I saw a heartbreaking statistic over the weekend: in the latest Camden primaries, turnout was just 3.4% (according to a report by Camden Churches Organized for People). This speaks to a conversation I’ve been having with more and more residents of the city (and activists outside it as well) about the challenges of organizing here. This week I want to explore that idea with a few posts, this one on CBAs, and later in the week with a post on education. The heart of both posts is this — organizing is most effective when there is a clear problem, a clear action, and visible successes. The embedded nature of Camden’s struggles, particularly the lack of a government structure that empowers residents, makes this virtually impossible. Too often, even resident and activist successes are co-opted. For those working so hard for change, this is demoralizing. And that’s what happening now: community groups have finally put CBAs center stage in Camden, only to have their own mayoral administration exclude them from these negotiations. 

First, a little background: Throughout the country, CBAs are tools used to ensure that development is fair and favorable towards residents. They can deal with minor issues, such as parking or clean-up, with development-specific issues such as guaranteed minority hiring or sourcing, or wider city issues, such as contributing to a community foundation. But they only come about when the community has leverage — what makes CBAs different than Corporate Social Responsibility is that the driving motivator is not making the company look good, it’s that community has control over some part of the development process. 

Normally, this comes about because a government entity chooses to cede such power to a community. Maybe it’s the zoning board, which won’t waive a requirement without community support. Maybe it’s a historical preservation commission, which requires community input. Maybe it’s a mayoral office that requires community input before giving permits. This can be a controversial technique — it often leads to delays — but it’s one of the few ways that community members end up with leverage over a development process which includes few incentives for being community friendly. 

The process can still break down, and CBAs aren’t perfect tools — it’s unclear what happens when they’re broken (the best CBAs include provisions that insist on reporting that CBA conditions are met, and layout the process for mediation if they are broken). They assume the best way to address challenges in development is by trying to get a slice of the pie (not oppose development entirely). And they are often adversarial, with the potential to scare off development. But, for a variety of reasons, quite a few activists and residents here in the city have decided they’re needed. 

And, though the build-up has taken years, CBAs are finally having their moment in the sun. Ray Lamboy, the CEO of the Latin American Economic Development Association wrote an op-ed in the Courier-Post. Sean Brown highlighted the idea at Media Mobilizing. And more importantly, the idea is becoming trendy in development discussions in the city. The school district had a press event to announce their (very flawed) CBAs. Liberty Property Trust promised a CBA after sharp criticism that they used racial language in a meeting with community about their waterfront development. 

Now it seems like not a day passes by without a glowing article about a company promising to include a CBA in their development.

Here’s a line from a recent article by Kevin Riordan on Holtec: 

“Dr. Singh has a strong commitment to local hires and local sourcing [of services],” says Mayor Dana L. Redd.

The city is negotiating community benefits agreements with the major partners in projects, she says.

Here’s a similar line from the Allison Steele’s reporting on the Liberty Property Trust development: 

Gattuso said Liberty is working on finalizing a community benefits agreement with city leaders, and Liberty CEO William Hankowsky has said the company would work with the city on training and hiring Camden residents. The project is expected to bring thousands of construction jobs and 4,000 permanent jobs to the city of 77,000, where the unemployment rate has spiked to three times the national average in recent years.

So, mission accomplished, right? Since the Economic Opportunity Act passed, local groups have been trying to become more involved, and now Community Benefit Agreements have become an entrenched part of the discussion. This is a huge deal for those have pushed so hard for Community Benefit Agreements. 

But look closer: community benefit agreement with city leaders / the city is negotiating community benefits agreements. Yes, that’s right — the city has taken over this process. And if the city showed any intent to cede leverage or power to communities, this would probably be ok. But they haven’t, and won’t. There have been no public meetings about these agreements. The only neighborhood group with enough cache to get a meeting on their own (Cooper Grant — Camden’s whitest neighborhood, make of that what you will) has since been locked out of the process and unable to get a follow-up. 

This is why organizing is so hard in Camden. Community groups work, literally for years, to try to get companies to consider community benefit agreements. And right when they do, these community groups learn that they have a second systematic challenge to address — that the city’s dependency on the state (and the entrenched nature of its elected officials) means city hall is more likely to negotiate on the side of companies than on the side of communities. And suddenly, these activists who have spent so much time ensuring that they get something from the billions of tax subsidies going to private corporations, are back on the outside of the negotiations. 

Now, this isn’t a post to bash the administration. They have a tough job — they don’t want to scare away investment, and are prone to losses in state support if it doesn’t appear that they’re supporting development that could potentially help the city’s finances. But, it points to a systemic issue — in another city, on another issue, a win for activists like this would mean movement. Here it means that companies coming to the city can have their cake and eat it to. They can announce CBAs, giving the impression they are negotiating with communities, while the mayoral administration locks those communities out of the negotiations, and developers/companies can comfortably negotiate an agreement with the city and not give anything up. 

And maybe, in Camden, this is progress. Maybe just getting CBAs into the public eye is a success. Maybe these Corporate Social Responsibility documents, designed to make companies look good without really having to give anything up, are better than nothing. But for the Camden residents who wanted, and fought for, more, it’s a tough pill to swallow. It’s not enough to bring companies and developers to the table when your own mayoral administration won’t even allow you table scraps. 

In Camden, there’s always another mountain to climb before the change really happens, and always another politician willing to capitulate to keep community from the table.