In January, workers at the Hunts Point Produce Market went on strike for a one-dollar raise. These were essential workers who had worked through the pandemic’s worst months to supply groceries and restaurants around the city with fresh fruits and vegetables. Their cause attracted widespread sympathy, and high-profile politicians from Andrew Yang to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez flocked to the picket line to support them.  

Mayor Bill de Blasio, however, stayed quiet. The strike put his administration in an awkward position: Hunts Point itself is owned by the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which leases it to the market’s owners. The local market is usually touted as an economic development victory for the city, providing three thousand jobs and netting billions of dollars in revenue. This gives the market owners an advantage: they can scare the EDC with the threat of moving to New Jersey or Connecticut. In the last round of lease negotiations in 2013, they extracted an 11 percent rent reduction. Meanwhile, though the EDC boasts of providing jobs and local produce distribution, it has no mechanism for enforcing workers’ rights and no leverage for keeping the market in place long term. 

The EDC is the quasi-public agency that manages all revenue-generating land owned by New York City, including Hunts Point. A nonprofit organization whose board is appointed by the mayor, the EDC is a multipurpose tool for city hall to coordinate private business activity in the city’s interests and pursue a range of projects without the supposed inefficiencies of city agencies. It has the power to arrange subsidies and tax breaks for companies for the sake of job creation. In 2019, these subsidies cost the city $1.6 billion.