A labor dispute that almost left dozens of local buildings, including parts of Columbia housing, without basic services was resolved last night, and no strike is planned.
Thousands of doormen, handymen, superintendents, and other workers were set to walk off the job this morning after negotiations between their union, 32BJ, and the city’s Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations dragged on past the union’s midnight deadline.
According to the New York Times, a union official announced that a deal had been struck at 12:20 a.m.
New York City’s 32BJ union, a division of the Service Employees International Union, represents 30,000 building workers and has been in contract negotiations since March with the Board, which represents building owners.
“I was really worried—I’ve got a third kid on the way, so to go on strike would have been bad. Nobody would’ve crossed our picket line, and we would have had garbage stinking up the city,” Vinko Camaj, a doorman at 610 West 110th Street said.
The union represents workers in some Columbia-owned buildings, including graduate residence halls, and a strike would have stopped basic services like trash pickup, most maintenance, and package deliveries.
“There are 32BJ employees who work in Columbia dormitories, and those buildings will be part of the 3,222 that will be affected if we do go on strike,” 32BJ spokesperson Kwame Patterson had said Tuesday afternoon.
Undergraduate residence halls are not serviced by 32BJ members and would not have been affected by a strike.
On Tuesday, Dan Held, director of communications for Columbia Facilities, said in a statement, “Columbia University is not directly involved in the current negotiations. The University has established procedures in order to keep our residential buildings safe and operational during the strike and has communicated these procedures to our tenants.”
In 362 Riverside Drive, a graduate residence hall known as Carlton Arms, fliers were posted on Tuesday detailing how to deal with reduced building services.
In the event of a strike, residents were asked to bring garbage to the basement, pitch in to keep their floors clean, be home for all deliveries, and carry keys at all times. The posters noted that buildings that usually have 24-hour doormen would have had security guards posted in the lobbies instead.
Loretta Zuk, the superintendent of the Columbia-owned 547 Riverside Drive, is a member of 32BJ and had planned to stop working if the strike was called.
“I run the building pretty much on my own, so if I don’t work, it’s at a standstill,” she said.
After losing a good chunk of her retirement savings due to the recession, she said she can’t afford what she heard were the proposed contract changes.
“We don’t want to give back any of our benefits. We want a cost-of-living increase—we’re not asking for much more,” Zuk said. “They want to reduce our sick days from 10 to five, up what we pay to our insurance, which we never had to do. Little things here and there add up.”
Camaj of 610 West 110th Street said those proposed health care changes were the main sticking point among union members.
“We do a service that they want, and now they have to pay for it,” he said.
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