On February 23, nearly one hundred members of Local 79 rallied at City Hall Park alongside hundreds of members of Real Affordability for All (RAFA), a broad-based coalition that is opposed to Mayor de Blasio’s affordable housing plan. Numerous speakers, including Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council, protested the Mayor’s plan to rezone a number of neighborhoods in New York. His plan, which includes a provision called Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), contains no assurances that the affordable housing will be built union. At the same time, lower-income residents of the neighborhoods that are proposed for rezoning will not meet the income qualifications for the affordable housing and will likely be driven out of their neighborhoods due to the increased rents that typically accompany rezoning. “The Mayor’s affordable housing plan is deeply flawed,” said Local 79 Director of Organizing Chaz Rynkiewicz. “I urge everyone to go the website Building Blocks NYC to read more about the way his plan would cause irreparable damage to workers and residents of New York City.”