New York City Bar Association panel on CBAs

The New York City Bar Association last night held a panel on CBAs. Audio is available here, and you can read recaps at Atlantic Yards Report and Noticing New York.

The panelists generally agreed that the CBA process in New York would be improved if signatories didn't accept payments from developers and if CBAs included better enforcement provisions. Additionally, they agreed that some CBA provisions, like living wages and local hiring, should be enacted as city-wide policies, and that the city's land use review process should be changed to allow more meaningful public input. Some of these changes just might happen. Al Rodriguez, General Counsel to the Bronx Borough President, said that next week a living wage bill will be introduced in City Council, and there have been murmurs of late that the Charter Revision Commission might deal with land use and community planning (see, for instance, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's Recommendations to the Charter Revision Commission, and recent news that the commission will hold a land use "issue forum").

Cincinnati School Construction CBA

Perhaps taking a cue from the Syracuse Schools Reconstruction Project CBA, the Cincinnati School Board earlier this week approved a set of community benefits goals to be met on school construction projects, including:

• 40% of workers at a given school site should be residents of the school district;
• 40% should be residents of the Cincinnati metropolitan area outside the school district;;
• 20% of labor and trade personnel should be minorities and women; and
• provisions to encourage more apprenticeships for local workers.

Somewhat akin to an RFP, the "CBA" is expected to be signed by the Greater Cincinnati Building Trades Council and other nonunion employers that might work on school construction jobs. Community groups will also be invited to sign on.

The CBA follows revelations earlier this year that the Cincinnati Public Schools had awarded $12 million in contracts to white-owned firms improperly classified as minority contractors.

Trouble with the Columbia CBA

The New York Post reported yesterday that the West Harlem Local Development Corporation--the quasi-private nonprofit set up to negotiate and implement the Columbia expansion CBA--hasn't exactly been keeping up with its responsibilities. Apparently, it has yet to come up with a mission statement, secure tax exempt status, or even set up a phone line. Nor has it created funding guidelines for the $76 million Columbia is supposed to invest into the community over the next 15 years, which means that it hasn't yet been able to disburse any of the $500,000 it's already gotten from the university. The Post makes it sound like the entire CBA is in jeopardy, but that's probably not the case, at least as long as Columbia keeps making its payments. What might jeopardize the CBA, however, is an upcoming court challenge to the state's use of eminent domain on Columbia's behalf.