Developing Standards: The Role of Community Benefits Agreements in Enhancing Job Quality

This paper contributes to the nascent literature on the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), a contractual agreement between a community coalition and developer that specifies labor and employment standards for a proposed development project. The study presents three case studies on the “California model” of the CBA, emphasizing the conflicts that can arise between CBA coalitions and oppositional forces and how these tensions affect organizing strategies and outcomes of community benefits campaigns.