Edward “Eddie” Doyle had a quick first response when asked about the impact of federal stimulus funds on the building trades and construction industry in Westchester County.
He laughed. It was a drawn-out, telling laugh.
Doyle is president of the Westchester-Putnam Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO in Elmsford. The union locals within his umbrella organization have not seen an upsurge in jobs since New York state was allocated nearly $4 billion over the next two years for transportation and energy infrastructure projects through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA. For the first time in a decade, building trade officials here are seeing unemployment in their ranks and facing the prospect that substantially more union members will be out of work in 2010.
As did other labor leaders in Westchester last week, Doyle cited a $2.2 million project to rebuild the Odell Avenue bridge in Yonkers, for which Westchester County last spring was awarded its first federal recovery funds. “That”™s the only stimulus money I know that we got,” he said.
“I don”™t know what they”™re doing with the stimulus money. It was supposed to be shovel-ready projects, but I don”™t see that much money. It”™s very disappointing.”
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New York was awarded $1.12 billion in stimulus funds for highway and bridge projects, $392 million of which the state Department of Transportation was required to commit to shovel-ready projects by late June. Doyle questioned why no funds went for continued repairs to the Tappan Zee Bridge.
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Doyle said he and others in the construction industry have tried to get stimulus funds for the city of Yonkers project to replace the recently demolished Mulford Gardens public housing complex with mixed-income housing. “We can”™t get a dime,” he said. The private, $1.6 billion Struever Fidelco Cappelli L.L.C. redevelopment project proposed for downtown Yonkers also “can”™t get a dime” of stimulus funds, he said.
“Hopefully we”™re going to get some more of it, but I don”™t know. It doesn”™t sound good,” said Doyle.
At the Construction Industry Council of Westchester and Hudson Valley Inc., spokesman George Drapeau III said the state still has about $700 million in ARRA funds to spend on highway and bridge projects. “What we”™ve seen is probably the top one-third of the iceberg,” he said.
As for the federal recovery program”™s impact here, “The good barometer is the number of men in the union hall who are out of work,” said Drapeau.
At Local 137 of the International Union of Operating Engineers in Briarcliff Manor, 8 percent of the local”™s 1,200 active members are unemployed, business manager Nicholas A. Signorelli said last week. Until this year, “We had pretty near full employment since 1996,” he said.
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“Next year is going to be worse,” said Signorelli. “I”™ve got big projects that are going to be finishing up,” namely the I-287 reconstruction project, the private Ridge Hill Village development in Yonkers and the Catskill-Delaware Water Treatment Facility project in Valhalla. “Where am I going to put those guys?” Signorelli said he expects more than 300 operating engineers to be out of work next year, about one-fourth of the union”™s active ranks.
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The slow release of stimulus funds was a common complaint at a recent Northeast conference of operating engineers, Signorelli said. “I don”™t think anybody”™s getting the money unless it”™s approved by 10 different people.” With the possibilities for fraud in the nearly $800 billion federal program, “You can”™t blame them” for their caution, he said of program administrators.
Signorelli said passage of a bill in Congress that would put $555 billion in the U.S. Highway Trust Fund over five years was more urgently needed for the economy than stimulus funding. “That”™s what puts my people to work,” he said of the highway projects that appropriation would create.
At Local 60 of the Laborers International Union of North America in Hawthorne, business manager Carlo Ascencao said about 13 percent of the local”™s approximately 1,000 active members are unemployed. “For the last six to seven years, maybe 10 years, I would be fully employed by now,” he said,
With little federal money coming through, the impact of the stimulus program has been “not that great,” said Ascencao. Laborers, though, are still at work on last year”™s projects in Westchester such as I-287, Ridge Hill Village and the Valhalla water treatment plant.
“What I see right now is no new jobs coming out,” said Ascencao. “If we get that money from the stimulus package, we”™ll be in good shape for next year.”
