Community benefits agreements typically outline expectations in hiring and wages for jobs tied to the construction of big development projects.
But the Milwaukee Bucks and the Alliance for Good Jobs crafted a different type of agreement for the development of the new arena: a community benefits agreement that covers the permanent jobs that remain long after the construction ends—such as housekeeping, landscaping and food service jobs.
On Thursday, the Bucks and community leaders announced their agreement on three major points: raising the minimum wage to $12 per hour in 2017 and to $15 by 2023; hiring at least 50% of employees from neighborhoods with high unemployment; and affirming the rights of employees to unionize.
The agreement covers the workers in the new arena, as well as the properties the Bucks manage and control—the surrounding plaza, the practice facility and the parking structure—Milwaukee Bucks President Peter Feigin told the Shepherd. The agreement encompasses Bucks’ employees and those employed by contractors in the district. The Bucks had already committed to hiring construction workers from the ranks of Milwaukee’s unemployed and underemployed residents.
Feigin called the new agreement a “no-brainer” at the Thursday press conference announcing the deal, adding, “This is right to do for our community and something we see as critical to the long-term success” of the project.
Peter Rickman, the lead negotiator for the Alliance for Good Jobs, called the agreement a “transformational moment” for the city, which has lost family-supporting jobs while adding low-wage positions that keep workers—disproportionately women and workers of color—mired in poverty.
“This agreement establishes a community standard for living wages, workers’ rights and access to good jobs that should be applied to every new development, to every institution in our community, to all the other employers in this town so that we take those service sector jobs that are trapping people in poverty and help them become the bedrock of the middle class,” Rickman told the Shepherd.
Jeffrey Greer, a janitor at Miller Park and the BMO Bradley Center and a SEIU Local 1 steward, said on a personal level the agreement would help him support his family, while in the bigger picture it’s a part of a national movement to raise the minimum wage to $15.
“Big shiny arenas look good in our community but arenas do not work unless people like me clean them and keep them operating,” Greer said at the press conference. “Our work matters. This is a struggle, not just in Milwaukee but across the country, to raise wages to $15 an hour for service workers.”
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The Battle for Better Wages
The new agreement is one of the final pieces of the massive puzzle that is the Bucks arena deal. The cost of the roughly $500 million development is split between the team’s new owners and its former owner, Herb Kohl, as well as state, county and city taxpayers.
The full deal needed legislative approval, which wasn’t easy. Although Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators were on board, they didn’t have enough votes to pass it. Democratic legislators were brought into negotiations late and made some changes. State senators added a fee to tickets so that those attending games could help pay for the arena, and took out a controversial plan backed by Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele to finance the county’s $80 million contribution with “bad debt,” primarily from delinquent suburban taxpayers.
Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) said his caucus had drafted amendments relating to wages and benefits, but held off on introducing them because the Bucks and the Alliance were developing a broad memorandum of understanding on those issues. And, he added, the worker-friendly amendments likely wouldn’t have been supported by his Republican colleagues—yet the Democrats needed those principles affirmed so that they could support the financing package. The Bucks-Alliance memorandum gave them that assurance, he said.
“It wasn’t an easy deal,” Barca told the Shepherd.
Rickman told the Shepherd Milwaukee’s community and labor leaders started organizing around the arena deal long before it was debated in Madison. He said the Bucks were committed from the beginning to supporting the permanent employees in the arena district, but it took a while to nail down the details.
“It’s extremely rewarding to say that we have an agreement that we can take to other private sector employers and other institutions and say, ‘If the Milwaukee Bucks can do this, you can do this too,’” Rickman said.
Although the agreement is a first-of-its-kind in Milwaukee, Rickman said they’re common in other cities.
“We need to build that here in Milwaukee,” Rickman said.
Milwaukee Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton said the new agreement built on the positive hiring standards set by Northwestern Mutual in its high-rise project Downtown.
“I’m hoping that the next folks who come to the table can look at this and say there is a role for the private sector to play on its own even in the way it does business that can have an impact on poverty in the city,” Hamilton told the Shepherd.
