Published: June 23, 2010

After weeks of acrimony, including a one-week strike, workers and management at Co-op City in the Bronx reached an agreement Wednesday on a new contract.

Members of 32BJ Service Employees International Union and RiverBay Corp., which manages the complex, reached a tentative contract agreement to keep workers on the job at Co-op City for another four years. The breakthrough ensures continued service for Co-op City's 55,000 residents. At the same time it provides the 500 workers with salary adjustments in each year of the agreement as well as health care coverage for them and their families.

The contract must now be ratified by both the workers and the RiverBay board before it takes full effect.

After the workers' contract expired on June 1, the 500 porters, handymen, and others at the massive Bronx housing development threatened to strike at 8 a.m., but were locked out by management eight hours earlier. A week later, through mutual agreement between labor and management, the workers returned to the job and agreed to resume contract negotiations.

Both parties then agreed to bring in the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, an independent mediator to help them overcome their differences.

With more than 55,000 residents living in 15,400 units across 35 high-rise buildings and seven clusters of townhouses, Co-op City is the largest housing development in the country and the largest cooperative housing development in the world.

The full terms of the contract will not be made available until each side has completed its ratification process.

Clarification: After their contract expired on June 1, the 500 Co-op City union workers threatened to strike at 8 a.m., but were locked out by management eight hours earlier. This was unclear in an earlier version of the story.