Mayor Michael Bloomberg highlighted the 2,000 jobs created by the Barclays Center in his State of the City speech yesterday, but the bulk of these positions are part-time and without benefits, DNAinfo reported. In fact, only 100 are full-time. However, most Barclays Center employees are union members of SEIU 32BJ, according to Forest City Ratner spokesperson Ashley Cotton. “There are no health benefits because they’re part-time employees,” Cotton told DNAinfo. “However, we feel, and hopefully they do too, that there’s a benefit to being part of a union.”
Broken down, roughly 200 workers are on the housekeeping staff, 800 are in facilities management and 900 work for Levy Restaurants, which handles concessions.
In the State of the City address, the mayor noted that about 30 percent of the center’s employees live in public housing. Overall, 75 percent of total employees are Brooklyn residents. [DNAinfo] —Zachary Kussin