Construction unions will take less pay in effort to eventually lower rents for some apartments
Plumbers, painters, and electrical workers in building trade unions have agreed to be paid one-third less than the unions’ standard commercial rates for certain apartment projects, The Boston Globe reports.
Why?
“We need more housing in this region,” Brian Doherty, head of the Metropolitan Building Trades Council, who helped craft the lower wage structure, told The Globe. These lower wages could allow rents to be hundreds of dollars less per month once the buildings are completed.
Last year, the high cost of construction was cited as a reason the city is lacking in affordable housing. A 2015 report from The Boston Foundation noted that these high costs were why many of the new developments in the Hub are luxury buildings, therefore unaffordable for working and middle-income families.
The building trade unions are hoping their pay decrease will help.
The Globe wrote:
If the effort works, it could be a breakthrough in Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s two-year effort to build more housing that middle-income residents can afford. Early in his administration, Walsh identified lower labor rates as key to his broader strategy to add 53,000 units of housing in Boston by 2030.
It is most likely that these lower rates would apply to newly constructed buildings in neighborhoods like Dorchester and East Boston, where the buildings are aimed at lower and middle-income residents, along with parts of Cambridge, Somerville, and the suburbs, the Globe reported.
Read the full story here.
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