| Goodbye affordable rentals | Healey’s gas-hook decision | Still waiting for those T cars | About Contrarian Boston
A progressive failure? Wage theft legislation languishes on Beacon Hill
Running for governor, state Attorney General Maura Healey plays up her credentials as a “proud progressive” in a state where Dems have controlled Beacon Hill for generations.
So how it possible that legislation needed to launch an effective crackdown on wage theft by employers fails year after year to get over the legislative finish line?
As she runs for the corner office, it’s a legitimate question for Healey, who presumably will be touting her ability to get things done on Beacon Hill.
It has not been for lack of trying. Healey has argued since at least 2017 for additional powers to take on companies that stiff their employees, from contractors who rely on cheap labor from illegal immigrants to restaurant owners who make off with tips.
The state AG would be able to take companies directly to court to recover lost or stolen wages, while also having the power to shut down work sites until companies cough up the cash, under various bills filed over the years.
Healey has clearly done her best to make do with the laws currently on the books, with her office touting the $2 million in restitution and penalties on the construction industry.
But that’s a drop in the bucket given the scale of problem, with anywhere from $700 million to $1 billion each year in wages siphoned off by unscrupulous employers.
For his part, Quentin Palfrey, a former assistant AG who is now running to fill Healey’s shoes, took up the cause in a recent post on Medium.
Left unmentioned, though, was the whole back story, and the years of so far fruitless efforts by Healey to get wage theft legislation passed.
Healey hands developers major win in gas-hook fight
Speaking of AG Maura Healey, here’s an interesting story, via the BBJ’s Greg Ryan (sub. required): “Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s office on Friday struck down the town of Brookline’s plan to restrict the use of gas and other fossil fuel hookups in new buildings, handing a victory to development groups that opposed the limits.”
It’s an impressive ruling by Healey, who could easily have sided with the locals in Brookline and in other towns where they’re looking at similar bans. Supporting the ban would also have pleased more than a few environmental activists as Healey runs for governor this year.
But she didn’t take the politically easy path – and stuck to her guns that towns don’t have the authority to slap restrictions on building materials and construction methods.
Endangered species: Apartments with low rents
The number of apartments renting for less than $600 a month plunged 17 percent in Massachusetts over the 2010s, according to a new report out of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Nationally, the number of apartments that low-income families can actually afford dropped by nearly four million due to a combination of landlords raising rents, condo conversions or “outright demolition,” the report states.
On a neighborhood level, the change has been even more dramatic.
Back in 2000, the percentage of neighborhoods affordable to the median renter across Massachusetts ranged from 50 to over 75 percent.
The exception was Boston, where it dropped into the range of 25 to 50 percent.
Two decades later, just 10 to 25 percent of all neighborhoods across much of Eastern Massachusetts are affordable for the median renter.
And without a lot more construction, it will only get worse.
New T cars: Another blown deadline looms
It’s nearly a decade in, and we are still waiting for those long-promised new Red and Orange Line cars.
Opening a Springfield factory in 2014, Chinese-owned CRRC landed contracts worth more than $900 million to build 372 Red and 152 Orange Line cars.
Gov. Deval Patrick, whose administration inked the deal with CRRC, talked up the potential for boosting Springfield and Western Massachusetts with an infusion of manufacturing jobs.
Let’s just say things didn’t quite go according to plan.
To date, the government-owned enterprise has delivered only 60 Orange and eight Red Line cars, Masslive reports.
Complicating matters, one of those new Orange Line cars derailed in last March. That accident uncovered issues with the undercarriage design, requiring an expensive fix for all the cars.
And the deadline for delivering those cars? Well, that’s just around the corner.
CRRC in theory is supposed to roll out the remainder of the Orange Line cars this year, while CRRC has until 2024 to finish building hundreds of Red Line cars.
Let’s just say we are not holding our breath here.
Quick Hit:
Hmmm. The Herald’s Howie Carr is channeling Donald Trump again: “Springtime for Putin, winter for Ukraine and NATO.” But wait. So is some guy named David Marton at Planet Concerns, with a piece with the exact same headline and opening line and … We’ve lost track of who’s channeling whom.
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple weeks asking what Contrarian Boston is about.
Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.
For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.
An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.
Our focus is:
· Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;
· Economic growth and business, especially real estate, housing and new development projects;
· The media and why it does what it does;
· Education, from school board spats to the doings of multibillion-dollar university endowments;
· And whatever else catches our fancy.