Labor Unions Back New Affordable Housing Initiative

It's no secret that the cost of housing in Maine is out of control. The median price of homes in Maine skyrocketed more than 50 percent between 2020 and 2024, while wages grew by only 33 percent, according to MaineHousing. At the same time, developers often use tax breaks and economic incentives for affordable housing to hire non-union contractors in an industry rife with labor exploitation and low pay.

The newly launched New England Labor Housing Initiative seeks to work with the labor movement in the region to address the housing and homelessness crises. The Initiative is led by Dr. Jason Moyer-Lee, a former Director of Labor Standards at the Maine Department of Labor and a long-time labor activist. The organization seeks to bring together workers to address homelessness and fight for affordable housing by acting as a "convener, incubator, resource hub" for pro-labor housing initiatives.

“Labor unions provide the best representation working people can get,” said Dr. Jason Moyer-Lee, the Initiative’s Director. “If the unions can play a more muscular role in solving the housing and homelessness catastrophes, everyone will benefit. I look forward to working with them to do just that.”

The New England Labor Housing Initiative's is currently working with unions and homeless shelters to develop training programs to offer people experiencing homelessness a path to careers in union construction trades. The organization will also be working with labor unions to develop policy proposals based on what the labor movement is already doing around the country to address housing issues. In addition, it is working with national labor organizations to pressure public sector pension funds to invest more in affordable housing. Moyer-Lee noted that because union construction contractors have such a small market share in residential construction that it ends up being built low-paid non-union labor.

"The residential industry is notorious for labor law violations. When I was the Director of Labor Standards, construction was one of our top concerns," he said. "There’s this irony of trying to build housing for people and to alleviate poverty and you’re doing it with exploitative labor some of the time."

The New England Labor Housing Initiative will be partnering with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Labor Center for some of its work, and Dr. Moyer-Lee has been appointed a Labor Housing Fellow at the Labor Center as part of this arrangement.
 

The group takes its inspiration from the work of Catherine Bauer Wurster, who led the AFL Labor Housing Conference’s push for social housing as well as various unions that sponsored cooperative housing in New York City during the mid-20th century. More recently, the AFL-CIO’s Housing Investment Trust uses union pension dollars to fund union-built housing, unions following the Bargaining for the Common Good model have allied with community groups to address housing and homelessness, and organized helped push through a major affordable housing initiative in Los Angeles.

A number of labor officials  have  declared support for the initiative, including  leaders from the Maine AFL-CIO, Maine Labor Climate Council, the Western Maine Labor Council, the Central Maine Labor Council, the Building Trades, the Southern Maine Labor Council, MSEA-SEIU, the Ironworkers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Carpenters’ union. Matt Schlobohm, Executive Director of the Maine AFL-CIO and Jason Shedlock, President of the Maine State Building & Construction Trades Council, serve on the Initiative’s Advisory Board.

“The New England Labor Housing Initiative is arriving at the right place at the right time,” said Cynthia Phinney, President of the Maine AFL-CIO. “New England’s housing crisis is severe and labor unions must be part of the solution. We look forward to working with the Initiative to find pro-worker solutions to the crisis.”