From hostessing at Barclays Center (and relying on food stamps) to earning a solid union construction wage (plus: an Atlantic Yards CBA cameo)

An 11/12/20 CNBC article, On the job: What it takes to earn $100,000 a year as an ironworker in New York, profiles Brooklyn native Memesha Davis, a structural ironworker, who finds that this union career can earn her a solid income:

In 2015, Davis was a hostess at the Barclays Center's 40/40 Club and was also working at her aunt's restaurant. She says her hours were limited and inconsistent, and without benefits, she relied on Medicaid and food stamps to support her family.

"The year that I was working at the Barclays Center and with my aunt, I made maybe $13,000 for the year," she says. "At the time, my son was 6, my daughter was 7. Raising kids on that budget was painful because there will be times where they just want something that costs a dollar, but a dollar was like a stretch."

That's a reminder that, however appreciated arena jobs might be, most are part-time--later in the article Davis said $15/hour, 8 hours/week--and must be coupled with other part-time and even full-time jobs to cobble together a living.

A pathway to construction work for women

Interestingly, Davis came to construction work via "Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW) — a New York-based organization that prepares, trains and places women in careers in skilled construction, utility and maintenance trades," as reported by CNBC.

NEW was among the entities that spoke in support of Atlantic Yards at various public hearings.

And NEW's pre-apprentice training program was one of the pathways announced in October 2005 as part of a city initiative to have the City's Building and Construction Trades Council make "an unprecedented commitment to reserve over 40% of the slots in their apprenticeship programs by the year 2010 for veterans, women, high school graduates, and economically disadvantaged New Yorkers."

And that's part of why, as I wrote in July 2014, the much anticipated and highly competitive PATP from Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) signatory BUILD ran aground, as original developer Forest City Ratner funded a program that would not feed union apprenticeship programs but rather other PATPs.