Westchester, NY—Negotiations for a new, multi-year contract began this week between the Building & Realty Institute of Westchester & the Mid-Hudson Region, Inc.(BRI), a real estate industry association representing building owners in Westchester and the Mid-Hudson region and 32BJ SEIU, the largest private sector union in New York. The contract, which expires Thursday, September 30th, covers more than 1,400 doormen, superintendents, handymen, concierges and porters working at hundreds of apartment buildings throughout the Hudson Valley area.
“The workers who keep apartment buildings clean and running smoothly for thousands of Westchester and Rockland Counties’ residents deserve a fair contract,” said Kyle Bragg, Vice President of 32BJ’s Residential Division. “The BRI should do right by their workers by raising wages and preserving their health care benefits and pensions.”
Workers are seeking wage increases to keep up with the rising cost of living, maintaining affordable family health care and funding for pensions. Wages for area apartment building workers average about $40,000 per year, but as the price of healthcare and other goods and services continue to rise; workers are finding it harder to make ends meet in the suburban area.
“It all adds up; rent, clothes, transportation, school supplies, food and doctor visits for my asthmatic daughter,” said Raymond Thompson, who is the building superintendent at the Stoneleigh Plaza co-op in Bronxville. “It’s very hard to make ends meet supporting a family of four on one wage out here.”
Failure to reach an agreement by September 30th could lead to a strike directly affecting thousands of tenants living in over 500 apartment buildings across Hudson Valley region.
“This contract negotiation is about pushing for good, middle class jobs for Westchester’s working families,” added Bragg. “and about making sure that thousands of Westchester residents continue to get quality service.”
A city-wide strike of apartment building workers was narrowly averted this Spring when 30,000 apartment building workers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island reached an agreement with building owners in New York City. In June, more than 500 Co-op City apartment building workers in the Bronx reached a four-year agreement with wage increases after being locked out by their employer for nearly a week.
With more than 120,000 members, including 70,000 in New York, 32BJ is the largest private-sector union in the state.
updated 8/27/2010
