After decades of relative peace, a labor war between New York’s construction unions and real estate developers has broken out.
There are daily picket lines in front of a site at Hudson Yards on the Far West Side of Manhattan, where construction of a $4 billion office tower is just getting underway. Anti-union ads are showing up in the subways and in the newspapers targeting “union boss Gary LaBarbera.” In the courts, the two sides have traded lawsuits and complaints claiming corruption and unfair labor practices.

More recently, construction unions have come under attack more broadly, with critics like the Regional Plan Association and Citizens Budget Commission criticizing union agreements in the public sector for driving up the cost of subway construction and work at the city’s housing authority. Union leaders say the criticism is unfair and blame poor decision-making by management and an unwieldy bureaucracy.