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Rewards startup Bilt, which made its name by offering renters the opportunity to earn points on rental payments, is building itself a lofty valuationand introducing a handful of new cards to boot. The company announced on Thursday that it has raised $250 million in new funding, bringing its total valuation to $10.75 billion, more than twice its valuation from roughly a year ago. Its also introducing Bilt Card 2.0, an upgraded credit card offering that will launch in February of next year and is being developed in partnership with Cardlesswhich also had a hand in launching the American Express Coinbase card earlier this year. In a blog post, Bilt said that its Card 2.0 will have three different options: A no-fee option and two premium levels with $95 and $495 annual fees. The announcement is a sign that Wells Fargo and Bilt are ending their partnership on the Bilt Rewards Mastercard earlier than expected. The partnership had been slated to run until 2029. That card originally launched to the public in March 2022 with a novel points-on-rent reward and quickly took off among points and miles enthusiasts. Within 18 months, it had activated 1 million accounts. The Wall Street Journal has reported Wells Fargo was losing money on the deal, raising questions about the card’s sustainability. Both Wells Fargo and Bilt declined to comment bout the specifics of the partnership when contacted by Fast Company. New York-based Bilt has built a $1 billion-a-year business on the strength of its rewards program, as Fast Company reported in June, and most of its revenue now comes from its partnerships with property managers. The company processes rent payments for property managers and offers their tenants access to its expanding loyalty program, which now includes some 40,000 merchants. Jain told Fast Company that he imagined the credit card occupying a relatively modest place in his company’s overall strategy. Its not our core business, he said. Our job is to provide the best rewards ecosystem, the best commerce platform, the best [customer] acquisition, the best brand, so that our partners can create a great card product around it. According to Jain, only 15% of Bilts rewards program members are cardholders. As for how things will work with Bilt Card 2.0? Well need to wait until next year to find out. At that time, “current cardholders will be seamlessly moved from Wells Fargo to our new card platform,” according to Bilt’s blog post. In the meantime, Bilts leadership is exuding confidence. Bilt represents the convergence of America’s largest spending categorieshousing and local commerceinto a single, powerful network that benefits everyone involved, said Bilt chairman and former American Express CEO Ken Chenault, in a statement. What we’re building goes beyond the four walls of your apartment; we’re connecting you with your entire neighborhood and making every aspect of where you live more rewarding.
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E-Commerce
On July 1, more than 9,000 members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)s District Council 33 in Philadelphia went on strike. The work stoppage entered its second week with no end in sight, but a marathon bargaining session resulted in a 4 a.m. tentative agreement between the unions leaders and the city government on Wednesday, July 9. While Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker has tried to spin it as a win for the workers (and has embraced it as a victory for her administration), some union members public reaction to the deal has been far from positive. On Monday, July 14, theyll vote on whether to ratify the new contract, and the outcome is currently anyone’s guess. The unionknown better as DC 33represents the citys blue-collar municipal workers, who handle a wide range of job descriptionsfrom 911 dispatchers to library assistants to water department employees. Perhaps most notably, it also represents thousands of sanitation workers, and its that group in particular that became the most visible symbol of the strike due to the nature of their workand the visceral ramifications of their work stoppage. As the sixth-largest city in the U.S., Philadelphia generates a lot of trash. And with the trash collectors on strike, things quickly got ugly. Enormous piles of trash popped up all over the city once the workers walked out, spilling out of the citys designated temporary drop-off centers and onto the citys streets and sidewalks. In an unflattering homage to Mayor Parker, who became the face of the citys fitful negotiations with the union, some residents dubbed the garbage heaps Parker piles. Thanks to soaring temperatures, spiking humidity, and heavy rain, residents complained that the stench was becoming a serious problem before the agreement was reached. So how did the city get here? DC 33s most recent contract expired at midnight on July 1, following a one-year extension that the union agreed to at the beginning of Parkers term in 2024. While the mayors office indicated a willingness to continue bargaining, the unions leadership decided to call a strike, determined to secure a meaningful economic boost for their members. This marks the first time DC 33 has hit the bricks since 1986, when workers stayed off the job for three weeks, and 45,000 tons of garbage towered over the streets. The primary issue is money: Members of DC 33 are the lowest paid of the citys four municipal unions, as well as the only one with a predominantly Black membership; the other three include AFSCME DC 47, which is made up of white-collar city workers, and the unions representing the city’s police officers and firefighters. The average salary among DC 33 members is only $46,000 a year, which workers have decried as poverty wages. (Sanitation workers, by the way, generally take home about $42,000 a year, and Philadelphias sanitation workers are among the lowest-paid employees in the country despite serving a city of more than 1.5 million residents.) Those numbers place them well below a living wage for Philadelphia, which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated as $48,387 for a single adult with no children. The union was most recently asking for a 5% yearly wage increase over a three-year contract, but the city refused to budge from its own proposal of 2.75%, 3%, and 3% increases over that same periodonly inching up to a 3% first-year raise in the tentative agreement. The city of Philadelphia currently has a budget surplus of $882 million, from which the mayor budgeted $550 million to cover all four municipal union contracts. The cost of the proposed DC 33 contract will be $115 million over its three years. In contrast, Parkers current budget proposal has already bookmarked $872 million for the Philadelphia Police Department, a $20 million increase that includes $1.3 million for new uniforms. City officials touted their lowball offer to DC 33 as a sign of fiscal responsibility, but even now that bargaining has ended, union negotiators and their membership remain adamant that its just not enough. There were other issues at play, too. Unlike other city employees like police and firefighters, DC 33 members are required to live inside the city of Philadelphiawhich, given the rising cost of living, only adds to the economic pressures they face. The union sought to remove the residency requirement in order to give their members more flexibility, but the city ultimately shot down their request. In addition, the union fought to preserve and improve members healthcare and pension plans, and saw some success. With an embattled mayor facing criticism over her own staffs lavish salaries and mixed results on her campaign promise to make the city “safer, cleaner, greener, the city took an increasingly combative posture toward the union. Multiple injunctions forced certain strikers (like those at the airport, the medical examiner’s office, the water department, and the 911 dispatch center) back to work, while the city paid private contractors to clear the trash drop-off sites and called in non-union workers to perform union labor. Meanwhile, DC 33 maintained picket lines outside libraries, sanitation centers, and city buildings during a week of sweltering heat. Workers danced, sang, marched, set up impromptu cookouts, and waved signs at passersby. The Wawa Welcome America concert on the Fourth of July lost both of its headliners, LL Cool J and Jazmine Sullivan, who both canceled their performances in solidarity with the strikers. Thre was also tragedy: Two striking DC 33 workers, one of whom is pregnant, were the victims of a hit-and-run accident last week when an intoxicated individual drove into their picket line; Tyree Ford, a sanitation worker and father of four, sustained serious injuries and is still in critical condition. Ultimately, the citys strong-arm approach led to the current tentative agreement, which falls far short of what the workers wanted and is not guaranteed to survive the membership vote. Union leadership has been open about its own disappointment, too. The strike is over, and nobodys happy, Greg Boulware, president of DC 33, told The Philadelphia Inquirer as he left the marathon bargaining session. We felt our clock was running out.
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E-Commerce
A federal judge blocked Trumps Jan. 20 executive order ending birthright citizenship Thursday. By allowing the case to proceed as a class action lawsuit, the block gets around a 6-3 Supreme Court decision last month that limited judges abilities to issue nationwide injunctions on Trump administration policies. The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, seeks to protect the class of babies born to temporary residents or unlawful permanent residents since Feb. 20. These children wouldunlike generations of children born in similar situationsbe deprived of citizenship under Trumps order, titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, which reinterprets the text of the Fourteenth Amendment. The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment specifically enshrined this principle in our Constitutions text to ensure that no onenot even the Presidentcould deny children born in America their rightful place as citizens, according to the complaint filed late last month. Joseph N. Laplante, a U.S. District Court Judge based in New Hampshire wrote in his ruling that members of the class impacted by the end of birthright citizenship are likely to suffer irreparable harm if the executive order is not blocked. By allowing the lawsuit to continue as a class actiona type of civil lawsuit filed on behalf of a large group of similarly-situated people who have been similarly harmedLaplantes ruling uses the only remaining workaround to stop policies deemed unlawful from being implemented nationwide. Before the Supreme Court ruled against the practice last month, judges were able to issue universal, or nationwide injunctions against such policies. The Trump administration has 7 days to appeal Laplantes ruling, and White House officials say they are planning to fight back against the injunction, accusing the judge of “abusing class action certification procedures.” Todays decision is an obvious and unlawful attempt to circumvent the Supreme Courts clear order against universal relief,” Harrison Fields, principal deputy press secretary and special assistant to President Trump, tells Fast Company. “The Trump Administration will be fighting vigorously against the attempts of these rogue district court judges to impede the policies President Trump was elected to implement. For immigration rights activists, however, the ruling is a major triumph for the children who would be born stateless if not for birthright citizenshipan estimated 255,000 annually, according to the Migration Policy Institute. This ruling is a huge victory and will help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended, Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project, said in a statement. We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesnt trample on the citizenship rights of one single child.
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E-Commerce
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