Mayor Greg Fischer explains the benefits and costs of building a Louisville city soccer stadium Astrid Hacker/CJ
A liberal-leaning labor group says Metro Council should further delay voting on the Louisville City FC soccer stadium project until team owners do more to ensure workers will be paid a livable wage.
The team's investors sent council members a letter Tuesday pledging that they will pay their employees at least $12 an hour. In addition, the soccer club says it will request that contractors pay their employees who are hired to work at the stadium $10 an hour.
Kentucky Jobs With Justice and other labor organizations are urging soccer team owners to establish a wage floor of $15 an hour for people who work at the stadium.
The group said Tuesday it is pleased to learn that the team is making those concessions, but that Louisville City FC's terms "fall far short on the key issues," that they have proposed.
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"We think there should be a delay until there are standards in place that make these jobs better," said Richard Becker, co-chair of Kentucky Jobs With Justice.
The council was originally set to vote on the bond and other resolutions on Oct. 12, but the vote was delayed until Thursday after critics said it was moving too quickly.
Mike Mountjoy, a member of the Louisville City FC ownership group, said Wednesday that a further delay to the council voting on the proposed $30 million bond to assist the stadium project is unacceptable.
"If we do, our options on the land run out, and it's over," Mountjoy said. "We need to do it or not, but if we delay it the project will end."
The federal and Kentucky minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. According to MIT, the "living wage" rate for a single adult in Louisville Metro is $10.49 an hour and $21.65 an hour for an adult with one child.
In 2014, Metro Council Democrats spearheaded a measure that would have boosted local wage rates to $9 an hour over three phases, but the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down that ordinance as unconstitutional last year.
Councilwoman Barbara Sexton Smith, whose district would include the soccer stadium, told the Courier-Journal it was wise that the council waited initially because it gave labor groups and the team time to talk about worker's rights. She said Louisville City FC has made an unprecedented concession on pay two rates above the minimum wage, and that a further delay on the bond issue isn’t warranted.
"We are standing on the horizon of a new day where workers in Louisville on this particular project will be paid a higher rate than they've ever been guaranteed before," said Sexton Smith, D-4th District.
"I understand folks always want more but this is a big step in the right direction," she added.
Louisville City FC released a study this month that estimates the stadium and surrounding development could generate $13 million a year in tax revenue and create roughly 2,500 jobs each year. It says the $185 million project in the Butchertown area could yield $1.8 billion in labor income and generate $261.4 million in state and local tax revenue over 20 years.
Jobs With Justice is also seeking to allow workers at the soccer stadium to start a union, and for the team to hire residents from ZIP codes with the highest levels of unemployment.
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The team's letter to the council doesn't address forming a union but does say a "percentage of jobs will be filled by residents... who reside in zip codes with the highest rates of unemployment." But labor organizations said the team's letter makes no real commitments or improvements to wages or working conditions.
"The wages proposed by Louisville City ownership would mean that many of the Louisvillians in these jobs would still not be able to make ends meet from week to week," Becker said.
Mountjoy said the team's investors have tried their best to address those concerns while moving the project forward.
"We've agreed to pay $12 an hour, which is far above the minimum wage to our employees, and we've agreed to ask any contractor to pay $10 an hour, which is also far above the minimum wage," he said.
Jobs With Justice is seeking a deal that mirrors a private agreement struck between owners of the NBA franchise Milwaukee Bucks and Wisconsin-based labor unions to pay workers at the team's new downtown arena $12 per hour this year, and at least $15 per hour by 2023.
Becker said that area employers are already hiring people to do food service and hospitality work at those wage rates. And because these jobs will not begin for at least another two years, the rising cost of living weakens the real value of the promised wages, he said.
But Mountjoy said a $15-an-hour wage rate is too much at this time, and that it is unfair to compare the Louisville City FC project to the NBA. In that situation, Wisconsin lawmakers forked over $250 million to help the Bucks build a new stadium.
"If the city was going to pay for half the stadium, it might be an issue but that's not the case," Mountjoy said.
Under the Louisville soccer deal, the city is proposing to use about $25 million to buy around 40 acres of land with the remaining $5 million going toward public infrastructure.
Mayor Greg Fischer's office has said that no local tax dollars will be used for the stadium's construction and that the team will repay the city $14.5 million from sales of land and stadium rent.
The mayor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the vote should be postponed again to reach a higher wage agreement.
Fischer’s office did announce Wednesday that the team came to an agreement with the Urban League to help recruit and train employees for construction work on the stadium.
The team will also provide the Urban League a 60-day notice on future jobs that are needed at the site. It will also pay the civil rights group $125,000 across two installments to fund the job training classes, said Brad Estes, who serves as the team's executive vice president.
Reporter Phillip M. Bailey can be reached at 502-582-4475 or firstname.lastname@example.org.