A major Philly union is negotiating with the 76ers development team over hundreds of promised jobs

The union that represents food service workers at the Wells Fargo Center is negotiating with the 76ers over the basketball franchise’s proposal to build a new arena in Center City, saying that the plan would primarily create part-time jobs that won’t sustain families if the team doesn’t do more to create permanent full-time positions.

“Just pulling 41 [basketball] games out of South Philly and putting them into Center City — all that does is create more poverty jobs,” UNITE HERE Local 274 president Rosslyn Wuchinich said. “This could be a step backwards.”

In promoting the project, the 76ers’ development team has touted the endorsement of Philadelphia’s influential building trades unions, which stand to get work if the team-estimated $1.55 billion arena gets built at 10th and Market Streets. But less attention has been paid to the preferences of the unions that represent most of the workers who would be employed in a new arena once it is built.

» READ MORE: The powerful Philly building trades are backing City Council candidates based on the proposed Sixers arena

Wuchinich’s politically influential union includes hundreds of workers at the Wells Fargo Center and would likely represent the largest negotiating unit in the new facility, which the team hopes to open in 2031. While it’s too soon to say which unions will get work if a new arena is built, there are more than a dozen locals at the Wells Fargo Center, and their stances on the 76ers’ proposal are mixed.

For instance, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776, which represents custodial workers at the Wells Fargo Center, opposes the project, while Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union supports of it.

David Adelman, the 76ers co-owner and lead developer, recently said the facility would create 9,000 temporary jobs and 1,000 permanent ones. But the quality of those permanent jobs has not yet been a focus of the debate, and it could become a bigger issue next year as the team seeks approval from City Council and the next mayor.

Nicole Gainer, a spokesperson for the 76ers’ development arm, said the team has had “productive conversations with UNITE HERE.”

“We have already committed to UNITE HERE that we will reserve the food service jobs for their members,” she said in a statement. “We hear and understand UNITE HERE’S priorities and are committed to reaching an agreement that provides family-sustaining careers for their members.”

» READ MORE: The future of a new Sixers arena shifts to City Hall after a year of contention

Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker and many members of Council often speak about the need to create jobs that pay enough to sustain a family. Parker hasn’t committed to supporting the arena, but she has spoken positively about its potential to “grow generational wealth and Black and brown communities” and put “Philadelphians on a path to self-sufficiency.”

But for UNITE HERE, it’s far from clear the arena would be able to do that for workers who aren’t in construction.

The key factor for UNITE HERE is that the construction of a new 76ers arena in Center City could undo some of the progress the union made when it recently secured an agreement that allows its members in the South Philly stadium complex to work across multiple venues. Wuchinich said that deal transformed part-time seasonal jobs at separate facilities into good-paying year-round work between two or three venues.

The union first won this right in negotiations with Aramark for its Citizens Bank Park contract in 2016 and then cemented it in its Wells Fargo Center deal in 2018. (There didn’t need to be an agreement for work at Lincoln Financial Field because there are so few Eagles home games that the facility already tended to pull employees from other facilities to fill out its staff.)

That arrangement is less likely to work out if the 76ers move to Center City, primarily because part of the team’s motivation is to be able to host basketball games or concerts on the same nights that there are Flyers games or other shows at the Wells Fargo Center, union leaders say.

UNITE HERE is seeking a written agreement with the 76ers and its developers with promises to create other high-quality year-round union jobs — either at non-arena opportunities related to the project, such as street-facing restaurants in the facility, or at other properties owned by the developers — before it decides whether to endorse the plan.

“The jobs that they want to talk to us about are the seasonal jobs. They’re the jobs we’ve spent a decade trying to get rid of. So we’re asking: What other jobs are you creating?” Wuchinich said.

The development team has promised it will require the company it hires to provide concessions to give UNITE HERE a streamlined process for organizing its workers in the arena. But it’s still negotiating with the union about its demands to create additional full-time jobs.

“We have additional details that we are working through and look forward to continued dialogue as we work toward an agreement,” Gainer said.

There are 1,900 union workers who are employed directly for the Wells Fargo Center, and they are represented by 12 different unions. That includes eight locals of the trades unions that each have a relatively small number of permanent jobs at the facility.

Another 660 workers in the arena, mostly in service jobs such as food concessions, are employed by Aramark. Most of them are represented by UNITE HERE, although SEIU has a small number as well. The 76ers don’t plan to open the new arena until 2031, after its lease with the Wells Fargo Center expires, so it’s not clear whether Aramark or another company will be the vendor for concessions

UNITE HERE’s primary concern when it comes to the arena proposal is to preserve or expand high-quality jobs for its members. But for unions that have comparatively few jobs in play, the arena is part of a broader conversation.

SEIU Local 32BJ, for instance, represents tens of thousands of service workers in Center City office buildings. For union vice president Gabe Morgan, the 76ers’ proposal therefore is less attractive as a source of new positions for his union than it is as an opportunity to revitalize East Market Street and bolster the downtown economy.

“We have to rebuild Center City, and it’s got to be rebuilt in a way that creates as many working-class jobs as possible,” Morgan said. “Building an arena on East Market Street, the most distressed part of Center City, is really important. ... We want to see a much bigger effort in Center City to figure out how to do projects that bring even more commerce.”

On the other hand, while UFCW Local 1776 president Wendell Young IV has some concerns about a new arena’s impact on his members, he’s primarily concerned about the project’s potential impacts on the city overall, such as creating congestion downtown or displacing businesses and residents in Philly’s vibrant Chinatown, which neighbors the proposed site.

If a new arena has to be built, Young said he would prefer it be constructed in the existing stadium complex or on the Delaware River waterfront where it wouldn’t disrupt existing communities.

“I would like to keep our work intact, and if our work is going to move, we want to follow it wherever that is,” Young said. “However, I don’t think it’s a good idea. There’s going to be huge huge costs to building that facility.”