NEW YORK — Thousands of apartment building workers, members of 32BJ Service Employees International Union, turned out for a boisterous strike-vote rally in the Upper East Side of Manhattan April 15. By a large show of hands they authorized the union to strike if an agreement isn’t reached. The contract for the 34,000 workers expires April 20. A strike would affect some 1.5 million tenants in 3,300 buildings here.
The union is fighting for wages that keep up with inflation, improved working conditions and better pension benefits. And they want to protect their family health care insurance, which currently is fully paid by the building owners.
That’s something the landlords, who are negotiating as a group, want reversed.
The building owners also want to establish a new “Tier II” for all future hires, with lower pay and worse benefits, and to expand the use of nonunion temporary workers.
The union says these are strike issues.