Workers to strike at 700 Queens buildings

Come Friday April 21, at 12:01 a.m., the union for many elevator operators, doormen and janitors in the tri-state area plans to go on strike if their demands for higher wages and lower health care costs are not met in a new contract.
Local 32BJ, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents the largest number of building workers in the country, could send 28,000 tri-state area employees – including 4,000 workers at 700 buildings in Queens – out on strike. One million tenants citywide could be affected by the strike.
Negotiations between the union and the Realty Advisory Board (RAB), which represents most building owners in the city, began last month, but both sides said that they were far from reaching an agreement in the days leading up to the strike. The RAB has asked workers to take a wage freeze for the first year of a new contract.
“What strikes us is that the real estate industry is doing better than it has in years and is asking us, our workers, to endure a wage freeze,” said Matt Nerzig, communications director for the Local 32BJ, at the negotiations on Wednesday, April 19th. “[Health care premiums] are equally a stumbling block for negotiations. Asking a worker to pay 15 percent of their health care is like asking them to take a pay cut.”
“Unless building owners change their tune, we are on a path for a strike on Friday,” Nerzig said.
Union members have not gone on strike since 1996, when 30,000 Manhattan office-building workers walked out. In 1991, residential doormen, handymen, concierges, and porters last struck for 12 days. At a standing-room only meeting last month, 581 apartment building workers voted unanimously for the strike.
“Nobody wants to strike, but we need a living wage increase,” said Venus Rigueira, a Local 32BJ member who has worked as a “doorwoman” at a building in Woodside for 18 years. “People forget that we have the same bills as everyone else.”