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Capital Metro board strengthens worker protections on TOD projects

Tuesday, August 23, 2016 by Caleb Pritchard

The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority scored praise on Monday from a group that earlier this year had organized a protest outside the agency’s headquarters. The board of directors unanimously adopted a policy that will ensure generous worker protections at future transit-oriented development projects. The protections align with the Workers Defense Project’s Better Builder Program, which coincidentally also got a shout-out from the Department of Labor on Monday. The program’s standards include providing workers with a living wage, workers compensation insurance, federally approved safety training and independent on-site monitoring. The new policy goes further than the agreement Capital Metro struck earlier this year with Endeavor Real Estate Group, the agency’s partner on the Plaza Saltillo development. The WDP had been critical of that accord and its weakened provisions for on-site monitoring. However, the group’s Bo Delp was at Monday’s board meeting to praise the adoption of the new policy, which will apply to projects at, among others, MetroRail’s Leander and Lakeline stations, the North Lamar Transit Center and the Tech Ridge Park and Ride. Delp said he was “extraordinarily excited” about the board’s approval of the policy.

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