Miami Beach commissioners request more information on ‘labor peace’ agreement

Miami Beach commissioners balked at a proposed “labor peace” agreement in contracts to revamp the city’s convention center, sending it back to the city attorney’s office for clarification, the Miami Herald reported.

Two firms, led by developers Jack Portman of Atlanta and Dan Tishman of New York, are waiting for the city to decide the winner of the $1.2 billion project, which involves the convention center and developing a 52-acre parcel of public land around it.

Mayor Matti Herrera Bower said she feared the agreement could complicate a project already threatened by a public corruption investigation and by a petition led by a city commissioner, according to the Herald.

“It gives me a reason to believe that this is going to be a problem, and so I am afraid,” she told the newspaper.

Each team boasts internationally recognized architects and has proposed expansive plans for mixed-use space that includes retail, hospitality and public parks.

An attorney for one project pledged that the project’s convention center and some landscaping would be paid for by the city through hotel bed tax, while private developers would pay for the balance, including a hotel, retail area and landscaping.

A labor peace agreement typically would ask contractors at the completed convention center not to fight their employees’ efforts to unionize. Unions, in turn, would not picket, strike or otherwise campaign against their employer.

A labor peace agreement would ask contractors at the completed convention center not to fight their employees’ efforts to unionize. The unions, in turn, would not picket, strike or otherwise campaign against the employer. The agreement would not apply to construction work on the wider 52-acre district, the Herald said. [Miami Herald] –Emily Schmall