The Battle for Austin's Soul: the fight against White Lodging

We all know Austin is going to grow significantly in our lifetimes. The real question is whether everyone's boat will rise together, or if the city will grow on the backs of the most vulnerable people among us. The best way to ensure a fair result for everyone will be policies supporting prevailing wage, affordable housing, public health, etc.

On August 8, 2013, we saw the culmination of an 8 month conflict with developer White Lodging. (Background: Hotel Hypocrite: Developer wants to cancel wage agreement but keep incentives, Austin Chronicle (Mar. 8, 2013)).  The fight over White Lodging was important because it helps build a precedent supporting a just city policy on development.

In 2011, the City of Austin promised developer White Lodging $3.8 mil in tax incentives on a project to build a giant hotel downtown in return for White Lodging's promise to pay its construction workers prevailing wage.  White Lodging took the money but decided to pay market rate wages instead. After it was caught, it asked the City Council to rewrite the ordinance to let it keep the tax incentive without paying prevailing wage.

Worker advocates won the day, 0-7. See Council decides to uphold White Lodging agreement, KVUE (Aug. 9, 2013).

The discussion on Agenda Item 11 dealt with White Lodging.  The full video can be found here: http://austintx.swagit.com/play/08082013-523/#35

 I excerpted my quick words to the Council and uploaded them here:

The Workers Defense Project and Austin Interfaith organized rally and march outside of City Hall earlier in the evening.  It was pretty inspiring.  I posted some photos on Facebook.  I should have taken a video to really capture it.