Coalition calls for halt to City Point project, charging workers are paid poverty-level wages

By Lore Croghan / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Unions and community groups are calling on the Bloomberg Administration to halt construction work at the City Point mega-project.

The city should stop the massive downtown Brooklyn development at DeKalb and Flatbush Aves. while it does a new study of the impact of low wages developers are paying, the groups said.

“We know that construction workers are being paid poverty wages at City Point and they are not getting any benefits,” said Terry Moore of Metallic Ironworkers Local 46.

Workers are being paid $15 per hour at the 1.6 million-square-foot residential and commercial development, the advocates charged — which adds up to $22,500 per year, below the city’s poverty level for a family of four.


“Brooklyn’s middle class is under attack and this project is a major portion of the assault,” the groups’ lawyer Thomas Kennedy wrote in a March 4 letter to Deputy Mayor Robert Steel.

Bloomberg Adminstration spokeswoman Julie Wood called City Point “a linchpin for revitalization in downtown Brooklyn” but did not address charges of poverty-level wages.

“The project has already created over 180 construction jobs from both union and non-union contractors, and of those employees, 82% were minorities and 41% were local residents, more than doubling target goals,” Wood said.

The city owns the site which developers have leased for 99 years and has provided more than $20 million in taxpayer-funded bonds.

Developer Acadia Realty Trust fought back last year against unions’ and advocates’ demands that the company pay prevailing wages at City Point.

An Oct. 2012 letter from Acadia’s general counsel Robert Masters called their efforts “an attempt to coerce us to change our practices [that is] unwarranted based on our conduct and beliefs.”

Downtown Brooklyn pols said they support the unions’ push for a stop-work order at City Point and called for prevailing wages — as high as $47 per hour for some job descriptions — to be paid at the project.

“Every worker in New York City deserves a wage that can support a family,” said City Councilman Steve Levin.

“Prevailing wages not only give security to families, but also positively impact the communities where they live.”