Published: April 21, 2010

April 21 (Bloomberg) -- New York City building workers reached an agreement with owners for a new contract, averting a strike by 30,000 doormen, handymen and concierges that threatened to force residents to haul trash and sort mail.

The Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ and the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations Inc., which represents building owners, completed a four-year deal early today. The union had planned its first work stoppage since 1991 if a deal wasn’t reached after the midnight contract expiration.

“Through many days of hard work, the Realty Advisory Board and Local 32BJ have reached a fair and reasonable agreement that serves the industry, its workers, residents of more than 3,000 rental, co-op and condo apartment buildings, and the entire city of New York,” Howard Rothschild, president of the realty group, said in an e-mailed statement.

The deal provides wage and benefit increases averaging less than 3 percent a year, according to the realty group.

“We fought hard and won wage increases in a very tough economy,” Matt Nerzig, a spokesman for Local 32BJ, said in a statement. “The contract is an important victory for keeping New York a place that working people can call home.”

The contract must still be ratified by union members.

Crisis Ends

Averting a walkout relieves about 1 million New Yorkers in union-represented buildings from the burden of hauling their own garbage, dropping off their own dry cleaning, and inserting their own letters into mailboxes. That amounts to a crisis averted in a city where some people hire stand-ins to wait in line for theater tickets or to walk their dogs.

“Doormen are like bagels, because you can’t imagine New York without them,” said Peter Bearman, a professor of sociology at Columbia University in New York and author of the book “Doormen.” “They are an essential piece of the social fabric of the city.”

Union members and building representatives negotiated through the midnight contract deadline before the deal was finished. Workers sought higher wages and improved health benefits. Building owners were aiming to rein in costs after housing prices and revenue from rental income dropped since the last union contract was signed.

The median rent of a Manhattan apartment, adjusted for inflation, fell 17.4 percent to $3,100 since peaking in December 2006, according to Jonathan Miller, president of New York-based appraiser Miller Samuel Inc.

Monthly Fees

The median price to buy a Manhattan co-operative or condominium dropped 11 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier to $868,000, broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate and Miller Samuel said this month. Owners in both types of properties pay monthly fees for building expenses, including compensation for workers.

Cooper Square Realty Inc. arranged for security guards to arrive at its properties at 10 p.m. yesterday to acclimate to the building in case the doormen walked out, President Dan Wurtzel said in an interview. Wurtzel -- whose company manages 60,000 apartments across the city, about half of which have doormen -- planned to alert residents of the outcome by e-mail.

“This is now the sixth contract negotiation since 1991,” Wurtzel said. “If you’ve lived in a building in Manhattan for 10 years you’ve been through this three times already.”

A strike would have put residents in charge of garbage removal, vacuuming and pulling shifts at the front desk at Cooper Square buildings, Wurtzel said.

For residents needing a primer on building services, the New York Times published instructions on “How to Open the Doors” in yesterday’s edition.

“1. Approach door 2. Grasp knob with right hand if right- handed, left hand if left-handed,” the Times said. “Using free hand, push door. You have now created a vertical opening.”