( Don Pollard) / Governor's Office )
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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Yes, there is a strike deadline of tomorrow that could affect residents in 3,000 New York City apartment buildings. Forgive me. I said 30,000 before the break, that was a mistake. It's that the union represents an estimated 30,000 building workers and they have authorized a strike if they aren't able to reach an agreement by the time their contracts expire tomorrow. This is being reported casually in some places as a luxury building, doorman strike but I think it's fair to say this isn't just doormen or buildings that even have doormen or necessarily luxurious.
The workers include 30,000 as they say, handypersons, concierges, superintendents, porters, and door attendants, as they are now officially gender-neutrally called door attendants, and they're represented by the service workers union 32BJ SEIU Service Employees, International Union, the 32BJ Local. They're negotiating with some of the big real estate firms in the city like Related and Tornado, all represented by the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, as that body is known.
The workers want their pay to keep up with inflation, for one thing, also to be recognized for their role as in-person essential workers throughout the pandemic, recognized in a contract. Management, it's been reported, wants to lower-- well, they want lower raises for one thing, but they also want to lower benefits. They want the workers to start contributing to the cost of health insurance, which they apparently don't right now. Residents in these buildings are being warned they'll have to start dealing with accepting their own packages and taking their garbage to the street among other things. What happens if something really goes wrong in the buildings when maintenance workers are on strike?
We'll try to answer that question as we welcome Claudia Irizarry Aponte, a reporter at the news site THE CITY, where much of her focus is on the Bronx. She's covering this labor dispute. Hi, Claudia, welcome to WNYC.
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: Thanks for having me.
Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we want to hear from you. Are you one of the workers who might go out on strike tomorrow, 32BJ folks? Let us hear why you might go out on strike. 212-433- WNYC. You have many building residents listening out there, make your case to win their support. 212-433-9692. Are you a building manager on the other side or a resident caught in the middle? How is your building preparing for a possible strike or what questions do you have about what will happen in all these buildings beginning tomorrow if a strike does take place? Our lines are open at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Claudia, help us get those numbers straight. 3,000 buildings, 30,000 workers?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: Yes, that's absolutely right. This includes more than 550,000 departments. We're talking about a lot of residents who might see their daily lives disrupted by the strike. As you noted, this does include a lot of luxury buildings and areas that we associate with luxury. We're talking about mega towers on Billionaires' Row, iconic co-ops like The Dakota on the upper west side, but it does also include more middle-class, upper-middle-class rentals, and co-op buildings across the five boroughs, particularly in Manhattan and Brooklyn. It's a very large chunk of the population.
As you noted, not all of them are luxury buildings, and also a particularly large chunk of the workforce as well but we're not just talking about doormen as you mentioned, this includes superintendents, concierge, handymen, door attendants. This means that these are more than half a million residents, that if a strike were to happen as it has been authorized to start on Thursday if a contract has not been reached, this means that there won't be personnel to make emergency repairs in these buildings, to out the garbage, to make sure that the people coming in and out of the buildings are actually residents and authorized visitors.
It will certainly cause some disruption, but the workers do feel that at this point, the negotiations, the goodness is that the negotiations are ongoing. Both sides are still talking to each other, but they still have not made progress on key issues, including vacation and sick time and changes to contributions towards their health insurance plan. Right now, it is 100% employer-funded, and management is proposing that the workers contribute towards their health insurance, and they are saying absolutely not, we want to keep the plan that we currently have, the system that we currently have.
Brian Lehrer: Do represented workers include, let's say, a smallish building that has a live-in super but no other staff? Are those supers in those situations generally part of the union and might go out?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: It's entirely possible, but I don't feel entirely confident answering that question. I'm not entirely sure, but it does include co-ops, it does include more luxury buildings and rentals, condos of all sorts of sizes.
Brian Lehrer: Are the buildings-- the owners really asking for a lot of givebacks here in 2022 year of labor?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: The workers are very frustrated about the fact that they feel, especially during the pandemic and in the early days of the pandemic two years ago, their work tripled. They were handing in packages directly to residents' homes. They were disinfecting packages back when that was a thing in the early days of March and April 2020. They were walking dogs. They were doing all sorts of work because visitors were not allowed into the buildings.
I spoke to a worker, a concierge who said that he became a home health aid for the residents, checking in on residents during the pandemic, particularly those who were elderly, homebound, or disabled to make sure that they were okay and they feel very proud to have risen up and be considered frontline workers at the front of the pandemic. It is worth noting that more than 170 32BJ workers died of COVID, 40 of them people who work as these workers are in residential buildings.
They feel based on my conversations with them that these proposals from management to cut their sick and vacation time, which is currently accrued based on years of experience, they want to lower that threshold, they perceive it as cutting time off and lowering the threshold for getting vacation and sick time and accruing it. By now proposing that workers contribute towards their healthcare coverage, which they currently do not do, it's 100% employer-funded. Kyle Bragg the 32BJ President likened it to a slap in the face in these times, not just in COVID, and at this time of heightened hunger for an even playing field when we talk about labor relations in this country.
They really do feel that it is, as Bragg said, a slap in the face in these times of COVID. Now, he did also say on NY1 that the union is positive. As I said, negotiations are ongoing, they are still talking to each other, but they have still not reached a consensus on these key issues the contract does expire at 11:59 PM tomorrow, and the workers have authorized a strike if they don't reach a deal by then.
Brian Lehrer: 11:59 tomorrow, meaning it would be Wednesday night, not tonight at midnight?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: Correct. Kyle Bragg told me that on the 21st there will be a strike if there's no contract.
Brian Lehrer: We'll go to some phone calls in a minute. I also have a clip of Governor Hochul who seems to have taken a side in this, but in this year of labor rising all over the country, we know about the Amazon unionization, but a lot of other things too because there's a labor shortage, and can the owners demand these givebacks and expect to staff these positions, or are these the kinds of jobs like in healthcare, like in hospitality with the burdens of the pandemic that you were just describing that people have walked away from and that are hard to fill?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: I think that for the first time in a very long time in this country, the workers and the working class, if you will, feel that they have a lot more leverage in this country, precisely because there is such a demand for workers in the workforce. After the two years of the pandemic, workers are demanding more, they're demanding living wages, they're demanding flexibility for their jobs. They are not afraid to ask for health insurance, to unionize for workplaces that are not unionized or affiliated with any greater labor movement. There is a real hunger for leverage and to even the playing field. I think that that does perhaps tip in the favor of these workers.
It is also worth noting that this could be the first strike in a generation for these residential doormen who bargain with 32BJ. The last strike was in 1991, it lasted 12 days. I actually spoke with a worker who is on the bargaining committee right now, and he was a rookie concierge in 1991, and he remembers that strike as the buildings were dirty, and the residents were in charge of manning the front desk, if you will, and he shared a couple of memories from that. Certainly, the workers feel that it is like a new place in American labor right now, especially as we saw, as you noted, with Amazon unionizing, and also we're talking about Starbucks, the John Deere workers, even graduate workers.
It really does feel like a right moment for the labor movement and I feel that a lot of workers and a lot of industries are seizing this moment to exercise their leverage and even the playing field.
Brian Lehrer: If you're just joining us, listeners, we're talking about the possible 32BJ building workers' strike, and 3,000 New York City apartment buildings, which our guest, Claudia Irizarry Aponte from the news organization THE CITY has just clarified would begin at 11:59 tomorrow night, Wednesday night, if they don't have a new contract by then. That's a long time of labor peace. 1991, the last strike until now. We'll see if that ends tomorrow night. Ross in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ross.
Ross: Oh, hi. Thank you for taking my call. I've lived in a co-op apartment building since 1995, so four years after the last strike. I'm really appalled with the Realty Advisory Board. I don't think that they represent me or most of the other people in my co-op building. I'm a physician, and I believe that the workers in my building have been as essential all through this pandemic, as certainly I was. This is an absurd time to even consider cutting benefits for people who have been doing an outstanding job at great risk to themselves. The benefits that they have they are really entitled to. I'm just disturbed that the Realty Advisory Board is making these demands on the union when people in co-ops don't have any say about it.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Ross. We appreciate your call. Paul in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Paul.
Paul: Hey, Brian, how are you?
Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got?
Paul: I'm going to take the opposite position of what this woman just mentioned, but for a similar reason. I don't think the Realty Advisory Board represents most people who live in co-ops and condominiums that have doormen because, for them, they're not paying those bills as much as the people who live in these buildings are. I believe that yes, the members are entitled to a living wage, but I also hear that as a buzzword. I know that we haven't talked about what is the average salary right now for doormen at a starting position versus one who's been here for let's say 10 years, and the health care benefits that they get are substantial because they pay and contribute nothing to them.
At the end of the day, what you see is their total living wage is fairly significant, well above median average, and the bottom line is, is that every time that there is an increase and as time goes forward, a lot of these people as they just age, the healthcare costs are going to become significant, and who bears that? The people who basically pay the maintenance to support the doormen.
Brian Lehrer: Paul, stay there for a second. Let me try to answer your wage question with our guest and then you can tell me if you think that's too much, too little. Claudia, you have the wage rates there, right, for the building service workers? Claudia? Did we lose Claudia?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: Yes. Hello. I'm here. [chuckles]
Brian Lehrer: Hi. Sorry, whatever happened there. Do you know what these building service workers make per hour? Is there a starting wage? Does it go up on a certain kind of scale?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: Not necessarily. I do know that their average starting wage according to the RAB and it does bear noting that this does include what the RAB contributes towards their healthcare, the number that they are touting [crosstalk]--
Brian Lehrer: That's the Realty Advisory Board. Okay. The RAB.
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: The Realty Advisory Board, apologies, thank you. It's about $50,000 to $60,000. Then, on top of that, the Realty Advisory Board does contribute 100% of their healthcare coverage, so that's several $1,000 more, but that does not go into the worker's paycheck. That's just what the Realty Advisory Board contributes towards each worker.
Brian Lehrer: Which still comes out of the resident's maintenance payments and rent, et cetera, right, eventually?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: In theory, yes.
Brian Lehrer: Paul, did you want to finish the thought?
Paul: Yes. There's no theory behind it. It absolutely does come out of the maintenance payments by the residents, but there are a lot of other things associated with this that the unions need to consider. One is there are a number of buildings that have elevators that still have elevator doormen, but it's been modernized, but you can't fire the guy because he's basically a union member and the union determines how much staff you have to have in your building. That's a cost that you can't even try to eliminate even as you're building modernizers, and you don't need that job any longer, you still have to have an elevator man.
There are friends I know who live in elevator buildings where originally the elevator was a manually operated elevator, but it's no longer that, and the gentleman who's still the elevator operator just points guests to the elevator and they ride up on their own. It's like what's the purpose of that type of fee? That you're now paying what your guest just said, $50,000 on average to have someone who is standing there, plus the benefits, and what are they actually doing?
Yes, you can say during an extraordinary time during the pandemic, a lot of these people were helpful, but I can't justify personally paying someone a long-term wage for the benefit that they did for that 18 month period, where you could say yes, they were helpful, but they're helpful all the time. I'm not saying that they're not, but I just think that contribution to the healthcare is something they should consider.
Brian Lehrer: Paul, thank you very much. This is WNYC FM, HD, and AM, New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are a New York and New Jersey Public Radio, and live streaming at wnyc.org at 11:00 o'clock as we have a few more minutes to go on this segment about the possible strike by 32BJ building workers affecting 3,000 New York City buildings at midnight tomorrow night. Claudia, there's the other side from what the union would say made by that resident Paul. I imagine on his last point that there are very few buildings that have those elevator operators anymore. Do you happen to know?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: I don't happened to have the numbers off the top, but I would say that more than anything else, I would say that based on my conversation with the workers is that they feel that their current vacation and sick time that they have been able to accrue, their wages, the fact that the employer 100% pays for their insurance is a benefit that they have and that they're accustomed to, and that they feel that it should not be taken away especially at this time when we're still recovering from a pandemic.
I don't think any worker would like having the benefits that they have enjoyed throughout their entire period of employment-- the current contract has lasted four years in the last 30 years of labor peace in addition to that, any worker would object to having the benefits that they had enjoyed taken away.
Brian Lehrer: With respect to paying 100% of their health insurance, you probably know this is a conversation that's been going on in the American workforce, primarily in the private sector, but also in the public sector unionized workforce for decades now, bit by bit by bit chipping away at what used to be 100% coverage as a fairly routine employer-paid benefit, and then the resentment is designed to build so that some workers who have started having to contribute to their own health insurance funds, instead of saying, "Well, I support holding the line in those other industries so that some workers get 100% of health insurance paid and maybe I'll get 100% of health insurance paid again someday," they say, "I have to pay into my health insurance so why shouldn't they have to pay into their health insurance?"
That's a big, long-term, downward spiral in American labor. Beyond the health insurance which is its own big, unique thing, are they really asking workers to take fewer vacation days than they've had in the past, to have less sick time than they've had in the past in this contract?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: To simplify it a little bit, in theory, yes, that's what they are asking, but the vacation and sick time is accrued for each worker. I believe that for workers who have been there for a year or more, the sick time is two weeks, and then it increases over the life of their employment. Now, the RAB has proposed decreasing that threshold where they start at one week, and then it builds from there. Some workers could see their vacation time impacted in that sense. They're basically lowering the threshold across the board by one week. For someone who has been there a year, that would mean that their vacation time is cut in half.
For a worker who has been there much longer, they would still see a decrease in their paid time off. Again, workers are just taken aback that after two years in a pandemic where they were taking care of buildings and the residents at extremely precarious time in the city's history, they feel like they are being repaid to a certain extent by the possibility of seeing their sick and vacation time decrease, by now having to contribute towards their health care insurance plan which they currently have not had to do. They are fighting back on it and that's the reason why they have authorized a strike to start on midnight on the 21st if they don't reach a deal by tomorrow.
Brian Lehrer: The union held a rally last week and Governor Hochul participated. Here's 20 seconds of what she had to say.
Governor Hochul: Remember, during the pandemic when a lot of people Zoomed into their jobs in pajamas at home out somewhere far away, who showed up every single day? You showed up. You had our backs. You were there when we needed you, and they call you essential workers. That sounds nice but if they're that essential, why don't we pay them what they deserve?
Brian Lehrer: Governor Hochul who we should mention was endorsed by 32BJ recently for her election bid. Before we run out of time, let's get a couple of calls in here from people in buildings wondering what will actually happen if the strike takes place. Sarah in Bushwick has a question along those lines. Hi, Sarah, you're on WNYC.
Sarah: Hi. I'm retired now but I used to represent people in social security disability hearings and I looked into what was causing so many people in the neighborhood to have a certain group of illnesses and I got it down to high-pressure boilers. [chuckles] There's a certain group of large, very powerful furnaces that require a high-pressure boiler operator engineer to be on-premises watching the furnace at all times. I live in a very low-income neighborhood now. Before, I lived in a nice doorman building, and they had one of these furnaces. They had a high-pressure boiler operator engineer and it's 10 horsepower or more according to the building code.
They've changed building codes but it's still the same situation. They had one of these high-pressure boiler operator engineers on-premises 24 hours and if he went out to get a sandwich or something, the doorman had to sit in for him. They had beepers so that he could be contacted at all times, et cetera.
Brian Lehrer: Sarah, I'm going to cut in and get an answer just because our time is short but thank you for that call and that story. Let me generalize that, Claudia, to what will happen in the case of emergencies in the buildings if a strike takes place?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: I cannot speak to any particular building but I do know that several buildings have been receiving strike bulletins from management or from the building owners already. I know of one building in Manhattan where residents have already received strike identification cards so that they can identify themselves as residents when they walk into the building or for visitors. There are some buildings where residents are being asked to volunteer to work at the concierge desk, to pick up shifts operating elevators, or taking out the garbage. There are some buildings where these plans are already being announced and put in place in case of a possible strike.
There was also an article in The New York Post, I believe, either today or yesterday to this effect about tenants who are scared of the strike but also stepping up to help and volunteer work in the building in the case of a strike. It really does vary building by building. I can say that in some buildings, these are steps that are already being taken preemptively. That's just one thing that residents can do.
Brian Lehrer: Some other listeners weighing in on the side of the call are Paul saying basically the building workers make a pretty good living. Somebody tweets, "You need to look at real numbers, building workers earned more than 1,050 a week plus 548 for Benny's in a class-A building which is most co-ops and condos," this listener says, "with other costs factored in, an average employee costs the building $97,000 a year." Someone else writes, "It's not that the replacement elevator operator points to the elevator, it's that the building must hire a union staff worker [unintelligible 00:26:39] maintenance to fill the elimination of the necessity of the elevator workers' responsibilities."
One more testimonial to a building worker from Sherry in Manhattan. Sherry, you've got 30 seconds for you. Go ahead and make it concise.
Sherry: The workers in my building, 123 West 93rd Street, were incredible throughout the pandemic. The super was on duty 24/7. Everybody showed up for their shifts. They cleaned this building like it was a hospital. They were incredible, so kudos to all the guys in my building.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. One more listener wants to know what will happen with deliveries and whether UPS, et cetera, will not deliver to these buildings if there's a building staff strike. Do you happen to know? Has that come up?
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: It has not. I have heard from the teamsters who do represent UPS drivers. They say that they stand in solidarity with the 32BJ workers in their struggle and support a strike should that happen but again, just across the board if there is a strike, I think residents can expect disruptions across the board. As I mentioned, there are buildings already preparing, residents already volunteering to pick up shifts working at the concierge desk, and signing up and taking out the garbage. I found some job listings on Glassdoor and indeed some security companies are hiring workers to fill in during the strike, commonly called scabs, and just like everyday parlance.
Again, residents can I think expect some form of disruption across the board if a strike were to happen. It's important to note that both sides are still talking. They still are in disagreement over key issues but they have all day today and tomorrow to figure it out before a strike is indeed called.
Brian Lehrer: Claudia Irizarry Aponte covering for the news organization THE CITY. These down to the wire talks before the deadline tomorrow night. Thanks for coming on and explaining it so much.
Claudia Irizarry Aponte: Thanks for having me.
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