With a strike deadline set for 12:01 a.m. Friday, the union representing 28,000 workers in New York City apartment buildings has told more than 2,000 strike captains to gear up for a walkout, and many building owners and managers are rushing to hire replacement workers to guard front doors and lug garbage to the basement.þþThe two sides are scrambling to make preparations because, despite weeks of talks, management and the union have made virtually no progress in bridging their differences over wages, pensions and health coverage.þþÿI think it's going to come down to the wire and then some,ÿ said Paul Salvatore, general counsel for the Realty Advisory Board for Labor Relations, the industry group handling negotiations for 3,500 apartment buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.þþTraditionally, the two sides have had a cooperative relationship, but in their negotiations over the past month they have largely talked past each other.þþNegotiators are planning to move into the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers tomorrow for three days of intense talks.þþTensions are greater than usual because management says it is being squeezed by rising health and heating costs, while the union, Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, says soaring real estate prices should make it easy for management to afford a generous contract.þþÿThe industry continues to enjoy increasing real estate values and rents, and they can easily afford the kind of increases we need,ÿ said Michael Fishman, the union's president.þþManagement complains that it will pay $10,700 for health coverage next year for each of the union's doormen, elevator operators, handymen, porters and superintendents, up $1,000 from this year. To help offset the rising costs, management is demanding a wage freeze in the first year of a new three-year contract. þþMr. Fishman said the union could not accept a freeze because workers are facing higher costs for rent, fuel, food and college educations for their children. The union has also rejected management's proposals to have workers switch to 401(k) plans from traditional pensions, and to begin paying 15 percent of their health insurance costs.þþÿTheir proposal on health insurance would mean in effect a 4 percent cut in pay,ÿ Mr. Fishman said, noting that the workers earn an average of $37,300 a year.þþÿIt's a terrible atmosphere in this country for unions,ÿ he added. ÿEvery negotiation is a defensive one, and we're going to draw the line.ÿþþThe industry's negotiators insist that a one-year pay freeze makes sense because building owners pledged in previous talks to increase contributions to the union's health fund, both this year and next, by the equivalent of 2.75 percent of each worker's wages. þþBesides, the industry says, the apartment building workers should be bound by the pattern set by the other half of their union, some 25,000 workers at 1,000 Manhattan office towers who agreed to a one-year pay freeze in a contract negotiated 18 months ago.þþÿThe workers in the commercial buildings stepped up to the plate in taking a zero,ÿ Mr. Salvatore said. þþJames F. Berg, president of the Realty Advisory Board, defended the call for the workers to start paying part of their health insurance premiums. ÿAlmost all workers today — including ones who are paid much less — contribute something toward their health insurance premiums,ÿ he said.þþIn lopsided votes during the past month, Local 32BJ's members authorized their leaders to call a strike if talks falter before Friday.þþÿA wage freeze is a terrible idea — it's unacceptable,ÿ said Edward Bonilla, a concierge at 300 East 74th Street, a co-op building with 238 apartments. ÿEverything is going up right now. My kids are going to college. I can hardly pay for that. The way I see it, a wage freeze, givebacks on medical, on pensions, they would all be a strike issue.ÿþþThe two sides say it is hard to assess the likelihood of a walkout, although they agree that a strike seems likelier than at any other time in the past decade. The apartment building workers last walked out in 1991, in a 12-day strike. þþNearly 3,000 of the 28,000 workers are superintendents. Of those, superintendents of small buildings would take part in a strike. However, superintendents in large buildings are covered by a separate contract that does not expire until June 20. þþThe Realty Advisory Board has sent out a manual urging building managers to arrange to handle the garbage and to make sure that they have enough fuel and security guards available in case of a strike. The board is also urging buildings to secure equipment against vandalism and to put in place procedures for helping elderly and infirm residents.þþÿEvery building should be preparing to make sure they are ready to operate without their building service employees,ÿ Mr. Salvatore said. ÿIt is essential that buildings be ready to do so.ÿ þþMany buildings have turned to employment and security agencies to hire guards and other workers. þþCarlos Padilla, a doorman at 175 Riverside Drive, at 90th Street, said he believed that many tenants would be understanding if there were a walkout. ÿI don't think a strike would be a bad idea,ÿ he said. ÿIt's really our only weapon to negotiate. We are ready to go on strike if we are forced to.ÿþþOne oddity in the talks is that both the industry and the union seem to be pleading poverty, even though the union's members are the highest paid building service workers in the country and New York's real estate fetches the nation's highest prices per square foot in rentals and sales.þþÿThe fact that some of our brethren are selling buildings at high prices has nothing to do with us in the rental industry who are not making any money from rent-regulated housing,ÿ said Andrew Hoffman of Clarendon Management, the co-chairman of the industry's negotiating committee.þþHe said that during the past three years, rents rose 9 percent while operating expenses jumped 25 percent, a result of higher taxes, fuel prices and health costs. He also said that the rising price of real estate had not helped building owners with escalating expenses. þþAll this has real estate companies grumbling. ÿThe problem is your income is not moving,ÿ said Rudin Management's Eric Rudin, the other co-chairman of the industry's negotiating committee. ÿIf you tell me you'll make the same bottom line year in and year out, people won't be happy with that investment.ÿþþMr. Fishman, the union president, sees the situation differently. ÿWhat the real estate industry is saying is not true,ÿ he said. ÿThe added equity in a building allows them to borrow against it and move money into another building. It's like someone saying, 'It doesn't mean anything that your portfolio has gone up $100 million.' ÿþþThe people who are hurting, Mr. Fishman said, are not the building owners, but the building workers. þþÿThey keep saying our workers are the highest paid in the country,ÿ he said. ÿEven at $17.94 an hour, our members are pretty much part of the working poor. It's not easy supporting a family in New York on $37,000 a year.ÿþþAs often happens in labor disputes, each side talks tough early on, in part to bluff the other side, and each side makes some demands that it knows it will take off the table in last-minute horse-trading. þþManagement negotiators said the likelihood of a strike depended on Mr. Fishman. ÿIf there's going to be a strike, it's his call at the end of the day,ÿ Mr. Rudin said. ÿWe sure hope there isn't one.ÿþþ
Source: NY Times
