In the Press
New York Press
"Retail Barbarian at the Gates: The shadow of the Wal-Mart Juggernaut Touches New York City" By John DeSio Selected Extracts:
Westchester consumers were handed a brand new shopping experience last week. Wal-Mart, the much maligned retailer that has stood at the center of a storm of controversy for many months now, cut the ribbon on a new store in downtown White Plains.
As far as urban areas go, White Plains is not Wal-Mart’s first choice. The company is dying to bring its retail presence to New York City. Already, the store reports over $90 million a year in sales just from City residents at their store in Valley Stream, Long Island, a number likely higher since cash purchases cannot be easily tracked. Though surveys and spending indicate that City shoppers cannot wait for a Wal-Mart, the company is being blocked from finally entering the largest shopping market in the world.
The anti-Wal-Mart fight is being lead by the State chapter of the Working Families Party (WFP). The liberal group has put together a bill, called the “Fair Share for Health Care” Act that would force companies like Wal-Mart and other large retail employers to spend a certain percentage of their profits providing private health insurance to their employees. The bill failed to pass in the state Senate this year, but party officials are hopeful that next year, under potential Governor Eliot Spitzer, things could change.
But the courts may have decided the bill’s fate already. Last week a federal judge struck down Maryland’s version of the bill, which required that companies with more than 10,000 workers spend at least 8 percent of their payroll for employee health care or make up the difference in an equivalent payment to the state was found to violate laws requiring equal treatment to all employers. Maryland activists called the decision a “minor setback,” and local activists here said the New York bill might not be affected at all.
“The judge was careful to say that his opinion did not address the question of whether employer responsibility in the context of a comprehensive health care reform scheme would be pre-empted. In fact, he suggests such an approach would be permissible,” said Alex Navarro, a spokesperson for the WFP.”
For now, most City elected officials are doing all they can to keep Wal-Mart out of the five boroughs. Until things change, you’ll have to head out of town to take advantage of the store’s low prices.
The Ithaca Journal
"Health Care Bill Gains a Near Victory" By Anne Ju July 17, 2006 Selected Extracts:
ITHACA — At its June 20 meeting, the Tompkins County Legislature voted 12-2 to endorse the “Fair Share for Health Care” bills that had been traveling through the New York State Senate and Assembly. The law, if passed, would have forced large employers to either pay for employees' health insurance, or pay equivalently into a state health fund.
While the bills in question did not pass, the state Legislature did pass something known as the “Fair Share Disclosure” law.
One of the provisions of the new law, according to the state Assembly Web site, would require large employers to self-disclose health care coverage practices for their employees, and to report to the state how many of their employees receive public health care assistance.
“This legislation does nothing to prevent an individual from applying for public health care assistance,” a summary on the Assembly Web site reads. “Rather it is meant as a form of data mining in that the information we will be receiving as a result will help identify employers that are not offering adequate health care to their workers and instead directing them toward state-run programs.”
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
"Businesses Getting Tax Breaks Must be Accountable" By Barbara Orsino Guest Essayist June 26, 2006 Selected Extracts:
Industrial development agencies initially were developed to bring back businesses to depressed areas in hopes of creating good jobs. IDAs use tax breaks to lure businesses or keep them here. New York has 115 IDAs throughout the state, but the system is not working.
A recent Metro Justice report on our local IDA (County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency) shows that town governments lost $1.7 million to COMIDA projects during 2002-2004 and that Monroe County gave up $3.6 million in revenue. School districts in Monroe County were the biggest losers, sacrificing more than $13 million in revenue.
Town and school boards have no say in this process; the IDAs don't have to consult them before giving away their tax revenue. With homeowners paying more in property taxes to make up the difference (we already pay the nation's highest state and local taxes) and with school districts laying off teachers, we have to ask what we are getting for these tax breaks.
There are other problems with the IDA system. COMIDA has [also] subsidized local restaurants, collision shops, dentist offices, CPAs and spas. Other small-business owners are upset that the county is helping their competition steal customers. Moreover, the businesses that are given tax breaks don't have to pay a decent wage. IDAs have subsidized Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Cintas, an industrial laundry paying $8.50 an hour. Nor do IDAs around the state have to hire local workers at prevailing wages for IDA-subsidized construction. Why would we use our tax dollars to pay construction workers from outside the area while local workers are unemployed?
If the businesses aren't creating the promised jobs, then towns and school districts need to be able to recoup their tax revenue. According to George Maziarz, a Republican state senator who is sponsoring an IDA reform bill: "Companies should not continue to get tax breaks if they don't live up to their end of the bargain. If hard-working New Yorkers don't do their job well, they get fired. Companies that get tax breaks should not be rewarded for failing to meet their commitments."
Opponents of IDA reform say that increasing accountability will impose "too many requirements and slow the process." Apparently they want to continue the current quick and dirty process that gives away taxpayer dollars with zero accountability.
During these challenging times, we need to make sure our elected officials are encouraging the creation of good jobs. It is time to reform the IDA system.
Newsday
"Trouble with Tax Breaks; Exemptions for LI companies designed to spur job growth don't always pay off, critics say" By Lauren Weber June 20, 2006 Selected Extracts:
ALBANY - Before Swezey's went out of business in 2003, the storied Long Island retailer cut the equivalent of more than 250 full-time jobs. But it held on to economic-development tax breaks of $134,515 from the Town of Brookhaven.
A year later, nearly 20 Long Island companies took similar tax exemptions, totaling around $2 million, from municipalities, but still shaved hundreds of jobs.
These corporate incentives are perfectly legal, but they've raised the ire of some politicians and advocacy groups who question whether they should be granted at a time when property taxes are soaring.
Critics are not opposed to the strategy behind state-sponsored industrial development agencies, called IDAs, which were created in 1969 to foster business expansion and create jobs along the way. But for every such project that meets its job targets - estimates that the company submits when it applies for benefits - there's another one that created jobs but didn't meet its initial target, and another one that actually lost jobs, according to an audit released last month by State Comptroller Alan Hevesi.
"The system we have right now rewards failure," said Assemb. Robert Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst), sponsor of a bill to increase oversight and accountability of the incentives. "If a business that benefits from IDA assistance promises the world but produces nothing, what's the penalty? Usually there is none. And that's wrong."
An analysis of the 450 IDA-assisted projects on the Island in 2004 reveals that many companies have not yet met their job-creation targets, and some have lost jobs. Many offered spotty or inaccurate data, making it impossible to determine if they've held up their end of the bargain.
In some cases, the missed targets refer to buildings that hadn't yet been completed and so hadn't been filled with the promised new employees (IDA projects generally have 10 years to comply with the agreements). Other companies were affected by large-scale economic or political events beyond their control, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Sweeney's bill - and the Senate's companion bill - is the "clawback" measure, which requires companies to repay all or some benefits if they miss their goals.
Many IDAs include clawback clauses in their contracts. But a survey of Long Island's IDAs found only two instances in which the provision was used, including one when Nassau County's IDA recaptured money from Tweezerman in Port Washington in 2005 after the company was acquired by German knife-maker Henckels.
"What we're saying is, if grants of public money are being made in the name of job creation and retention, there should be obligations on the side of both parties," said Frank Mauro, head of the government watchdog group Latham-based Fiscal Policy Institute.
IDA officials argue that the economy is unpredictable and that punishing companies for factors beyond their control is unfair. Terror attacks or soaring oil prices can suddenly upend an industry. Initial job estimates can't be set in stone in a fast-changing economy, they say.
For instance, Lufthansa, the German airline whose U.S. headquarters is in East Meadow, was the largest project to lose jobs. When its IDA agreement was signed in the 1990s, it projected it would retain 468 jobs and add 100, in exchange for $958,783 in 2004 tax exemptions. But by the end of 2004, it had only 340 employees.
A spokesman said Lufthansa's local employment peaked at more than 600 before 9/11 and fell after the terrorist attacks crippled the airline industry.
But Greg LeRoy, director of Washington-based Good Jobs First and a critic of IDAs, says not every instance of failure can be explained by an event as compelling as 9/11.
"I think you need to have something quite stringent about unforeseen events, like acts of war or acts of terrorism," he said. "At some point you've got to say, 'We're sorry it didn't work out, but we've got better things to do with the money.'"
In his IDA audit, Hevesi said tax breaks aren't free; they are sums that would otherwise go to local school districts and governments. Indeed, it is usually school districts that give up the most potential revenue. Yet, school officials often have no say in the disbursement of IDA benefits. That would change under Sweeney's bill.
"My view is that ultimately the schools are not operating in a vacuum," said Howard Fensterman, chairman of the Nassau IDA. "We're looking at the best interests of the county in total."
The catch in all this is the difficulty of gauging companies' intentions. Corporations have become adept at tracking the available subsidies, often hiring high-priced site-location consultants who play municipalities against one another to gain as many incentives as they can.
Ultimately, IDAs have little choice but to take companies at their word when they threaten to decamp. But in many instances the companies have long since made their decisions - often based on factors other than financial incentives, such as quality of life or historical roots - and are simply jockeying for extra benefits, said LeRoy, from Good Jobs First.
"At the end of the day, the corporate decision-making process is a black box," he said.
"So all the local officials know is that someone knocks on the door and says, 'I might have a bunch of jobs for you, what have you got for us?'"
Times Union
"The IDA Scorecard; An audit by the state comptroller shows the need for more transparency and accountability" Editorial June 12, 2006 Selected Extracts:
IDAs have proliferated and now exist in almost every county in the state, including not only struggling ones, but also bustling suburban counties on Long Island. And instead of competing against the South, IDAs have often wound up competing against one another, as an agency in one county offers tax incentives to lure jobs away from a neighboring community.
Now comes an audit from state Comptroller Alan Hevesi that casts further doubt on the job-creation claims made by IDA enthusiasts. The audit found that only a third of the projects supported by six IDAs throughout the state -- including upstate and Long Island -- met their job creation goals, and not one of the agencies attempted to recoup benefits from projects that failed to meet their targets.
Mr. Hevesi proposes a series of worthy reforms, including more disclosure from each of the 115 IDAs throughout the state on how many jobs they have created, the tax breaks they have provided to companies and the amount of payments in lieu of taxes those projects have generated. He also proposes a requirement that agencies take back benefits given to projects that fail to achieve job creation and other goals.
Mr. Hevesi remains convinced that IDAs, which are in effect local authorities with semi-autonomous powers, are "a vital and important part of local government efforts to support economic development and job creation."
Mr. Hevesi's proposed reforms, which he has included with draft legislation, would go a long way toward lifting that veil of secrecy.
The Post-Standard
"Legislature has chance to fix IDA Inepteness" By Joe Rossi Syracuse, NY June 6,2006 Selected Extracts:
Industrial Development Agencies should be helping to kick-start the Upstate economy. Instead, many of them give tax breaks to companies that turn around and cut jobs. IDAs give businesses property and sales tax breaks in order to spur job growth. They also issue low-interest bonds, called Industrial Development Revenue Bonds, which give companies access to the money needed to finance construction of new developments.
This help that IDAs give is not free. Every dollar of taxes that goes unpaid because a business gets IDA assistance is a dollar of taxes that has to be paid by other businesses and homeowners. Because of this, taxpayers deserve to be confident that IDA projects are creating jobs that pay decent wages for area residents.
When IDA projects do create jobs, often there are no standards for the types of jobs that are created. So, we get IDAs helping to build Wal-Mart stores, like the one in Utica, where employees make so little that they are eligible for taxpayer-funded health care.
That means we're subsidizing these companies twice - once by giving them tax breaks and the second time by paying for their employees' health care.
Several senators and Assembly members, led by Sen. George Maziarz in the Senate and Assemblyman Robert Sweeney in the Assembly, have decided to take a stand and call for a change to business as usual. They have proposed legislation that would fix these problems.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
"Jobs and tax relief; IDAs must ensure businesses meet their job-growth pledges" May 22, 2006 Selected Extracts:
Government must do more to keep good-paying jobs upstate. Tax relief has to be in the mix of solutions.
According to separate audits and analyses by Metro Justice and state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, IDAs, including the County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency, aren't watching the store closely enough. Statewide, only about one-third of the businesses given tax relief met their job-creation goals. It's important that IDAs with greater regularity rescind the tax deals of businesses that skip out on their obligations.
What's needed is broader community representation in COMIDA. Representatives of local governments and public school systems should have a direct voting say in the granting of tax relief. According to Metro Justice, between 2002 and 2004 local school districts lost more than $13 million in revenue related to tax-relief deals.
Schools do have input with COMIDA. But their role should be stronger, commensurate with the potential impact of abatement agreements on their budgets. That COMIDA deals are even relevant to schools came as something of shock to Greece school board candidates interviewed recently. That's a sign of how weak the relationship is.
COMIDA and other IDAs must do more to close the gap between tax relief granted and jobs promised. And they should open their governing bodies to the wider, property-tax-paying community.
Buffalo News
"Amherst IDA takes fire from all sides" By David Robinson May 21, 2006 Selected Extracts:
James J. Allen had a really bad week.
Allen, the executive director of the Amherst Industrial Development Agency, already was a marked man when it started, since County Executive Joel Giambra wants to merge all the suburban IDAs with the Erie County Industrial Development Agency.
But it all went down hill from there, beginning on Monday, when the Amherst Town Board voted to seek state approval to create its own urban development agency, which supporters say will encourage redevelopment within the town but Allen worries is a back-door effort to supplant the Amherst IDA.
Then, the next day, state Comptroller Alan Hevesi issued his long-awaited report on the state IDAs, criticizing the Amherst agency because only one of 10 projects it subsidized in 2000 and 2001 met its employment goals, and urging the agency to adopt provisions to "clawback" tax breaks from firms that don't meet their job targets.
To critics... IDAs are a costly economic development tool that dole out about $400 million a year in tax breaks statewide, yet deliver the jobs they promise only about a third of the time, according to the Hevesi audit.
Finger Lakes Times
"2004 IDA snapshot dismal" By Craig Fox May 18, 2006 Selected Extracts:
CANANDAIGUA — An audit by the state Comptroller’s Office found that the Ontario County Industrial Development Agency didn’t meet its goal of creating 542 jobs in 2004. In fact, it lost 73.
Earlier this week, state Comptroller Alan Hevesi released an audit report dealing with six IDAs across the state.
Overall, the auditors looked at 96 single-unit projects at the six IDAs and found that only one-third of them met or exceeded their goals. Thirty-three percent had a reduction of jobs.
In a press release, Hevesi acknowledged IDAs’ importance to economic development efforts but noted that the tax breaks companies is real money, and to make “these programs as effective as possible, we need to know what is and is not working and look at how we can make improvements.”
Hevesi’s report said that IDAs should do more to track how well companies are fairing with job creation, because relying on the company’s data isn’t enough.
Hevesi has recommended improvements in monitoring whether companies meet their job goals.
Buffalo News
"Consolidate IDAs statewide, Giambra urges" By Harold McNeil May 18, 2006 Selected Extracts:
Not only should Erie County's six industrial development agencies be consolidated, according to County Executive Joel A. Giambra, but statewide they ought to be better regulated to keep them from cannibalizing each other and ripping off taxpayers.
Giambra addressed his concerns Wednesday in a joint hearing on IDAs with members of the County Legislature's Economic Development Committee.
"We have too many IDAs giving away too many tax breaks for too few jobs being created," Giambra said Wednesday in a prepared statement. "One IDA, properly constituted, is all we need."
Exactly how to reconstitute these supposed engines of economic development was the hot topic during Wednesday's hearing. It came on the heels of a statewide audit of industrial development agencies by the state comptroller's office, which found that, statewide, IDAs dispensed nearly $400 million a year in tax breaks to businesses while delivering on promised new jobs only about a third of the time.
Giambra's call for the State Legislature to take the lead in reforming the rules under which industrial development agencies are governed was backed by Sam Williams, director of the Community Action Program for Region 9 of the United Auto Workers, who also spoke at Wednesday's hearing.
Williams said a broad coalition of statewide community and labor groups supports reform so there is more accountability on economic development programs in the state.
He said the initiative encompasses eight reforms, including broader oversight and coordination of IDAs, requiring impact reports for assessing how projects will affect communities and requiring enforceable "claw-back" penalties, allowing municipalities to cancel or reduce tax breaks for companies that fail to meet their contractual job-creation obligations.
Buffalo News
"Hevesi calls for reforming IDAs; Industrial development agencies aren't making the grade, a report by the state comptroller says" By James Heaney May 17, 2006 Selected Extracts:
One of New York's costliest economic development programs, which doles out almost $400 million a year in tax breaks to businesses, delivers jobs as promised only one-third of the time, an audit by the state comptroller has found. Another third of the time, the businesses actually shed jobs, but were rarely, if ever, penalized.
The audit by state Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi faulted IDAs for failing to adequately evaluate projects before extending benefits, track their progress or hold companies accountable when they fail to reach their goals. Hevesi called for a series of reforms to address those problems.
"Giving companies tax breaks is giving away real money," Hevesi said. "We need to know what is and what is not working, and look at how we can make improvements."
A companion report issued by the comptroller detailed the huge cost of the program, which resulted in a net loss to the public treasury of $388 million statewide in 2004. In Erie and Niagara counties, the loss totaled $40.3 million, primarily in local property taxes.
A majority of projects failed to meet their job goals at each of the six IDAs studied. Erie County's IDA had the best track record, with 45 percent meeting their goals.
Likewise, there is insufficient follow-up to determine whether the projects are delivering as promised. Although state law requires companies to report job and other information, most IDAs have incomplete records and rarely attempt to verify or analyze the data.
The Post-Standard
"Audit: IDA grants not tied to job creation; Hevesi audit criticizes tax break follow up " By Michelle Breidenbach and Erik Kriss May 17, 2006 Selected Extracts:
Local industrial development agencies are giving tax breaks to businesses that, more often than not, lose jobs or do not create as many as they hoped, according to a state audit of agencies in six counties.
And in Onondaga County and elsewhere, those government agencies do not try to recapture benefits from those companies, Comptroller Alan Hevesi said in an audit released Tuesday.
Jobs With Justice, relying on information from Hevesi's office, cited Cortland's BMC Industries and Oneida Ltd. as companies that got local IDA benefits in 2004, then cut jobs.
In both those cases, the businesses went bust.
The Empire Page
"IDAs Should Kick Start the Upstate Economy" By Joe Rossi, Political Director, SEIU Local 200United Guest Editorial May 17, 2006
Selected extracts:
Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs) should be helping to kick start the Upstate economy. Instead, many of them give tax breaks to companies that turn around and cut jobs.
This help that IDAs give is not free. Every dollar of taxes that goes unpaid because a business gets IDA assistance is a dollar of taxes that has to be paid by other businesses and homeowners. Because of this, taxpayers deserve to be confident that IDA projects are creating jobs that pay decent wages for people who live in the area. Otherwise, we’re just wasting precious resources.
And it’s clear that many projects that our IDAs help are not creating jobs. The State Comptroller, Alan Hevesi, released a report on May 16 that showed that one-third of IDA projects did not meet their job creation commitments and another third of the projects actually lost jobs! According to the report, the Onondaga County IDA was 546 jobs short of its goal. As we all know, given our economic condition, Upstate New York can’t afford to be paying for job creation programs that don’t work.
When companies don’t create the jobs they say they are going to create, taxpayers should get their money back.
When IDA projects do create jobs, often there are no standards for the types of jobs that are created. So, we get IDAs helping to build Wal-Mart stores, like the one in Utica, where employees make so little that they are eligible for taxpayer-funded healthcare. That means that we’re subsidizing these companies twice – once by giving them tax breaks and the second time by paying for their employees’ health care. That doesn’t help our local economy.
Several brave Senators and Assembly Members, led by Senator Maziarz in the Senate and Assembly Member Sweeney in the Assembly, have decided to take a stand and call for a change to business as usual. They have proposed legislation (S. 7391/A. 10787) that would fix these problems.
Buffalo Business First
"Hevesi wants changes to IDA policies" May 16, 2006
Selected extracts:
With job-creation goals being met only a third of the time in projects supported by industrial development agencies, Comptroller Alan Hevesi is calling for more accountability.
The report is based on audits of six of the 115 statewide IDAs: Town of Amherst, and the counties of Erie, Onondaga, Ontario, Suffolk and Tompkins. In all, auditors examined 96 projects supported by the half-dozen IDAs of which 33 percent, or 32 projects, met or exceeded goals; 33 percent failed to meet job-creation targets but did show some increases or at least had no change in employment; and 33 percent saw a reduction in jobs.
Hevesi has proposed legislation that would improve the operations of IDAs throughout the state. They include provisions requiring IDAs to seek to reclaim benefits when job targets are missed, standardized "report cards" on how IDAs performed and standardized applications for benefits from IDAs everywhere in the state.
"Giving companies tax breaks is giving away real money, and some of these companies are creating jobs and generating economic activity," Hevesi said in a statement. "In order to make these programs as effective as possible, we need to know what is and is not working and look at how we can make improvements."
Star Gazette
"Why would big business get tax breaks?" Letters to the Editor By Margaret Costello, President, Chemung/Schuyler Labor Assembly May 15, 2006
Selected extracts:
On April 28, I attended the Chemung County Industrial Development Agency meeting. Along with other concerned citizens, I was stunned to find, once again, the type of abuse that the IDA reform movement addresses. The IDA has approved a $2.5 million bond that will be afforded to Diversified Development Realtors.
To continue on with the no-cost-to- the taxpayer idea, let's look at the jobs that this will produce. The majority of businesses that will be leasing this property will be retail and restaurants. Many of these jobs will be paying minimum or near minimum wages with little or no health care or other benefits. Many of the people who work these jobs may require the use of food stamps, fuel assistance and rental assistance. These are benefits paid by taxpayers.
There is legislation in the New York State Legislature to address reform of the IDAs across the state focusing precisely on these issues. Although I realize the need for basic business infrastructure to draw people and businesses into an area, how many low-paying jobs and service-related businesses getting high priority and our tax money can this area sustain before we go bust?
Metro New York
"City gave breaks to firms that cut workers" By Patrick Arden May 10, 2006
Selected extracts:
Forty-one percent of the companies that got tax breaks from the city in 2004 have cut their work forces, according to a study released yesterday in Albany by New York Jobs With Justice.
A coalition of labor, community and government-watchdog groups support new legislation aimed at reforming the rules overseeing county and municipal Industrial Development Agencies, which provide public assistance to businesses.
“IDAs are an important tool for economic development,” explained Michael Rabinowitz, of New York Jobs With Justice. “But not only are many companies not honoring their commitments — they’re actually cutting jobs. This happens because IDAs lack transparency and accountability.”
While the state comptroller is supposed to receive data from all IDAs regarding tax exemptions and job creation and retention goals, “the majority of IDAs were missing a portion of information,” Rabinowitz said. “Many say they’re unable to get the information from the companies. If you’re giving someone a tax break, or helping with low-interest bonds, then you should be able to get this information.”
The city’s IDA is one of the few to provide wage data. Of the jobs created by its assisted projects in 2005, 39 percent paid less than $25,000 a year.
“At that wage level, a family of four is eligible for state-subsidized health care, so we’re subsidizing those jobs through additional means as well,” Rabinowitz said.
MSNBC
"Bill would impose 'living wage' stipulation on IDA recipients" By Joel Stashenko The Business Review (Albany) April 30, 2006
Selected extracts:
Companies receiving incentives from industrial development agencies would have to pay workers a "living wage" under a bill filed in the state Legislature this week.
The legislation [A10787/S7391] defines a "living wage" as one exceeding 185 percent of the federal poverty level for a family of three. Currently, that would result in a mandated minimum pay of $30,710 a year per worker, or just under $15 an hour.
The Maziarz-Sweeney bill was immediately embraced by labor, including the Service Employees International Union and the United Auto Workers.
"If companies don't create the jobs they promise, taxpayers should get their money back," said Ed Donnelly, legislative director in Albany for the state AFL-CIO. "When hard-working New Yorkers don't do their job well, they get fired. Why should companies that get tax breaks be rewarded for failing to meet their commitments?"
Another group behind the bill is New York Jobs with Justice, a union-backed organization that is also supporting a series of bills in the state Legislature to require larger employers in New York to provide workers with health insurance.
Westchester Journal News
"Bill would tighten up IDA rules" By Jay Gallagher April 25, 2006
Selected extracts:
Local agencies that dole out millions in tax breaks to private companies that create jobs often waste taxpayer money and need to be reined in, lawmakers said yesterday.
Republican Sen. George Maziarz and Democratic Assemblyman Robert Sweeney are pushing a bill to increase oversight of and limit the power of industrial development agencies (IDAs).
The 116 IDAs in the state, run by counties, cities, towns and villages, offer property-tax breaks, sales-tax exemptions on construction materials and tax-free financing to businesses.
The Post-Standard
"Law would tighten rules for agencies; Sponsors say IDAs give big tax breaks to companies, should be more accountable." By Erik Kriss April 25, 2006
Selected extracts:
Industrial development agencies, which offer big tax breaks to selected companies, would operate under stricter rules under a new bill.
The bill's sponsors said IDAs need to be more accountable to the public and shouldn't help enrich profitable corporations that pay wages so low their employees need public assistance.
Representatives of environmental, labor and community groups joined the sponsors Senate Labor Committee Chairman George Maziarz, R-Niagara, and Assemblyman Robert Sweeney, D-Lindenhurst Monday to unveil the proposal.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
"Maziarz calls for stricter oversight of IDA projects" By Jay Gallagher April 25, 2006
Selected extracts:
Local agencies that dole out millions in tax breaks to private companies that create jobs often waste taxpayer money and need to be reined in, lawmakers said Monday.
Republican Sen. George Maziarz and Democratic Assemblyman Robert Sweeney of Suffolk County are pushing a bill to increase oversight of and limit the power of industrial development agencies.
Democrats have promoted similar bills for years but this is the first time in memory a member of the Senate Republican majority, often more sympathetic to business interests than the Democrat-run Assembly, has put his name on the bill.
"IDAs in many instances do good things," said Maziarz, North Tonawanda, Niagara County. "There have also been a number of abuses."
Metro New York
"Bill ties benefits, jobs to subsidies; If businesses don’t deliver on promises, they would have to repay tax breaks" By Patrick Arden April 24, 2006
Selected extracts:
Each year IDAs hand out $400 million in tax breaks alone. They also issue bonds that allow companies to borrow money at a low rate of interest. The new legislation is aimed at providing the public with a return on these investments, said Robert K. Sweeney, D-Lindenhurst, chair of the assembly’s Local Government Committee.
“If there are commitments being made that companies will establish a certain number of jobs, and it’s subsequently determined that they haven’t complied with that, then the companies could lose — and have to, in fact, repay — any of the tax incentives and low-interest loans received,” Sweeney said.
Under IDA reform, businesses getting government subsidies would have to meet certain standards. Construction jobs would have to pay prevailing wages, for instance, while permanent employees would have to earn at least 185 percent of the poverty level for a family of three. Local hiring would also be mandated. Many of these provisions are now being negotiated separately under so-called Community Benefit Agreements.
“We’d like to take the question of jobs, benefits and local hiring off the table from the beginning — if agencies are going to give out public subsidies, then these kinds of conditions should be attached to those subsides right off the bat,” said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of New York Jobs With Justice.
Business Review
"Legislation would withdraw tax breaks if job goals not met" April 24, 2006
Selected extracts:
Local industrial development agencies around the state would be required to recapture a portion of public funding used for economic development if companies don't reach job development goals, under legislation introduced in the New York state Legislature Monday.
While some IDAs do have so-called "claw back" provisions with the companies they give benefits to, many do not.
The bill is being sponsored in the state Senate by Labor Committee Chairman George Maziarz (R-Niagara Falls) and in the Assembly by Local Government Committee Chairman Robert Sweeney (D-Long Island).
WXXI – AM 1370
"Local Group Calls for IDA Reform " By Alex Crichton April 24, 2006
Selected extracts:
ROCHESTER, NY Some local activists and business owners say it's time to reform Industrial Management Agencies, or I-D-A's.
The local agency, COMIDA, has promised jobs through tax incentives, but the group Metro Justice says they've done research that indicates the opposite.
The group says while businesses are getting tax exemptions...school districts, counties and towns are not getting those tax revenues or getting reimbursed.
The group supports legislation from Senator George Maziarz which would force companies to deliver the jobs they promised, or face penalties.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
"Watchdog group says job pledges unfulfilled; Some projects get county tax breaks, don't add required posts" By Nishad Majmudar April 21, 2006
Selected extracts:
An economic development watchdog organization plans to release a report today contending that Monroe County's tax incentive programs don't deliver on their promise to produce new jobs.
Metro Justice, a grass-roots group that has frequently criticized the County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency, said a study by the Fiscal Policy Institute in Albany found that 63 percent of projects that received COMIDA benefits from 2002 to 2004 did not add the number of jobs required by the county.
"The whole thing is framed by a lack of accountability," said Jon Greenbaum, an organizer with Metro Justice. "(COMIDA gives) away incentives without any requirements of government entities."
The full report will be presented at a news conference this morning by Metro Justice and public officials. Greenbaum said the broad goal of the report is to support state legislation that would reform the framework for industrial development agencies.
Buffalo News
"Legislation contains a 'claw back' provision to recover firms' tax breaks" By Michelle Kearns April 18, 2006
Selected extracts:
A group of legislators and advocates gathered to rally support and announce proposed legislation that would penalize businesses that don't keep the promises they make to get tax deals.
"This legislation would require that businesses live up to their end of the bargain," said State Sen. George Maziarz, R-North Tonawanda, as he stood outside with others at the Williams Street post office Monday.
The bill, as described on Monday, would require that companies create all the jobs they promise, and pay more than minimum wage standards for building construction. It would also create a "claw back" mechanism whereby companies would forfeit some tax breaks if they fail to meet their job commitments.
Buffalo Democrats Assemblyman Sam Hoyt and Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples spoke in favor of the legislation.
"We need to stop talking about these things and get something done," Peoples said.
The Westchester Journal News
"Yonkers development should include living wages, union work, coalition says" By Hannan Adely April 18, 2006
Selected extracts:
Companies that receive tax breaks from industrial development agencies should be required to pay living wages and should give preference to local union workers, a group of nonprofit organizations and local politicians say.
The nonprofit leaders, who came together outside the downtown Yonkers post office yesterday, called for the state Senate and Assembly to pass reforms to make sure that IDAs, economic groups that work to spur development, run more responsibly and more openly.
The event was organized by the New York State Initiative for Development Accountability, a coalition of groups that is pushing for IDA reform on a state-wide level, including better wages and more openness of IDA operations.
Representatives of the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, New York Jobs with Justice, and the Hunger Action Network of New York State also attended the press conference, along with Yonkers City Council President Chuck Lesnick.
The Westchester Journal News
"Rally to focus on jobs, taxes" April 15, 2006
Selected extracts:
It's a grievance among many taxpayers, particularly those in organized labor. A business project, lured to the region with tax breaks, turns around and hires workers from out of town at wages below the local norm.
On Monday a group of labor and citizens' groups will rally at noon at the Downtown Yonkers Post Office in support of proposed state legislation that would more closely link jobs and tax benefits. The targets of the legislation are industrial development agencies, which are empowered by the state to provide reductions in sales and mortgage taxes and other inducements to businesses for projects that are seen as strengthening local economies.
The objective is to get companies that benefit financially from IDA inducements to keep those benefits in the communities that are shouldering the tax breaks, said Michael Rabinowitz of New York Jobs with Justice, one of the sponsors of Monday's rally.
Buffalo News
"IDAs need to be accountable to communities" Buffalo News Opinion By Sen. George Maziarz April 3, 2006
Selected extracts:
Industrial development agencies are an important tool in our job creation toolbox.
However, waste in any area of government - whether it's in IDAs, in the Medicaid system or in state departments and authorities - should be eliminated so that taxpayer dollars aren't squandered.
Upstate New York needs job development programs that work. When we give tax breaks, or other subsidies, we should make sure our communities are benefiting from them.
Companies should not be getting tax breaks to create jobs that pay so little that the people who get the jobs are eligible for public programs like Medicaid or food stamps.
Companies should not be getting tax breaks and then using fly-by-night contractors from other states to do the construction. We have plenty of hardworking men and women around here who should be getting the construction jobs.
And companies should not continue to get tax breaks if they don't live up to their end of the bargain. If hardworking New Yorkers don't do their job well, they get fired. Companies that get tax breaks should not be rewarded for failing to meet their commitments.
Buffalo News
"Audit right; improve IDAs; Use findings to plan for and agree on forming one countywide agency" Buffalo News Editorials March 26, 2006
Selected extracts:
The Amherst Industrial Development Agency, which the Town Board should vote to merge with Erie County's, in 2000 and 2001 approved eight projects that failed to provide a promised 1,529 jobs. But the agency nonetheless allowed the deal breakers, without the job growth, to receive promised benefits.
That's just one finding of an upcoming state comptroller's audit of six IDAs statewide, including Erie County's and Amherst's.
Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi's auditors found predictable confusion and some ineffectiveness, and in all likelihood Hevesi will seek overdue remedies by trying to update laws governing all IDAs, several of which expire this year.
One fix could be rescinding ongoing annual tax breaks to companies - deals typically last 10 to 15 years - that fail to produce promised jobs. Another might be to seek payment of forgiven taxes by firms that didn't meet job or investment promises.
These are collectively known as clawback agreements, and since other IDAs around the state include them in their contracts, IDAs should here too. They gain the right to go after and take back benefits granted to companies that fail to hold up their end of the bargain.
Unless there is one countywide IDA, whose board members think about what's best for all county taxpayers, developers will continue to enjoy benefits they don't earn with full investment and promised jobs. Hevesi's audit provides long-needed, outside, objective performance review of Erie County's two major IDAs.
AM New York
"Valuing city workers" By Adrianne Shropshire March 23, 2006
Selected extracts:
...The transit strike and subsequent drama foreshadow a growing conflict between our government and its workers playing out in cities across the country, forcing a conversation about whether we wish to preserve the middle class or dismantle it one rung at a time.
As in other cities, Mayor Bloomberg criticized "costs" the city could not maintain. Someone must p.ay the price for these skyrocketing "costs," he held.
The culprit of choice turned out to be workers and the unions that represent them.
Unfortunately, this blame game is not unique to New York City. From the mayor of Philadelphia to the hip-hop mayor of Detroit, there's talk of tough negotiations with municipal unions.
In every case, it is simply accepted that workers are the problem. There is no suggestion that, perhaps, in order to maintain middle-class jobs we might consider using a city's sizeable economic clout to negotiate with the insurance providers to lower their obscene costs, or eliminate the middleman altogether and adopt a city or county-level single-payer policy for health care.
No matter what city you live in, the question is one of choices. Do we as a society value maintaining jobs that allow families to move into the middle class? In too many cases, the private sector has answered that question with a resounding no. The public sector, however, belongs to the people and must act as the standard bearer.
Our government must reflect our values around these questions and encourage (with a carrot or a stick) the private sector to meet those same standards.
Hopefully, our choices will be guided by the central values that make up our democratic society: fairness, equality and opportunity.
Newsday
"Hillary Clinton feels political heat over her ties to Wal-Mart" By Beth Fouhy March 10, 2006
Selected extracts:
The Wal-Mart debate has been playing out in Legislatures and city councils around the country in the last year, even hitting close to Clinton's adopted home.
In Albany, legislators of both parties are promoting bills requiring businesses including Wal-Mart to provide health coverage to their workers. And in October, New York City passed a law, aimed squarely at Wal-Mart, requiring large grocery stores to pay most workers a health care benefit worth an estimated $2.50 to $3 an hour. The law helped stall Wal-Mart's efforts to move into the city, even though recent polls indicate a majority of New Yorkers would welcome Wal-Mart.
NY Sun
"Council To Override Bloomberg Veto On Wal-Mart" By Russel Berman March 1, 2006
Selected extracts:
The City Council is set to override a mayoral veto on an amended measure to force large grocery stores to dig deeper into their pockets for employee health benefits.
Aimed at stores like Wal-Mart, the Health Care Security Act requires employers of large grocers to match the average rate of health coverage contributions that other grocers pay in the city, which could mean an expenditure of $2.50 to $3 an hour for each employee.
Read the full article online.
NY 1
"City Council Overrides Veto Of Health Care Security Act" By Michael Scotto March 1, 2006
Selected extracts:
Over the objections of Mayor Bloomberg, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn overrode his veto of several amendments to the Health Care Security Act.
“We believe it's an important bill because it will help provide important coverage to thousands of working New Yorkers,” Quinn said Wednesday.
The council's override - the first led by Quinn - was not a surprise. Last year, the council enacted the Health Care Security Act over the mayor's veto.
Gotham Gazette
"Redefining Economic Development" By Mark Winston Griffith February 2006
Selected extracts:
A fledgling coalition of some of the most prominent economic development groups in the city have been meeting over the last year to create a blueprint that offers a comprehensive and alternative vision of what development should look like in the Bloomberg era. “Re-Defining Economic Development” RED NY began as an attempt to make new development projects in the city more accountable.
The roots of Re-Defining New York go back to a series of meetings in 2004 -– the Subsidy Accountability Strategy Sessions -- that were put together by Jobs with Justice New York, a group that organizes to support the rights of workers and increase their standard of living.
...more than a year later, at a meeting in November of 2005, Jobs with Justice, along with Good Jobs and Pratt, again invited dozens of activists to participate in a series of meetings, this time called Re-Defining Economic Development (RED NY).
Read the full article online.
Staten Island Advance
"Under bill, retailers would provide workers with basic healthcare rate" By Tevah Platt January 23, 2006
Selected extracts:
Big-box retail stores would be forced to pay a fixed-rate minimum for their employees' health care under proposed legislation that state Sen. Diane Savino announced yesterday at City Hall.
Similar legislation has already been passed in New York City and Suffolk County on Long Island.
The Health Care Security Act, legislation that applies to large groceries and big retailers, passed in October when 40 members of the City Council, including James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn) and Michael McMahon (D-North Shore), overrode Mayor Michael Bloomberg's veto. The city law, which takes effect in July, applies to grocery stores with 35 or more employees, or any retailer larger than 10,000 square feet. They must set aside $2.50 to $3 for every hour worked to cover health care costs.
Daily News
"Out with the old laws, in with new" By Celeste Katz and Joe Mahoney January 2, 2006
Selected extracts:
With the new year, come new laws.
Here's a look at some laws that went into effect when the ball dropped in Times Square.
HEALTH BOOST: Workers in grocery stores must get employer-paid health care.
Newsday
"Wal-Mart to Lower Workers' Health Care Premiums" By Lauren Weber October 25, 2005
Selected extracts:
Wal-Mart, faced with escalating pressure to offer affordable health insurance to its employees, Monday said it is lowering premiums to encourage more workers to sign up for the company-sponsored health care plan.
The announcement comes as Wal-Mart, the largest private employer in the United States, confronts legislation on Long Island, New York City and beyond, all aimed at broadening coverage for low-paid workers at Wal-Mart and other retailers.
City Limits
"20 Big Ideas For Our Next Mayor" By Cassi Feldman and Tracie McMillan November/December 2005
Selected extracts:
The City Council made great strides toward bringing health insurance coverage to the city's working poor when it passed this bill, requiring most grocers in the city to provide health insurance to employees and their families. And, thanks to the savvy work of its backers, most notably Jobs With Justice and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, it marks an ideological coup. By singling out an industry that can't relocate out of the city and often already provides health coverage to its workers, the groups successfully courted heretofore unlikely allies: employers that already do the right thing, and end up at a competitive disadvantage because of it. The mayor could use HCSA to send a message to Wal-Mart: Bring us good jobs or stay out.
Quadrangle
"City Council Vote Postpones New York's First Wal-Mart" October 19, 2005
Selected extracts:
Supporters of the Health Care Security Act say the measure will assist working New Yorkers faced with increasing medical costs. Currently, many city residents live without healthcare, as the cost of living in New York City is too high to facilitate healthcare. Proponents also argue that the bill will ease medicaid payments, as private companies will help their employees pay medical bills instead of taxpayers.
The law will go into effect for ninety days, and is one step of many that opponents of Wal-Mart plan to take in order to bar the company from within city limits. They believe that Wal-Mart will not only price local grocers and other businesses out of local markets, and create a working lower class without healthcare and insurance.
Daily News
"Council KOs veto on aid to grocers" By Frank Lombardi October 12, 2005
Selected extracts:
The city council overrode a mayoral veto yesterday of a bill requiring large grocery stores to increase health insurance coverage for their workers.
The bill had been aimed at larger grocery chains and gourmet markets. It also would apply to nonunion Wal-Mart if it opens in the city with a supermarket.
Metro NY
"Override" October 12, 2005
Selected extracts:
According to advocacy group New York Jobs with Justice, the (Health Care Security Act) was designed to “level the playing field” against stores like Wal-Mart, which sometimes don’t provide health care to employees.
Newsday - Long Island
"City rebuffs large retailers in health care bill" By Chau Lam October 12, 2005
Selected extracts:
New York City became the first place in the nation yesterday to approve a law, a version of which is on the verge of becoming adopted in Suffolk County, that requires large, non-unionized retailers such as Wal-Mart to set aside money for employees' health care costs.
The New York City Council voted 40-2 (with two abstaining and seven absent) yesterday to override Mayor Michael Bloomberg's veto of the bill, the Healthcare Security Act, which requires certain retailers to contribute to their employees' health care costs. They would have to pay the average amount that others in the industry pay per employee.
Associated Press
"City mandates health benefits, but is it legal?" By David B. Caruso October 12, 2005
Selected extracts:
The workers who bag your groceries, stock shelves and mop up after spills in aisle five often toil away with little or no health insurance, but that might change under legislation labor groups plan to push in several states.
New York City lawmakers in the vanguard of the movement passed a law this week that will require larger grocery stores to pay most workers a health care benefit worth an estimated $2.50 to $3 an hour.
Supporters said the law, which would apply to stores with at least 35 employees or 10,000 square feet of space devoted to groceries, would help give 6,000 more workers access to a health plan and protect the benefits of 21,000 workers who already have insurance.
Newsday
"Wal-Mart blasts new grocer health care law" By Lauren Weber October 12, 2005
Selected extracts:
The 40-2 vote overrode Bloomberg's earlier veto and cleared the way for New York City to become the first testing ground for a wave of laws aimed at forcing Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers to pay a larger share of skyrocketing medical costs for employees. The city bill will also affect some gourmet grocery chains, such as Garden of Eden.
Such bills -- a similar one passed last month in Suffolk County but awaits action from County Executive Steve Levy -- have been embraced by lawmakers who are angry that the low wages paid by Wal-Mart, Target and their peers force many workers to rely on taxpayer-financed insurance programs.
"We're stopping a trend in this city, state and country of employers puffing up their profits by not offering health coverage," said City Councilwoman Christine Quinn, who sponsored the bill.
Paul Sonn from the Brennan Center said the bill operates like a minimum-wage law. "It sets a basic fair standard that allows all employers to compete," Sonn said.
Similar bills are being considered in New Jersey, San Francisco and other places.
New York Post
"Bloomy Nailed Against 'Wal'" By Frankie Edozien October 12, 2005
Selected extracts:
The City Council voted yesterday to override Mayor Bloomberg's veto of an anti-Wal-Mart bill aimed at making the retail giant and large grocery stores provide health-care benefits to their workers.
Gotham Gazette
"Health Care for Grocery Workers" October 12, 2005
Selected extracts:
The council argues that the bill is needed to help protect businesses, like Fairway, Gristedes, D'Agostinos, Key Food, and Pathmark, that already offer benefits to their employees. It would also block large chain stores like Wal-Mart - that sell food and do not offer benefits - from coming to New York.
Supporters also say it will also reduce dependence on government health care programs.
"These businesses puff up their profits by not offering benefits," said Councilmember Christine Quinn, who drafted the bill. "And at lunch, they give their workers an extra half hour to register on a public health insurance program."
Supporters see the initiative as a pilot program and would like to extend similar regulations to other industries as well.
AM New York
By Chuck Bennett October 12, 2005
Selected extracts:
The council voted yesterday to require larger grocery stores to provide health insurance to its workers. Bloomberg had vetoed both measures.
The law, designed specifically with Wal-Mart in mind, compels all medium and large grocery stores to provide health insurance. Many unionized grocery stores, such as Fairway, Gristedes, D’Agostino and Key Food, already offer insurance and supported the law.
Associated Press
“Council overrides veto of grocery store health insurance law” October 11, 2005
Selected extracts:
Larger grocery stores in New York City would be required to pay for health care benefits for some or all of their workers under a law passed Tuesday over objections from Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Supporters said at least 6,000 workers would get access to health insurance as a result of the law. City Councilwoman Christine Quinn said the legislation would prevent companies from trying to boost their profits by providing workers with fewer benefits.
Metro NY
"Gourmet food, rotten wages" By Amy Zimmer September 8, 2005
Selected extracts:
For nine months, union members for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union have been picketing in front of the city’s Garden of Eden gourmet food stores.
That was just the beginning of the union’s assault on this and other gourmet groceries which may charge premium prices for their fresh fruits and fine cheeses but short-change workers in wages and benefits, union organizers say.
According to a report released recently by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law, prices at gourmet groceries can be up to 38 percent higher than a supermarket in the same area, but wages for many workers remained low.
“The amount you pay for organic eggs at a regular supermarket is $2.19; at one of these gourmet stores it’s $4.00,” said Lauren Barker, an organizer for New York Jobs with Justice, a labor coalition. “What are you paying for? You’re not paying for the workers.”
City Limits
"Lefty Laws Unleashed" By Tracie McMillan August 22, 2005
Selected extracts:
The Health Care Security Act, which will force grocery stores to provide health insurance to their workers, is landmark legislation; only a handful of other municipalities nationwide have ever enacted similar requirements. Passed with substantial support from the grocery industry itself – where employers that provide insurance are frequently undercut by those that don’t – the law will bring health care to an estimated 6,000 uninsured New Yorkers and their families, and ensure it for 21,000 more.
Los Angeles Times
"Wal-Mart Hard Sell in Big Apple" By Paul Lieberman August 21, 2005
Selected extracts:
...last week the City Council voted 46-1 to require all large food retailers to offer a minimum level of healthcare benefits.
Although that legislation did not name any retailer, and could affect about 12,000 employees working at large grocery stores, its sponsor, Councilwoman Christine C. Quinn, said one goal was to create a barrier that would keep Wal-Mart out of the city unless it increased health benefits for workers.
City officials originally did consider covering more than food sellers, said one of the architects of the legislation, Paul Sonn, deputy director of the poverty program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's law school.
But after investigating "a variety of industries," they settled on groceries as "a sensible first step," he said, because many of the chains serving New York provide health benefits that cost them as much as $3 an hour per employee.
Backers of the measure considered it a victory that the Food Industry Alliance, the grocers' trade group, remained neutral. Sonn said the grocers were saying "look, we just don't want to compete around how little healthcare we can provide our workers."
One goal was to protect those employers, he said, from pressure to "cut back" in order to keep down prices in response to those offered by Wal-Mart and others who don't spend as much on benefits.
Washington Post
"N.Y. Council Backs Benefits Bill" By Amy Joyce August 18, 2005
Selected extracts:
The New York City Council yesterday passed a measure requiring most stores that sell groceries to provide a set level of health care coverage for their workers in a move aimed at forcing companies such as Whole Foods Market Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to change their labor practices.
The council's action follows other such efforts around the country, including one in Maryland. Legislators in New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington state, San Francisco and Suffolk County in New York are considering similar bills.
Grocery chains in New York welcome the law. "I do like the idea of trying to have a level playing field," said Nicholas D'Agostino Jr., chief executive of D'Agostino Supermarkets Inc., which has 18 stores in the city… "We pay a lot for health care, so if we weren't paying for health care, we could price things differently or run things differently."
"At end of day, you should be getting health insurance and it will drive down cost for all others," said Mark S. Jaffe, president of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce. "We would advocate to [employers] they need to do this. I think our members are smart enough to realize this is good for business."
New York Times
"Council Follows Miller on Bills at Last Session Before Primary" By Winnie Hu and Thomas J. Lueck August 18, 2005
Selected extracts:
[Council Speaker] Miller… and the other council members passed a law over the objection of the Bloomberg administration that would require large grocery and retail food stores to provide a minimum level of health care benefits to their workers.
The law covering health care benefits for grocery workers initially included laundry, building and construction workers, but those industries were later dropped from the law. Mr. Miller said the Council had decided to focus on grocery workers because there was broad industry support for the measure, adding that it was only a first step.
NY Daily News
"Council OKs health plan" By Frank Lombardi August 18, 2005
Selected extracts:
City Councilwoman Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan), head of the Council's Health Committee and the main sponsor of the bill, said the measure will "stop what some have dubbed a race to the bottom" in providing health care coverage.
Businesses that provide full health care benefits have been cutting those benefits when faced with competition from Wal-Mart and other big-box stores, according to Quinn.
She said the bill is a "pilot initiative" focused on the grocery industry because it's "most at risk and most under attack by companies such as Wal-Mart ... who are ... leading this race to the bottom."
The bill was developed with the help of a coalition of nonprofit groups, unions, business groups, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School and New York Jobs With Justice.
According to Jobs with Justice, the bill had the backing of major supermarket chains, including Fairway, Gristedes, D'Agostino, Key Food, Pathmark and Stop & Shop.
Hoy
"A una firma de distancia" By Igor González August 18, 2005
Selected extracts:
En dos años de estadía, el mexicano José Flores, que trabaja en una bodega en el Bajo Manhattan, ha sufrido un esguince de tobillo y dolor de muelas. Ambas afecciones se han resuelto con la resignación.
Por eso ayer estaba tan contento cuando se enteró que el Concejo dio luz verde a una iniciativa legal que proveería a miles de trabajadores, en su mayoría inmigrantes, con seguro médico.
El anuncio se realizó en las escalinatas de la alcaldía, donde se congregaron decenas de activistas, sindicatos, políticos y organizaciones comunitarias.
“Estuvimos muchas veces en estas mismas escalinatas protestando por nuestros derechos, pero hoy estamos aquí para celebrar un proyecto que no tiene precedentes”, afirmó Adrianne Shropshire, directora de la organización Trabajos con Justicia.
El Diario
"Concejo vela por la gente pobre" By Eva Sanchis August 18, 2005
Selected extracts:
El concejo aprobó ayer otra ley…que forzariá a los grandes supermercados de comida a financiar un seguro medico digno a sus empleados. La ley afectaría a los centros que tengan al menos 35 empleados o que destinen más de 10,000 pies cuadrados a la venta de comida.
La ley pretende evitar que las cadenas que operen en la ciudad impongan estrategias como la de Wal-Mart, conocida por reducer los benficios de sus empleados para poder ofrecer precios más bajos que sus competidores.
WNYC Newsroom
"Council Requires Health Benefits in Big-Box Stores" August 18, 2005
Selected extracts:
REPORTER: Councilwoman Christine Quinn is among the bill’s backers.
QUINN: We’re sending a message to employers who exist in our city and those planning to come that we in the city government believe and affirm that for a hard day’s work, you should get the healthcare you need.
REPORTER: Quinn says the law would save taxpayers money buy easing pressure on government healthcare programs.
New York Sun
"Council Will Likely Pass Bill Requiring Grocery Stores To Offer Health Insurance" By Jill Gardiner August 17, 2005
Selected extracts:
The legislation, one of the first of its kind in the country, is a "pilot program" that would only apply to the one industry and to "big-box" stores that sell food.
Council members said the Health Care Security Act will protect roughly 6,000 low-paid employees, at stores such as Gourmet Garage and Garden of Eden, and help to chip away at the number of city residents without medical coverage.
"It acts as a protection for low-paid workers and is also a protection for taxpayers, because there is no reason why we as taxpayers through our public health programs should have to pay the insurance of companies that don't want to take the cost out of their profit," Council Member Christine Quinn, a Manhattan Democrat who is the lead sponsor of the bills, said.
Newsday
"Big retailers face health proposal" By Chau Lam and Zachary Dowdy August 17, 2005
Selected extracts:
Today, the New York City Council is expected to adopt the Health Care Security Act with enough votes to override a possible veto by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. If that's the case, New York would become the first municipality in the country to impose such a law.
The city bill requires grocery retailers with more than 35 employees to contribute to their workers' health care at "the prevailing industry level" - currently about $2.50 per hour or $5,000 per year for full-time employees.
NY Daily News
"Supermarket health care bill" August 17, 2005
Selected extracts:
The Health Care Security Act would require some 300 employers to spend $5000 a year for each to their workers for their health care coverage.
According to backers of the bill, that’s the “prevailing expenditure” for health insurance coverage in and around the city.
While the bill is aimed exclusively at large food and grocery retailers, its supporters hope to impose the same requirement on other industries, including building service employers, construction employers, hotels and laundry operations.
The bill has 42 sponsors; 34 votes are required to override a mayoral veto.
Gotham Gazette
"Health Care Security Act" By Mark Berky-Gerard August 17, 2005
Selected extracts:
Calling health care coverage a "moral responsibility," the New York City Council passed a bill that requires employers in the grocery and food industry to pay their workers' medical costs.
"For a hard day's work, you should get the health care you deserve," said Councilmember Christine Quinn, who helped draft the bill.
The council argues that the measure will save taxpayers money because uninsured workers will no longer have to enroll in government programs or use emergency rooms as their only option for medical care.
Supporters of the bill see it as a pilot program and would like to extend the same regulations to building service employers, construction companies, and the hotel industry in the future.
Crain's
"Mayor expected to veto health care measure" By Catherine Tymkiw August 17, 2005
Selected extracts:
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to veto a bill that would require medium to large grocers to provide their workers with health insurance.
By a vote of 46-to-1, the City Council approved the measure, called the Health Care Security Act, which would require employers to provide health insurance to some 27,000 workers at grocery stores throughout the city and their families.
"We're disappointed," said Jeremy Hoffman, legislative director for the councilwoman. "It passed by 46-to-1 and that's enough to override a veto."
Other supporters included Fairway, Gristedes, Key Foods and Pathmark.
NY Daily News
"Time to ante up for health care" By Errol Louis June 19, 2005
Selected extracts:
One of the most shameful and least-known government subsidies to private-sector businesses is the practice, followed by many companies, of providing skimpy or nonexistent health benefits to their lowest-paid workers… who end up using Medicaid and other government-funded anti-poverty programs to pay for health care. In effect, taxpayers end up paying the tab for companies too stingy to offer a decent health plan.
Some business owners say they would like to give health insurance to employees, but can’t do it and simultaneously stay competitive with rivals who refuse to provide the benefit.
Jobs with Justice, a labor coalition promoting the proposed law, has rounded up support from civic-minded business leaders like John Catsimatidis, the CEO of Gristedes.
It’s long past time New York City halted this race to the bottom. The Health Care Security Act, sponsored by City Councilwoman Christine Quinn and more than 40 of her Council colleagues, would require some local businesses to provide a baseline of health coverage, in a manner similar to New York’s prevailing wage laws.
New York Sun
"Health Care Security Act Demonstration Held" Special to the Sun June 10-12, 2005
Selected extracts:
More than 100 supporters of the Health Care Security Act, a spirited mix of men in hard-hats, elderly women in feathered fedoras, and even a fully frocked monk, gathered in the suffocating heat at a press conference on the steps of City Hall yesterday to support legislation aimed at securing health-insurance coverage for New Yorkers… The press conference coincided with the City council’s health committee second hearing on the legislation.
Hoy
"Comercios deberán pagar por cuidado medico de empleados" By Igor González June 10, 2005
Selected extracts:
Sindicatos, religiosos y grupos comunitarios apoyan el proyecto de ley que velaría por la salud de miles de trabajadores.
El miedo de acudir al una sala de emergencia por no tener seguro medico podría ser cosa del pasado para miles de trabajadores, en su mayoría inmigrantes, de aprobarse una iniciativa de ley aplaudida ayer por grupos comunitarios, clérigos y sindicatos, en las escalinatas de la alcaldía.
“Ésta es una propuesta vital para nuestras comunidades”, afirmó el padre Michael Tyson, cuya parroquia ayuda a varias familias mexicanas.
“A veces vienen a pedir ayuda financiera, son familias que viven en un cuarto y que se les hace muy difícil encontrar seguro”, agregó el cura.
El Diario
"Piden seguro medico para cinco sectores" By Maria Vega June 10, 2005
Selected extracts:
“Vivimos en una ciudad donde casi dos millones de neoyorquinos carecen de seguro médico”, dijo el presidente del Concejo, y candidate a alcalde, Gifford Miller. “Si se enferman, no tienen casi ningún lugar a donde ir, excepto la sala de emergencia”.
En las cinco industrias mencionadas, hay empleadores que pagan por el seguro médico de sus trabajadores, pero están sufriendo por la competencia de otros negocios que no lo hacen, indicaron las organizaciones que apoyan la propuesta ley.
Muchos negocios que proven seguro médico en las industrias en cuestíon están apoyando el proyecto, igual que sindicatos y organizaciones religiosas como la congregación judía B’nai Jeshurun, cuyo rabino, Rolando Matalón, dijo que el apoyo a la propuesta es “obligación moral”.
AM New York
"Benefits of Benefits" AM Opinion By Dr. Alfred Ashford, American Cancer Society June 7, 2005
Selected extracts:
By ensuring that all Americans have good health insurance, we can significantly reduce the devastating toll of cancer. By requiring that all employers in these five sectors provide insurance, New York City will be joining the fight against cancer.
The American Cancer Society believes that everybody should have access to the full range of diagnostic services, treatments and support services, regardless of their income or insurance status. That is a tall order and will demand public and private cooperation, as this bill does. But why should we settle for anything less?
The Health Care Security Act, sponsored by Council member Christine Quinn and more than 40 co-sponsors, is not the whole answer, by any means. But it will ensure that more than 400,000 workers and their families will have the life-saving protection they need.
Think about it, from your own family’s perspective, and from that of your neighbors and friends. Call Speaker Miller and Mayor Bloomberg and tell them you support the Health Care Security Act. If we can work together to keep more people alive – shouldn’t we do so?
WBAI
"N.Y.C. Council on Health Care Security: Pay or Play" Building Bridges - National Edition Produced by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash June 6, 2005
Selected extracts:
with Pat Purcell, Organizing Director, UFCW Local 1500 NYC Councilmember Annabel Palma, District 18 the Bronx
"We have a solid majority of employers who are (providing health care) right now. We think it's unfair that other businesses that refuse to provide health care coverage don't pay their share.
"The importance of this bill is to protect working families and families that should not have to pick and choose between shelter, food, and health care. People are making these choices. Right now, in the Bronx 225,000 people are uninsured. They have to pick whether they're going to feed their families or take their little ones to the doctor. And that's cruelty. That's immoral."
- Councilmember Annabel Palma
Forward
"Only Human: The Price of Multi-payer Health Care" By Kathleen Peratis June 3, 2005
Selected extracts:
There is surprising support for these efforts in the business community. In New York City, many employers who now provide health care to their employees… support "pay or play" because it would erase the competitive advantage now enjoyed by their stingy competitors.
Liberal and progressive faith-based organizations have also played a key role in many of these state and local efforts, organizing their communities and thus elevating the issue to one of voter concern rather than merely a battle of lobbyists. These notably include the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, which includes 65 congregations, two of them synagogues.
In New York City, Congregation B'nai Jeshurun — also one of two synagogues among scores of faith-based organizations supporting the New York Health Care Security Act — sponsored a packed-house "accountability forum" in April attended by more than 700 congregants, community activists, union members and others. Few will forget the sight of scores of burly members of Laborers and United Food and Commercial Workers standing in the balcony of the sanctuary swaying to the strains of Shehecheyanu.
Village Voice
"Rad Medicine; City Council wades into the middle of the nation's health care crisis" By Jarrett Murphy May 10, 2005
Selected extracts:
Mike Smith is a no-nonsense guy, a thickly built construction worker with a square jaw and steady eyes. so he gives a no-nonsense answer when asked about how he handles health care for himself, his wife, and his two teenage kids. "When we go to a doctor, we've got to pay for it," he says. Lacking health insurance, he pays out-of-pocket and takes his medical problems not to a family physician but to an emergency room, where the medicine is expensive and, says Smith, "the wait is all day".
Unlike a similar proposal that California voters rejected last fall, the Health Care Security Act has backing from several business groups and individual firms. Unions and major health policy groups like the American Lung Association are on board. A veto-proof 40 councilmembers have signed onto the bill, and Council Speaker and mayoral candidate Gifford Miller supports it.
...Paul Sonn, associate council at the Brennan Center for Justice and a backer of the bill, tells the Voice that since minumum wage laws haven't cost jobs, the health care mandate is unlikely to either. "We expect that they really need a base level of staffing to handle the operation of their sales," he says. Besides, Frank Watson, an uninsured construction worker, "I'd rather have less money with health benefits for my family. It's going to cost you more without benefits."
"I wish national lawmakers would solve it," says Simon Greer, co-director of New York Jobs with Justice, which is pushing the City Council bill. But for now, he adds, "It's clear to us in New York: We'll have to innovate here."
City Limits
"More in Store" By Liza Featherstone May/June 2005
Selected extracts:
Wal-Mart’s possible arrival has also been a major inspiration behind the Health Care Security Act (HCSA), introduced before the City Council this fall, which would force large grocery stores – as well as large employers in several other industries – to provide health insurance for their workers, or pay into a fund that would do so. Since Wal-Mart would probably never agree to abide by HCSA, its passage could deter the company from opening stores in New York. (In contract to Costco’s reaction to big box legislation, many companies are supporting HCSA as a way to make competition fairer.) As associate counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, Nathan Newman helped draft Chicago’s living wage law and is now working on policy solutions for New York. “Wal-Mart won’t come in if (HCSA) is passed. Wal-Mart doesn’t want the standards raised,” he says. “Of course, you and I know it won’t bankrupt itself paying for worker’s health insurance. But Wal-Mart doesn’t want that demonstrated.”
Newsday
"Health benefits fix proposed" By Curtis L. Taylor April 27, 2005
Selected extracts:
Gordon Roth feels obligated to provide health benefits to the 35 employees at his Manhattan-based painting company.
But Roth said rising monthly employee benefit costs – averaging about $800 per worker – are placing him at a disadvantage with competitors who don’t provide medical coverage. The lower operating costs allow his competitors to charge less for the same jobs.
“There are no regulations requiring the companies to carry insurance,” said Roth of Roth Painting Company Inc., who is supporting the City Council’s Health Care Security Act, which could possibly reduce premiums by requiring certain businesses to pay into a city fund. “We are getting sandwiched between the rising costs of health insurance and companies who don’t pay insurance. The overhead that they save is not paying health benefits is tremendous."
“To add insult to injury, the workers not covered can go to emergency rooms and get treated…so we are also indirectly paying those costs along with taxpayers.”
The bill, expected to be voted out of committee and go before the full Council, would provide health insurance to 60,000 uninsured low-income workers and secure coverage for 152,000 workers now receiving coverage through employers, said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of New York Jobs with Justice, the nonprofit group coordinating the effort.
Jewish Week
"A Niggun for Health Care Bill" By Martha Mendelsohn April 14, 2005
Selected extracts:
As Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein and his co-leaders at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun led a rousing niggun, members of Laborers Local 79 and UFCW Local 1500 linked arms in the crowded sanctuary last Thursday and hummed and swayed like regulars.
But the 30 or so representatives from the demolition workers and food workers unions were not at the Upper West Side synagogue to daven, but to persuade City Council Speaker Gifford Miller of the moral imperative of passing the New york City Health Care Security Act. The bill was developed by BJ’s social justice organizing project, Panin el Panim, and New York Jobs with Justice, a coalition of labor and faith-based organizations.
“We are asking you to bring the Health Care Security Act for a vote on the floor of the City Council before June,” said Alice Fisher, head of (B’nai Jeshurun)’s Health Care/Economic Hardship Hevre, addressing Miller, a Democrat, who sat on the bima facing some 700 supporters of the bill, including Christian clerics, families from a public school in Harlem, and at least one woman in a Muslim headscarf.
“This bill has been tweaked and tweaked and tweaked,” said the evening’s moderator, Kathleen Peratis, pressing hard for a Council vote before Miller’s term ends in December.
“I will make every effort I can,” Miller assured her.
The collective groan from the audience could motivate a mayoral candidate to try harder.
Epoch Times
"New Yorkers Say "No" to Wal-Mart" By Martha Mendelsohn April 11-17, 2005
Selected extracts:
New York – “We are winning,” said state assemblyman Brian McLaughlin to a crowd of mostly public and private trade union representatives last Thursday.
McLaughlin’s message was clear: Wal-Mart is not welcome anywhere in the five boroughs of New York City.
One of the rally participants, a group called Jobs with Justice, took a national online poll in December in which Wal-Mart was voted “Grinch of the Year”.
According to Jobs with Justice, Wal-Mart has created such stringent requirements for qualifying for its healthcare benefits, that many Wal-Mart employees are left dependent on publicly financed medical services, a largely hidden taxpayer subsidy.
Angela Lee of Jobs with Justice said that new legislation is being considered in the New York City Council mandating that all employers pay for their employees’ healthcare.
City Limits
"Benefits Get a Boost" By Tracie McMillan April 11, 2005
Selected extracts:
Propenents of the Health Care Security Act (HCSA) brought the Speaker to an elegant Upper West Side synagogue, B’nai Jeshurun, to discuss the bill with the congregation and other community members. An attentive audience of 700 broke intyo whoops and applause when Miller declared for the first time publicly that he supports the bill.
Amsterdam News
"Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus announces endorsement of Health Care Security Act" By Alicia Pender April 17-13 2005
Selected extracts:
"Unequal access equals 4,000 dead each year” was a sign that a health care advocate held among other supporters, community leaders and council members on the steps of City Hall last Thursday. Over 1.8 million New Yorkers are uninsured. As employer-based coverage declines, many low-wage minority workers are disproportionately represented in the health care system.
At the rally, council members from the Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus announced their full endorsement for the Health Care Security Act.
“The most priceless gift is good health,” said Councilwoman Diana Reyna. She and Councilman Hiram Monserrate are calling upon Speaker Gifford Miller and Mayor Bloomberg to swiftly pass the bill.
Amsterdam News
"1.8 Million New Yorkers Without Health Insurance" By David R. Jones April 7-13 2005
Selected extracts:
The problem of workers without health insurance is also a crisis for New York City. The food preparer in the hotel – the grocery worker in the local food market – do we really want these people to be without access to adequate health care?
Uninsured patients who go to public health facilities cost money. The uninsured can’t pay; and the state never reimburses the city’s public hospital system and local health facilities at a reasonable rate. The result is that the taxpayers pick up a large slice of the bill while the medical facilities teeter on the edge of bankruptcy.
Access to quality health care is an issue that should be of concern to all New Yorkers. Having nearly two million people going around without sufficient access to health care constitutes both a public health crisis and a financial crisis.
The Health Care Security Act is especially vital at a time when public health programs are being slashed in Washington and Albany. The council should pass this legislation and Mayor Bloomberg should sign it into law.
City Limits
"Clean bill of health" By Tracie McMillan March/April 2005
Selected extracts:
Private employers could soon be forced to provide health insurance for their workers, under a new bill moving steadily toward City Council.
Backed by unions, community organizations and advocates for the poor, the law is aimed specifically at sectors that provide services locally, and would therefore be loath to leave the city. But support has also come from far less likely quarters: businesses in the industries themselves.
“I give all my employees health care. We just cannot compete against businesses that do not provide health care,” testified Gilbert Rivera, owner of a waterproofing firm and a board member of the National Hispanic Business Council. “[HCSA] will level the playing field.” Rivera’s not the only one who sees it that way. Nearly 100 other businesses have singed on, ranging from modestly sized contractors to strong local chains like Gristedes and Fairway.
Gotham’s workers could certainly use a boost in the coverage department: One in four New Yorkers under age 65 was without health insurance in 2002, according to a United Hospital Fund study. That’s a pricey problem, said Sherry Glied, a nationally renowned health care economist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Covering health care for low-income, uninsured New Yorkers costs the city about $466 million annually according to Glied’s research.
Vermont Guardian
"Mandatory insurance law gains ground" January 6, 2005
Selected extracts:
New York - Private employers could soon be forced to provide health insurance for their workers under a bill moving toward City Council approval.
About 70 percent of city employers provide their workers with health insurance, covering about 450,000 workers and their dependents, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school. Since employers who don’t provide insurance sue that edge to underbid those who do, some local employers are looking for a way to keep workers insured while protecting their bottom line.
NY Daily News
"Illegal workers face abuse & low wages" By Hugh Son December 26, 2004
Selected extracts:
Carolina R. worked at a housewares shop in Bushwick for just a month – but during that brief period, she was sexually harassed, verbally abused and paid only $3.60 an hour.
Around the metropolitan area, tens of thousands of retail, restaurant and factory workers are paid far below minimum wage, said Andrew Friedman of the activist group Make the Road by Walking.
Along Knickerbocker Ave. alone, about 200 workers earn low wages and often are not paid for working overtime.
“Clearly, employers are making the choice to take advantage of undocumented workers who might not feel like they have access to protections,” said Thomas Wheatley of New York Jobs with Justice. In fact, illegal workers are protected by minimum wage laws, he said.
Wall Street Journal
"Protest, Piety And Produce Why churches are boycotting a Greenwich Village grocery store" By Dorothy Rabinowitz December 17, 2004
Selected extracts:
The telephoned tirade, from a caller who said she spoke for concerned faculty and students of the New School, was the sort nowadays entirely too familiar to Louis Montuori, the owner-manager of the Jefferson Market, Greenwich Village’s landmark grocery store.
In some village churches, congregations have begun hearing, in sermons, of the need for social action against stores charged with exploiting workers – stores like Jefferson Market. One of those delivering the message is Lauren Thomas, a rabbinical student allied with the union-financed group spearheading the action against the store. She charges that, in addition to all else, it is guilty of serious racial discrimination.
Amsterdam News
"Some things are too important to leavein the hands of the federal government: Healthcare is clearly one of them" By Andrew Friedman December 16-22, 2004
Selected extracts:
...don’t look to the Republican leadership of Capitol Hill for solutions (to the health care crisis). Instead, solutions are coming from the New York City Council in a new piece of city legislation that promises to expand health care to 60,000 working New Yorkers while leveling the playing field for employers who already provide their employees with coverage.
Hardworking New Yorkers trying to earn an honest living but plaqued by colossal medical bills like Vicente Mayorga will benefit from The Health Care Security Act. Taxpayers and business owners struggling to continue to provide health care to their workers should support such progressive state and local level legislation. Until real solutions for the nation’s health care crisis start coming out of Washington, perhaps the rest of the country should look to places like New York to take care of their people and businesses.
AM New York
"Council hears insurance bill" By Adam Hutton December 10, 2004
Selected extracts:
The City Council will have its first hearing today on a bill that would provide thousands of New Yorkers with health insurance and save taxpayers millions of dollars, according to its supporters.
Hundreds of workers rallied for the bill in front of City Hall yesterday, along with labor leaders and councilmembers.
The ripple effect is called a "race to the bottom," where companies who want to compete have to cut health care benefits to stay afloat. To reverse the effect, Quinn and 36 other councilmembers are proposeing that businesses in certain sectors be requried to either provide health insurance or pay into a city fund, that would do it for them.
The people who work hard in this city should get the health care they deserve," Quinn said at yesterday's rally.
El Diario
"Trabajadores marchan para exigir seguros de salud" By Ana Ledo December 10, 2004
Selected extracts:
Nueve York – Las mayors cifras de empleados de bajos ingresos sin seguro medico se concentran entre los hispanos, con un 57% de empleados sin cobertura, de acuerdo con un studio divulgado ayer por Columbia University. Con esos datos se armaron decenas de trabajadores agremiados para exigir un cambio en la cuidad.
Los trabajadores se unieron a concejales y a duenoes de empresas neoyorquinas para exigir la probacion del Acta de Seguridad de Cuidado de Salud de la cuidad de Nueva York que obligue a los empleadores brindar seguros de salud a sus trabajadores.
The Villager
"Clergy seeks talk on workers with Jefferson Market owner" By Albert Amateau November 17-22, 2004
Selected extracts:
A group of Village clergy associated with New York Jobs with Justice has been trying to meet with the owner of Jefferson Market, a food market that has been serving the neighborhood for 70 years, about allegations that employees are threatened with dismissal for trying to organize a union.
“We prefer not to do a boycott,” said Jobs with Justice’s (Lauren) Thomas. “We want to do what we can working together, but (Louis Montouri, a principal at Jefferson Market) refuses to meet with us.” Thomas said she has spoken to 17 Jefferson Market employees who have told her that the store discriminates against immigrant workers by paying a lower starting wage than the “white” employees. One longtime employee who worked in the Jefferson Market kitchen was fired for union organizing, she added.
But members of the Village clergy are still hoping for a meeting with Montouri. “I’d love to know his perspective on things,” said Rev. Hooper. “We’re trying to build relationships with employers in the Village and Jefferson Market is our people – partners in the community. We’d like them to be a good example and leader.”
The New York Times
"Neighbors Take Up Cause Of Higher Pay At Some Stores" By Steven Greenhouse October 18, 2004
Selected extracts:
In Greenwich Village, Jobs with Justice… has teamed with Washington Square United Methodist and other congregations to urge residents to patronize Gristedes, D’Agostino,and other stores that provide wages and benefits they view as good. Jobs with Justice plans to provide residents with discount cards to steer business to those stores. The group is also doing research to develop a list of stores and restaurants for shoppers to avoid.
Lauren Thomas, a fourth-year rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary, has been spreading Jobs with Justice’s message in sermons at several houses of worship. She told the congregation at Washington Square United Methodist that several workers at Jefferson Market, a high-end grocery on Sixth Avenue and 11th Street, had told her their dream was to have enough money to pay for food for their children and to have affordable health care.
In her sermon, she said, “Solving these problems for the world is too much, solving these issues for the nation might even be too great of a task, but locally I know we can make a difference.”
Read the full article online.
Filipino Express
"Health is wealth" October 10, 2004
Selected extracts:
New York City Councilmember Christine Quinn has embarked on a new mission to help employees and uninsured workers. On Tuesday this week, she introduced a health care bill that would affect all employers in the hotel, large grocery, building services, industrial laundry and construction industries.
...Opponents say the plan "could raise costs".
We want to call these costs as investment costs, a natural and responsible act of employers that consider the overall picture of its business. When they invest in the health of its employees, such costs rebound to their benefit in the long run. Apart from reducing absenteeism in the workplace, workers are motivated to work well and thereby creating a sense of ownership. As staff morale improves, so does production and loyalty to the employer that provides health cand other benefits.
We commend council member Quinn for introducing such legislation and the more than 90 local businesses that support it. We urge for its enactment and call upon council members of the Jersey City government to adopt the same initiative.
Jewish Week
"Health And The City" By Martha Mendelsohn October 8, 2004
Selected extracts:
For years, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, the liberal Upper West Side synagogue, has worked to heal societal ills and dispensed doses of tikkun olam through its soup kitchen, homeless shelter, and mentoring program in the public schools.
This year B’nai Jeshurun expanded its public role. It became the first religious institution to join the organizing committee of the New York City Health Care Security Act sponsored by New York Jobs with Justice.
On a September night before the High Holy Days, about 100 people, ranging from the young, older, and fit, to the young and old with canes or walkers, gathered in BJ’s sanctuary on West 88th Street for a forum on the proposed bill and the state of health care coverage in New York City and the nation.
Rolando Matalon, rabbi of BJ, articulated the Jewish theological perspective. According the Maimonides, who was both a physician and a philosopher, ‘We need good health to fulfill our purpose on earth, which is to carry on God’s work.
Christian Science Monitor
"Businesses warm to 'pay or play' healthcare" By Alexandra Marks September 29, 2004
Selected extracts:
In a new sign of the business community's increasing frustration with the nation's healthcare system, "Pay or Play" is gaining popularity with the wingtipped set.
The business community once saw it as an ideologically offensive unfunded mandate. But as initiatives in New York, California, and Washington State show, an increasing number of traditional employers have come to view it as a protection of their own interests, or even as the foundation for reform of the healthcare system.
Faced with skyrocketing insurance premiums and tough competition from other businesses that don't provide health insurance, many medium and large employers have signed onto to pay-or-play proposals - like the one introduced at the New York City Council yesterday.
Supporters, like John Catsimatidis, CEO of Gristedes supermarkets, argue that mandating coverage is an important way to protect quality jobs and employers. "In New York supermarkets, being a butcher or a store manager is a way of life - a family sustaining job," he said in a statement. "But if my competitors are allowed to be irresponsible employers, not providing health and other benefits - they're not only hurting their employees, they're hurting mine."
AM New York
"Hope for the uninsured" By Adam Hutton September 28, 2004
Selected extracts:
The City Council is proposing a bill today that would force more that 13,000 employers in certain industries to provide workers with health benefits...
Supporters of the New York City Health Care Security Act say it will level the playing field for small businesses who already provide their workers with health coverage by requiring big companies to do the same.
“In the end, we’ll save billions and billions of taxpayer dollars,” said Councilman David Weprin, chairman of the Finance Committee. Weprin said the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation has $4 billion in Medicare costs each year, 85% of which is spent on uninsured workers.
"This is a very important bill and the city will be better for it," said Councilman James Sanders Jr. of South Queens, chairman of the Economic Development Committee.
Crain's
"Health Bill Could Boost Coverage" By Samantha Marshall September 27 - October 3, 2004
Selected extracts:
Thousands of workers in New York would be guaranteed health insurance coverage by their employers if a bill being introduced today in the City Council passes.
The New York City Health Care Security Act would require all employers in certain sectors either to directly provide their employees with health insurance, or to contribute to a citywide fund that would offer workers and their families coverage.
Proponents of the bill, which does have the backing of 80-plus local, mainly unionized businesses, say the goal is to reduce the so-called Wal-Mart factor by leveling the competitive playing field in sectors where some companies have dropped or reduced coverage to cut costs. John Catsimatidis, chief executive of the Gristede's supermarket chain, is a major supporter of the measure.
Hoy
"Cientos marchan por los derechos civiles de los inmigrantes" By Igor Gonzalez September 2003
The Village Voice
“Phony War; How the Phone Unions Turned Verizon’s Strike Preparation Against It” By Tom Robbins August 13 – 19, 2003
Selected extracts:
The toughest labor showdown in America this year has been the one between Verizon and its Unions, and when contracts expired the first weekend in August the company left no doubt that its negotiating stance was to be one of scorched earth.
City Limits
“Work in Projects” By Ron Feemster July/August 2003
Selected extracts:
(Kenneth) Person is one of more than a dozen new painters apprentices who probably owe their jobs to a two-year battle by TRADES, a coalition of unions, public housing residents and community groups that has pushed the New York City Housing Authority to enforce federal and local regulations requiring its contractors to hire public housing residents.
The coalition...argues that if NYCHA enforces the rules on resident hiring, contractors will have an economic incentive to hire public housing residents as apprentices.
TRADES sees the emergence of union jobs, or at least more permanent jobs for NYCHA residents, as a historic beginning. "This is a starting point," says Nicole Branca (of Jobs with Justice). "TRADES is about systematically changing the resident hiring and procurement processes of NYCHA."
Read the full article online.
Gotham Gazette
“"Unlikely Alliance Wins Apprenticeships for Public Housing Residents" By Brad Lander June 30,2003
Selected extracts:
After three years, an unlikely alliance of public housing residents and several building trades unions have won a significant victory. The New York City Housing Authority has agreed that $600 million of construction work in public housing over the next three years will be built by union contractors. At present, almost none of the housing authority's work is built with union labor. In exchange, the carpenters, painters, laborers, and plumbers have agreed to hire approximately 220 residents of public housing during each of those years. In addition, the housing authority has increased enforcement of "Section 3" requirements - a section of the Housing & Urban Development Act of 1968 which requires that federal public housing funds be used to hire local residents and subcontractors - for contractors working on public housing.
The building trades unions hope this will be a model for other publicly-subsidized construction work which is currently non-union. And Jobs With Justice (TRADES' sponsoring organization) hopes that if alliances can be built between trades unions and public housing residents, many more labor-community partnerships are possible.
Read the full article online.
City Limits
“NYCHA Apprenticeships” By M. Kenny June 9,2003
Selected extracts:
The New York City Housing Authority has finally agreed to enforce federal and local mandates requiring its contractors to hire public housing residents. According to the Trade Unions & Residents for Apprenticeship Development & Economic Success (TRADES) coalition, in an effort to boost the number of residents working on NYCHA projects, the authority has promised to devote $450 million from its construction and maintenance budget and 225 new jobs for first-year union apprenticeships, all to be spread out over a three-year period.
Read the full article online.
The Village Voice
“Airing Dirty Linens; A win for Workers Who Put the Finery in Find Dining” By Robin D.G. Kelly January 2003
Selected extracts:
On New Year’s Eve, while diners at Manhattan’s most expensive restaurant, Alain Ducasse in the Essex House, celebrated over supper in tuxedos and gowns accompanied by a string duet, about a dozen members of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE!) and NY Jobs with Justice (NYJWJ) spent their evening leafleting this and other restaurants for doing business with one of the city’s worst sweatshops.
The prime target of these protest was Linenes osf Europe (LOE), a Houston-based linen and restaurant supply company that provides tablecloths and napkins and chefs’ uniforms for Alain Ducasse and other high-end gourmet restaurants, including the “21” Club and La Caravelle. LOE’s shop, located in the South Bronx, was cited by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in October for violating state and federal minimum wage laws and for denying workers the right to organize. The management illegally fired at least two employees for merely signing a union card.
The New Year’s Eve action proved to be the final blow in UNITE!’s yearlong campaign against the company. Last Friday, LOE agreed to implement the terms of the NLRB decision, which required, among other things, that they allow UNITE! to organize without interference, reinstate with back pay the workers who were fired, and comply with minimum-wage laws. The agreement marks a tremendous victory not only for UNITE! and NYJWJ, but for the labor movement as a whole. The Linens of Europe campaign proves that the lowest-paid and most exploited workers can win when they reach out to the community at large. It is a powerful example of what can happen when labor, community, and political leaders, and at least one progressive industry leader come together and decide that humane working conditions and freedom to join a union ought to be a basic right for all workers.
Please contact Jobs with Justice for the full article
The New York Times
“Union Presses Restaurants To Fire a Linen Service” By Steven Greenhouse January 2003
Selected extracts:
The napkins and tablecloths used at Alain Ducasse, the “21” Club and La Caravelle have become the unlikely focus of the labor dispute.
A union and its allies are pressing several prestigious restaurants to stop doing business with a Bronx linen service that they said paid its workers considerably less than the minimum wage and illegally fired workers for supporting a union.
“These are some of the fanciest restaurants in the city, and for some reason they think they use a linen company that violates workers’ rights, say they have nothing to do with it,” said Wilfredo Larancuent, manager of UNITE’ Laundry division. “These restaurants have a moral obligation to make sure the companies they use obey the nation’s labor laws.”
The pressure campaign has already persuaded two restaurants, Picholine and Artisanal, to drop Linens of Europe.
City Council members, state legislators and clergy members have joined the demonstrations, which have been by Jobs with Justice, a labor-community group.
The Phoenix
Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York “Students Join Coalition for Justice” By Catherine Shu ‘03 November 2002
Selected extracts:
Seventeen Sarah Lawrence students took time out form their October Study Days to participate in a demonstration for the responsible rebuilding of New York City after September 11. The protest was organized by New York City Jobs with Justice, a coalition group that focuses on workers’ rights, the New York Unemployment Project, and Community Voices Heard, a New York City based advocacy group for low-income workers.
While each advocacy group and speaker brought a particular concern to the rally, all of them were united by the goal for making sure that the government administers the rebuilding of New York, and Manhattan in particular, in a way that considers the needs of unemployed and low –income workers and their families.
“One of the big things that [the protestors] were fighting for is that Governor Pataki has not taken any initiatives to help the unemployed in New York,” said junior Kristen Kuriga, who along with sophomore Rachel Yanda organized the contingent of SLC students. “There is 21 billion in federal funds and none of that has gone to the people,” Kuriga said.
The Village Voice
“Where Was George? As Dems Nap, New Activists Press Pataki on Record” By Tom Robbins November 6-12, 2002
Selected extracts:
All of the energy that the Carl McCall campaign never manage to muster was on display last week at a rally in the streets outside Governor Pataki’s midtown office. About 500 protesters were present, brought there by a half-dozen organizations, all of them focused on jobs and the lack of them and all equally frustrated that their issues – unemployment relief, a higher minimum wage, workers’ compensations reforms – never managed to make their way to the forefront of the agenda for any of the three major gubernatorial candidates, including the Democrat who had only to summon such troops to make them come running.
The organizers came from the new groups that have sprung up in the city to take on the job that unions used to do. There was the wonderfully named Make the Road by Walking, which fights for the immigrant workers who comprise so much of the city’s low-wage workforce. Also, Community Voices Heard, whose voices are mostly those of women trying to safely maneuver their families through the mazes of welfare and work. The Jobs with Justice organization was there as well, along with the New York Immigration Coalition and Spotlight on the Poor.
Gotham Gazette
“Unlikely Alliance Wins Apprenticeships for Public Housing Residents” By Brad Lander November 6-12, 2002
Selected extracts:
After three years, an unlikely alliance of public housing residents and several building trades unions have won a significant victory. The New York City Housing Authority has agreed that $600 million of construction work in public housing over the next three years will be built by union contractors. At present, almost none of the housing authority’s work is built with union labor. In exchange, the carpenters, painters, laborers, and plumbers have agreed to hire approximately 220 residents of public housing during each of those years. In addition, the housing authority has increased enforcement of “Section 3” requirements – a section of the Housing & Urban Development Act of 1968 which requires that federal public housing funds be used to hire local residents and subcontractors – for contractors working on public housing.
Public housing residents are looking forward to the jobs that will be created. The building trades unions hope this will be a model for other publicly-subsidized construction work which is currently non-union. And Jobs with Justice (TRADES’ sponsoring organization) hopes that if alliances can be built between trades unions and public housing residents, many more labor-community partnerships are possible.
Read the full article online.
Jobs with Justice
