Gary LaBarbera

Gary LaBarbera has had a busy year.

The New York State budget that passed in April 2024 had been monopolizing much of his time as two labor organizations that he leads — the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council — were busy trying to get the best deal for members in terms of prevailing wage and utilization of project labor agreements.

“We’ve made progress on labor standards in housing, which is something that is very important to us, and we’ve been really focused a great deal on renewables,” LaBarbera said. “We have a lot of very significant projects coming our way such as the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal,” a project whose partners include ​the New York City Economic Development Corporation and Equinor.

This facility in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, will help the city reach its climate resiliency goals by creating one of the largest offshore wind port facilities in the nation. Other government projects the labor groups are getting involved in include the redevelopment of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown, which will turn the transit hub into a retail- and office-oriented destination in and of itself.

“Our goal is to make sure these are covered under project labor agreements, which creates opportunities and pathways into the middle class,” LaBarbera said. 

The Gateway rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey is another project that the groups have been stakeholders in, with boring beneath the Hudson River still pending, but $7 billion in federal funds available for the construction effort.

Most significant for LaBarbera was an agreement in March 2024 between ​​Mayor Eric Adams, Cirrus Workforce Housing Advisors and the trades council of Greater New York to raise $400 million for multifamily workforce housing development and redevelopment projects across the city through a subsidized housing program. LaBarbera’s organization plans to have the housing built using union labor, and those homes, however many there ultimately are, will be affordable for its members.