Philly: Developers try splitting working class with 76 Place arena bid

'Chinatown is not for sale.' | Shay Pilot / People's World

PHILADELPHIA—Following a mass demonstration organized by the Save Chinatown Coalition against the proposed 76 Place arena, Philly Mayor Cherelle Parker called a last minute public meeting at the Pennsylvania Convention Center Sept. 11, to supposedly hear from every stakeholder involved.

A week later, the Mayor’s Office officially endorsed the arena, to great outcry from civic groups and residents. Here is a rundown of the meeting that led up to that decision.

Present at the listening session were nearly a thousand Philadelphians aligned with the goals of the Save Chinatown Coalition. At one point, a line of attendees in white-and-red shirts emblematic of the cause extended two city blocks out the door.

The usual suits were also present at the meeting, representatives of HB Sports and Entertainment, JMT Consultants, and of course the 76’ers corporate body.

A notable inclusion to the town hall, and a voice underrepresented so far in the arena conversation, were dozens of union members from across the construction and maintenance trades.

The Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council represents 29 labor unions working in and around the city. Among their member unions present at the meeting were IBEW Local #98, Sheet Metal Workers (tin knockers) Local #19, and SEIU 32BJ. The position of the Trades Council was overwhelmingly in support of the arena, arguing that hundreds of good-paying union jobs would result from its construction.

Philadelphia is a union town, and while organized labor has considerable sway in local politics, union members are often put in the difficult position of having to support controversial and unpopular building proposals simply to provide for themselves and their families.

After many months of hearing platitudes from the billionaires, a material concern arising from Philadelphia’s organized working class—well-paid union jobs—seems to be on the verge of being delivered.

But that potential payoff could come at the expense of the working people of Chinatown, the poorest neighborhood in Philadelphia’s Center City. Even the city’s own economic impact report, put together by hired consultants and presented at the town hall, predicts that 50% of Chinatown businesses would be negatively affected by the arena, with effects on an additional 30% of businesses undetermined.

This is of course doesn’t even account for the economic impact on renters and workers. While the Chamber of Commerce and local bankers of Chinatown suggested they might be able to tolerate the arena for the right price, working people, residents, churches, and even the Chinatown Development Corporation have repeatedly expressed their fear and frustration of the consequences of the 76ers Place project.

What participants witnessed at Mayor Parker’s meeting was the latest iteration of a conflict old and enduring: the pitting of one segment of the working class against another for the benefit of the bosses and capital.

Capitalists often use their economic influence to bribe or blackmail local governments into compliance, such as the shameful national scramble to appease Amazon and win the competition for their second headquarters, Amazon “HQ2.”

Sports franchises, however, are in a particularly powerful position to do this. When the city of Oakland decided not to play ball with the Raiders’ new publicly subsidized stadium proposal, the bosses simply took that ball and went to a new home in Las Vegas. The hapless Athletics baseball team are following them there.

Similar threats now surround the 76ers, with suggestions of a move to New Jersey. But while some teams may be perfectly fungible from one location to the next, everything from the name, to the symbols, to the local devotion to the team, make the Sixers quintessentially Philadelphian. They’ll be strangers in any other part of the country.

While 76 Place may be just the latest toy in the hands of the billionaires, it presents considerable challenges to the working class of this city. Fortunately, some solutions remain.

In the short term, a proposal put forth by Comcast Spectacor could entice the 76ers to remain in South Philadelphia’s Stadium District. The plan, currently costed at $2.5 billion, would bring commercial, residential, and office space to the current sea of surface parking.

In short, the proposal would bring the city down to the stadiums, rather than a stadium into the city. In conjunction with 76 Place, the project would provide thousands of union jobs during construction and for the life of the structures. This solution offers more jobs for organized workers and relief for the already hemmed-in residents of Chinatown.

But the working people of Philadelphia cannot expect one clique of international financiers to save them from another. Indeed, we must reject their false choice between economic deprivation or cultural destruction. The tradespeople of Philadelphia find their natural allies in the workers and residents of Chinatown. Their shared interest is economic and political self-determination, apart from the extractive wants of their bosses.

In an ideal situation, a racially diverse union body would think twice before endorsing a project as destructive as 76 Place and instead put its efforts toward winning those projects befitting the dignity of skilled tradespeople. Chinatown, with the full support of organized labor, could rebuild the space lost to I-676, the Pennsylvania Convention Center, and the Gallery, while staving off this latest threat.

The forces pushing 76 Place are working hard to prevent working people from uniting around such alternatives and instead leave them in the perpetual hostage situations created by finance capitalists.

Hopefully, this wedge dividing Philadelphia will crumble. Let the workers of Philadelphia discover what they have to gain in solidarity. Let Chinatown prosper another 100 years. And let the Sixers make it back to the playoffs, in beautiful South Philadelphia.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Shay Pilot