The opinions of labor leaders toward smart growth are changing. In 1998 environmental groups in the San Diego area were promoting a ballot initiative designed to discourage residential development of rural lands in the outer parts of the region and preserve them for agricultural use. Proponents of Proposition B had difficulty gaining support, and the measure went down to defeat. Six years later, smart growth groups got a similar measure, known as the Rural Lands Initiative, onto the ballot. Many of the same opponents (landowners, developers, et al.) lined up to oppose the measure, but a new supporter emerged: organized labor.

The San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council issued a strong endorsement of the measure, saying it would help focus development in areas that already had infrastructure. Jerry Butkiewicz, Secretary-Treasurer of the Council, told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2004 that his group was convinced that "bringing the jobs back to town is critical to our membership," adding that the ballot initiative would help "stop the urban sprawl, which is killing us."

Despite support from the Labor Council, the ballot measure failed. Yet the decision of organized labor in San Diego to endorse an aggressive growth-management measure was one of the clearest indications of a dramatic change in the attitude of unions toward the smart growth movement.

It used to be that unions were strongly resistant to almost any initiative that could be characterized as smart growth. Labor leaders--especially in the construction field--felt that smart growth policies were essentially no-growth policies that would discourage development and thus reduce employment opportunities for union members. This attitude was still apparent in 2000, when state labor federations in Arizona and Colorado opposed growth-management initiatives out of concern that the measures would destroy jobs.

That same year, however, there were signs that unions were beginning to see that their self-interest might not be best served by unrestrained development. The Chicago Federation of Labor held the first conference focusing on the ways sprawl undermined unions. Northern California's Contra Costa County Central Labor Council and the county's Building Trades Council began working closely with environmental groups on policies such as urban growth boundaries. The two labor councils, together with the Cleveland Federation of Labor, submitted an anti-sprawl resolution to the national AFL-CIO convention in 2001, where it passed without dissent. Since then, the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO has passed a similar resolution, as has the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

If you are interested in reading more about relating smart growth to labor leaders, see Talking to Union Leaders About Smart Growth. Also see Labor Leaders as Smart Growth Advocates.

Good Jobs First contributed to this movement in part by publishing a report in November 2003 called The Jobs Are Back in Town, which challenged the conventional wisdom on smart growth and job creation. We found compelling evidence that smart growth-oriented development--higher-density, mixed used projects, especially those involving building rehab--actually created more jobs for construction workers than low-density, sprawling projects in the suburbs.

We have also helped to point out that the traditional policies of some unions could be seen as part of a broadly defined smart growth movement. Examples include the longstanding efforts of the United Food & Commercial Workers to slow the spread of sprawling big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart and the strong support for public transportation demonstrated by the Amalgamated Transit Union.

More and more unions are coming to appreciate how their own self-interest is served by smart growth and harmed by sprawl. Public sector unions are recognizing how the thinning of cities hurts their members. Teachers, for example, see how the erosion of the tax base in older areas creates fiscal stress that exacerbates school overcrowding and puts downward pressure on teacher salaries. They and other public employees understand that the loss of tax base means deferred infrastructure maintenance, reduced social services, longer emergency response times, and pressure to privatize government services--all of which are bad for communities as well as for the job security of public workers.

Healthcare unions are recognizing that thinned-out cities tend to close down hospitals, which restricts access to medical care and eliminates unionized jobs. Manufacturing unions have watched as whole industries have pursued deliberate strategies of dispersing themselves geographically, both to rural areas in industrial states and to less-developed "right to work" states like Alabama.

Sprawl Also Erodes Union Density
The broader message that is spreading in union circles is that sprawl reduces not only population density but union density as well. This was apparent in the research that Good Jobs First prepared for the 2000 conference of the Chicago Federation of Labor mentioned above. It showed that the fringe areas with the highest rates of growth were also the areas with the lowest rate of unionization.

In our Jobs are Back in Town report, we compared data on construction union density in different cities to measures of sprawl contained in a 2002 report published by Smart Growth America. Aside from a few anomalous cases, the areas with the highest levels of construction union density--for example, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York City, and Philadelphia--tended to be ones with lower rates of sprawl.

To be precise, it is difficult to prove that sprawl by itself causes a reduction in union density, given how many other factors (union-busting, globalization, etc.) are present. Yet it seems apparent that low-density, sprawling suburbs are an environment much less hospitable to unions than established urban communities.

The weakening of unions that seems to go along with sprawl has harmful consequences not only for organized labor but for the labor force as a whole. Union strength is the single most important factor in determining wage rates and the quality of healthcare coverage and other employee benefits. Union members themselves obviously benefit the most from labor success at the bargaining table, but what is not usually acknowledged is that non-union workers benefit as well, given that many of their employers tend to match union wage and benefit levels to stay competitive.

Organized labor and the smart growth movement are increasingly acting in concert to promote their mutual interests. Working together, they can ensure that healthier communities and economic justice go hand in hand.