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Unions press for prevailing wage, apprenticeship and protections to ensure housing production benefits workers
Summary
Labor leaders told the Joint Committee on Housing that expanding housing production must include labor standards — prevailing wage, registered apprenticeships and anti-wage‑theft measures — so construction jobs translate into living standards and housing security for workers.
Leaders of the Massachusetts AFL‑CIO, the Building Trades and SEIU 1199 told the Joint Committee on Housing that housing policy should be paired with labor protections so that new housing does not come at the expense of workers’ wages and living conditions.
Chrissy Lynch, president of the Massachusetts AFL‑CIO, urged rent stabilization as a near-term protection for tenants and said construction workers must not be priced out of the state: "The worst thing we could do to the housing crisis right now would be to scale up our housing production, but leave workers building it without housing themselves." Lynch also described the labor movement’s Housing Investment Trust which deploys pension capital to build housing with union labor.
Frank Callahan, president of the Massachusetts Building Trades, called attention to wage theft and the need for prevailing wage and registered-apprenticeship requirements on public investments and incentivized projects. Callahan said the industry needs steady training pipelines and work on projects that pay living wages. Carrie Medina of SEIU 1199 described health-care workers paying 50–70% of take-home pay in rent and urged lifting the statutory ban on local rent stabilization so municipalities could use the tool.
Speakers urged the committee to attach labor standards to publicly funded or incentivized housing projects and to use state procurement and incentive structures to expand apprenticeship slots and high-road contracting.
