clear message, “We want to get on these jobs!”

McGhee was joined by more than 50 carpenters and painters who showed up for what was originally scheduled as a public hearing on proposed amendments to the downtown development plans. The hearing has been rescheduled to April 14. The workers were able to speak during the Citizens to be Heard part of the agenda.

Carpenter Local 279 member Shawn McGhee “We want to get on these jobs!”

When Local 279 member Carlos Barragan asked for a show of hands if anyone present had worked on a project in the downtown since the 2015 rezoning and boom in construction, not a single hand was raised. “I think that’s a very alarming thing,” he told Council Members and the City Administrators present. “We want you to help us out, to put us in the game.”

Local 279 member Carlos Barragan, “Put us in the game.”

“Most of the development downtown is done by low-road contractors who don’t hire local residents, pay poverty wages, and provide no benefits, putting workers and the public at risk,” said Michael Yellin, who was speaking for the New Rochelle Alliance for Justice (NRAJ), an alliance of faith, community, and labor groups organizing for equitable development in New Rochelle. 

Take, for example, developer WBLM’s Stella Phase I and Phase II, Yellin said. “At Stella I a contractor with alleged ties to organized crime is now in prison for ‘Enterprise Corruption’ while another contractor at Stella II is known for committing wage and hour violations. … Without the addition of labor standards in the updated redevelopment plans this race to the bottom will continue.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Yellin continued. “Strengthening the Economic Opportunity and Non-Discrimination Policy to require apprenticeship opportunities for New Rochelle residents would go a long way toward meeting the city’s employment goals.”

The City has a goal of having apprentices work 1,000 hours for every 20,000 hours worked on a project. If these goals were being met, there would be scores of new apprentices working today– New Rochelle residents who would benefit from all that comes with a union career in construction.

Aidan Lilly is one of a handful of residents who benefited from an agreement RXR made with the Westchester Building Trades to hire union contractors for almost half of its workforce at the now completed Clinton Park towers. This opened up apprenticeship opportunities for residents.

“I’m born and raised in New Rochelle,” Lilly told the Council Members, “I was a part of the Pathways to Apprenticeship program which got me into Local 279 as a carpenter. I think the downtown expansion going forward should lean towards union contracts to ensure worksite safety and better quality work and apprenticeships to create careers.”

Aidan Lilly, “Apprenticeships create careers.”

Also present at the Council meeting were members of Enough Is Enough, a community organization urging a pivot to “smart development” in New Rochelle. Speaking for the group, Shaun Wayawotzki said that the four-hour-long February Planning Board meeting was a “referendum” on the city’s development plans. At that meeting, dozens of residents spoke against plans for a 28-story apartment building on the corner of Main Street and Centre Avenue. The Planning Board unanimously approved the plans. 

“In its current form the development plan is deeply unpopular,” he said. “Fundamental changes need to be made. Work with the community to find out what those changes are and make them happen.”

Two days after the City Council meeting, on March 12, the Westchester Labor Alliance was joined by the Westchester Putnam Building Trades at a press conference outside of the police station to call attention to the recent conviction of a New Rochelle contractor who has been convicted of wage theft after failing to pay eight workers more than $31,500 for their labor.

“Wage theft will not be tolerated in Westchester County or in the State of New York,” Gonzalo Cruz of the Labor Alliance said. “Labor exploitation has no place in our communities.”

“Westchester County District Attorney Susan Cacace and her team have given five workers their voices, and hopefully soon their dignity will be restored as well as their rightfully earned wages be made whole,” Edward Cooke of the Westchester Putnam Building Trades Council said. “We applaud her efforts, because wage theft is not a victimless crime, and now it carries real consequences thanks to the Wage Theft Bill” championed by State Senator Shelley Mayer.

Gonzalo Cruz of the Westchester Labor Alliance speaking at a press conference calling attention to wage theft. Alliance members were joined by elected officials, the Westchester Putnam Building Trades and the Hispanic Democrats of Westchester.