NEW YORK: Co-op City building workers voted overwhelmingly  Thursday evening to ratify a new contract that provides a 10.5% wage increase over four years. The pact maintains existing health care coverage and retirement benefits and contains no give-backs for 500 maintenance and grounds workers, garage attendants, porters, public safety dispatchers and garbage collectors who are members of 32BJ SEIU.

“It’s a good deal. It will make it easier for me to keep up with the cost of living and take care of my family,” said Rafael Morales, a father of two who has been a porter at Co-op City for 13 years. “The fact that our health care stayed affordable is a big relief.”

The pact was approved by 32BJ members at a meeting Thursday evening after a tentative deal was reached earlier in the day between the union and RiverBay Corporation. The new contract will expire on June 8, 2018.

“Co-op City building workers keep the complex clean, maintain a high quality life and help make it home for 50,000 residents,” said Kyle Bragg, Secretary-Treasurer of 32BJ SEIU. “This contract will mean that they can continue to live and work in the Bronx, and make New York home for them and their families.”

Building workers at Co-op City who had been making an average of about $44,000 will earnclose to $49,000 by the end of the contract.