WA State JwJ Update and
Local Victories
Fall 2009
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The JwJ Whatcom Organizing Committee partnered with members UFCW 21 and the NW WA CLC to win a battle in the on-going war about big-box stores in Bellingham .
With JwJ urging in 2007, Bellingham City Council passed a size cap for new retail stores and prohibited existing stores larger than 90K square feet from expanding. Since then, Costco has twice attempted to get the City Council to overturn the ordinance.
In the attempt this Fall, Mayor Dan Pike went to bat for Costco and fronted a “green-washing” proposal to allow stores to build larger than the size cap if they added additional landscaping and drought-resistant plants. At the hearing, JwJ members, more than 30 UFCW 21 Bellingham members, delegates to the NW WA CLC, the director of local business network Sustainable Connections, and concerned community members showed up in force to tell the Council to "Keep the Ban."
Concerns expressed included the loss of living-wage jobs, the destruction of local businesses, increased traffic and sprawl, the existence already of a number of empty big-box stores in the city and the loss of Bellingham's unique small town quality. After taking testimony for two hours, the Council voted unanimously to table the issue until January.
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In a big policy shift, the Council questioned subsidies for a Hollander-Marriott luxury project that may not benefit the community, bucking developer lobbyists and the City Manager. For weeks, City Council-members led by Connie Ladenburg held off indemnifying Hollander and sticking taxpayers with toxic liability at the privately owned site. The hotel is sited for the Thea Foss Waterway next to the bankrupted and nearly empty luxury Esplanade condos, also government subsidized and built on the backs of low-wage workers.
The shift occurred while Urban Grace Church organized for a recent candidate forum on Responsible Development and amidst a now three-year JwJ free speech campaign to press the City Council to embrace justice values linked to the City's luxury subsidy policy. Now six candidates are referring to "sustainable development" in two Tacoma Weekly articles although not all seemed to include economic justice in the term. Some candidates prefer Bush trickle down welfare that doesn’t address poverty-wage jobs, a root cause of environmental unsustainability. In their minds, low-wage downtown hotel workers should just commute to homes in affordable places like Sumner.
By taking time to publicly evaluate the Hollander-Marriott project, Council-members catapulted the Responsible Development debate into the public realm with the News Tribune and Tacoma Weekly editors assuming the voice of luxury developers and the hotel union (UNITE HERE) taking up the voice of Tacoma’s low-wage workers.
At this moment, the status of the Hollander-Marriott project moving forward is unclear after the developer threatened that without immediate City subsidy, the hotel would be in jeopardy. The upcoming Council agenda reveals that the developer’s urgent deadline may not have been credible as Hollander is back begging for the subsidy six-weeks later. Also unclear is whether this challenge signifies that the City Council plans to enforce "sustainable" economy standards that are undefined but flippantly claimed in the City’s subsidy application forms.
One thing is for sure, the property developer industry has taken note that residents and workers are demanding justice and challenging corporate welfare.
On one side is a developer representative lobbying for the unionized Murano Hotel: "the fact that Hollander continues to create an anti-union climate creates problems for all of us." On the other side is another developer representative JJ McCament barking that the downtown Marriott "turned out well" on behalf of low-wage paying Hollander. According to Mayor Baarsma, city residents and the workers at the downtown Marriott can only wish it turned out so well after Hollander-Marriott "went back on their word" to a living wage and labor harmony verbal agreement.
Word from the Thea Foss Waterway Authority is that Hollander intends to construct this next hotel paying living-wages and family healthcare and using union training programs for local construction workers . If enforceable, this would also be progress from when the City last gave an even bigger tax-dollar subsidy to Hollander to build the downtown Marriott hotel while Canadian workers were recruited to earn poverty-wages to build it. The downtown Marriott hotel continues to operate without providing affordable family healthcare and living wages to Tacoma workers. We hope that the developer will extend the living wage standard to the hotel workers at its new waterfront venture as well as its downtown venue.
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The Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) has recognized the Musicians union (AFM Local 76-493) and signed a first union contract after a successful community campaign. The three- year contract includes many AFM industry standards including fair hiring and dismissal processes; a hiring roster with right of first refusal; grievance and arbitration process; services definition; overtime; engaging musicians and wages.
The BPO also has new interim music and executive directors. JwJ activists might remember that the former BPO Executive Director was elected to receive the 2008 JwJ Scrooge [1] award during the organizing campaign for "creating a business where standing musicians are required to re-audition every year, where workers are kept from their right to organize, and compromising the future of the organization." Previous winners of the award have met an untimely demise, such as former Tacoma Macy's Store Manager Carol Lorton, former Tacoma City Councilmember Kevin Phelps, former Darigold CEO John Mueller, former US Senator Slade Gorton, former UW President Richard McCormick, and former Congressperson Newt Gingrich. Other winners have since grown a heart three times larger and have become responsible community leaders.
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We're asking that you join us in making a special contribution beyond your generous support of JwJ in the past . We have a tremendous opportunity to win some major battles in 2010 just when the economic downturn brings financial pinch to many of us.
While Washington State JwJ’s individual giving is stronger than ever due to the monthly sustainer program and we remain the largest JwJ organizational coalition in the nation, our overall fundraising has felt the pinch too.
If you’re not a monthly sustainer, please consider becoming one today, at whatever level you can afford; and if you’re already a sustainer, please consider increasing your monthly contribution. We need your financial support in whatever form to strengthen our capacity.
We are an almost all-volunteer organization, and have a small organizing expense budget. JwJ is a lean operation, with much of our office space and supplies donated.
Unlike many non-profits, we accomplish this with almost no funding outside of local individual supporters and member organizations. That independence gives us extra strength . We greatly appreciate your timely contribution so we can get back to committing more of our time to organizing and less time to fundraising.
While we celebrate these victories, we have much organizing before they are secure. We need our combined volunteer activism and funding to continue to build a better world.
Please support WA State JwJ!
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[1] Formerly known as the Grinch until Dr. Seuss Enterprises demanded Jobs with Justice stop using their trademarked word "Grinch" and image. Since Scrooge is a character over 200 years old, copyright and trademark issues have expired.
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