Shauna Curphey - Writing

Twenty Hours and a Hot Dog
Safeco vendors get their economic boon
Real Change, November 1, 2000

By Shauna Curphey

Last month, the Mariners lost to the Yankees in Game Six of the American League Championship Series, and the cries of "Sodo Mojo" are fading away. Except for the occasional event, the stadium will stand empty until next April. Food vendors are hanging up their aprons and looking for work.

The off-season leaves plenty of time to ponder what the $372 million taxpayers contributed for stadium construction actually bought. The Mariners are threatening to sue the Public Facilities District, the public body that oversees the stadium, to help pay for the nearly $100 million in cost overruns.

Since the state legislature approved financing for a new stadium with county tax funds, proponents have argued that a "world-class city" needs to keep its baseball team, whatever the cost. Do Safeco's economic rewards merit the public investment? Whatever the other impacts, the men and women who sold peanuts and Pyramid get part-time, seasonal work. At the end of Game Six, they got the boot.

Ask the homeless people who make up part of Safeco Field’s concessions staff whether they like the work, and you might get a hung jury. For some, the jobs are attractive, compared to other options. For those staying at homeless shelters, working as a food vendor means choosing a low-wage job over a place to sleep at night.

The stadium requires between 1,000 and 1,200 employees per event. With 81 home games per year for a season running from April through September, that works out to roughly 13 games per month, or approximately 20 hours a week. Volume Services of America Inc., the company contracted by the Mariners to run concessions, employs most of the Safeco Field workers - roughly 800 people per game.

VSA contracts Labor Ready, a daily-work-daily-pay staffing company, to provide workers who fill in when the company lacks enough employees to cover shifts for a game. At the outset, VSA struggled to round up enough people to work the part-time, low-wage jobs, but were under pressure to improve services after local papers ranted about long food lines. While Labor Ready workers found regular gigs at Safeco Field last season, VSA is currently under new management. The company stabilized its workforce and used fewer and fewer day laborers as the 2000 season wore on.

Nobody knows just how many homeless people make up the workforce at Safeco Field. Many homeless people work as day laborers for Labor Ready. And staff members at several downtown shelters and outreach services report clients who put in hours at the stadium.

"There were plenty of Safeco Field jobs and they just put a sign up, saying what time to show up. Basically, most of the time you got one, " says J. Johns, a Real Change vendor, who worked at Safeco Field as a Labor Ready employee operating beer and condiment carts during much of the 1999 season, and again this spring.

For Johns, hawking beer at Safeco was better than other Labor Ready jobs because the work was consistent. With most daily labor, workers show up at the crack of dawn, sign a list, and wait anxiously to see if they get work. When day workers' names are called from the waiting list, they don't know what they'll be doing, or how many hours they'll put in, before being cut loose until the next day.

Besides a regular assignment, Safeco work proffered other small benefits. Johns says workers got free food, a significant perk considering he is homeless and shelling out cash for food is a daily necessity. Tips from the fans and the game itself also made the work attractive to Johns, although he explained that these bonuses were not shared by most food vendors.

"I started getting into baseball when I was running the condiment carts," says Johns. "I got to sit and watch the game, like everyone else who ran the condiment carts, but... that's only a few [of the jobs available]. The beer carts, I liked making the tips, but again that's only a very, very few."

Most concession workers flipped burgers in food booths, without a glimpse of the game. Johns says the low wages, hard work, and part-time schedule were tough on the vendors.

"You get to a point where there's no stopping for a couple hours at the high point of the game. Those people are getting $7 an hour, and people get paid that at McDonalds too," he says. "But Jiminy Christmas, McDonalds isn't charging five bucks for a hot dog. Plus the fact that you're only working basically 13 games a month."

Rick Sawyer, acting secretary of the Hotel Employee Restaurant Employees (HERE) Local 8, said VSA paid from $11.50 to $14.50 and $17 an hour to Labor Ready, while the workers received $6.50 or $7 per hour. Labor Ready would not confirm the amount workers were paid or how much the company received for supplying them. VSA employees at the stadium start at $8 per hour and can receive up to $12 per hour at the supervisory level. HERE Local 8 represents 250 to 300 food and beverage workers at Safeco Field.

"Because they have a different employer, we aren't able to represent day laborers when they work at Safeco Field," says Sawyer, "We try to get them covered and eligible for union wages and benefits by attempting to get them in the permanent bargaining unit."

Sawyer explained that organizing efforts at public facilities are different than other efforts, because public ventures involve a broader set of goals and interests.

"There is a lot of public money at Safeco, and there is a general consensus that if the public is going to support the construction of the facility, then it makes sense to promote a more responsible employment environment," says Sawyer.

While work at the stadium provides an income, stadium employment alone is not enough to lift homeless people out of poverty. A director of a large employment program reported that work at the stadium helps homeless people seek better jobs because the hours permit them to pursue occupational training during the day while earning money at Safeco Field in the evenings and on weekends.

For other homeless workers, the hours at Safeco can mean a choice between earning a small income or having a place to sleep. Marty Hartman, director of Mary's Place, a drop-in center for homeless women, says it is very difficult for homeless women to work concessions since they get off work after shelters close their doors.

Across the country, cities kick down huge amounts of money in public funds for new sports facilities to keep teams from leaving for more profitable venues. Nationwide, more than $7 billion will be spent on new sports facilities by 2006, according to "Sports, Jobs and Taxes," a study conducted for the Brookings Institute. Critics of stadium subsidies say that these projects divert funds from more important public services and are unfair to other businesses that compete with stadiums for labor, materials, and customers.

The Brookings study says that stadium subsidies continue because sports arenas provide more "consumer satisfaction" than other publicly-subsidized economic development projects, and the teams "capture public attention far out of proportion to their economic significance." Just reflect on the mood that seized the city during the American League playoffs. Local radio announcers voiced breathless enthusiasm. The Seattle Times and the P-I ran front-page photos. Across the city, people were talking about the games. Sports unite a community with hope and enthusiasm. It’s the hoopla -- more than any considerations of economic gain -- that fuels stadium subsidies. Unfortunately, taxpayers don't get so excited when their public funds help homeless people find living-wage jobs and come in from the cold.

Picture it: In the semifinals of the battle to end homelessness, J. Johns finds stable housing and the crowd goes wild. Until getting people off the street generates the same fanfare as A-Rod's home runs, fans will continue to root for the home team while homeless food vendors scrape by on part-time work and free hot dogs.