NEW YORK CITY-After finding common ground and averting a New Year’s Day strike, the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations and Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union reached a tentative agreement covering more than 22,000 city office cleaners. But several provisions in the resolution also benefits commercial owners and managers, RAB tells GlobeSt.com.
“This agreement really has something for everyone,” Howard Rothschild, president of RAB, tells GlobeSt.com. “We were able to negotiate a fair deal and one that reflects today’s economic realities, and that’s what we’ve been talking about all along.”
Under the agreement, the deal establishes a four-year contract providing nearly a 5.6% wage increase, bonuses totaling $1,100 and preservation of employer-paid health benefits for union employees. The agreement also creates a new development committee, a group solely focused on newly constructed buildings and negotiating special agreements there.
“It is really the equivalent of a maintenance PLA,” Rothschild says. “Through that type of system, this collective bargaining agreement will strengthen and grow the real estate industry in New York and put people back to work.”
Rothschild says the agreement also expands the start rate for employees. Under the new contract, new employees will get 75% of the regular rate for the first 21 months and then 85% of the regular rate for the next 21 months.
The tentative agreement, which was unanimously ratified by the RAB board on Jan. 3, still awaits final approval by 32BJ. If passed, Rothschild says the contract would maintain the union’s status as one of the highest paid building service workers in the country.
According to a RAB spokeswoman, the current annual wage for an “other” employee—classified as an office cleaner or porter—is about $47,100 a year. The current annual cost for an other is close to $77,000 a year, which includes wages and benefits. It factors in employer-paid family health insurance, a training fund, legal fund and up to 49 days of vacation, holidays, and sick days per year for each employee.
“The fact of the matter is, because these are such great jobs, there’s not a high rate of turnover,” Rothschild says.
To save money on healthcare costs, RAB established a healthcare study committee in 2010 that aimed to reduce expenses. “The committee at that point has been tasked with to save about $70 million a year starting in 2012,” Rothschild says. “We saved last year probably about $50 million, which is before our assignment really began, and we are scheduled to save on average about $100 million a year going forward over the next four years.”
The union represents cleaning staff in more than 1,000 buildings across the city, including Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, the MetLife Building, the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station, the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Time Warner Center. When ratified, the contract will last until Dec. 31, 2015.
At the bargaining table, RAB negotiated on behalf of commercial building owners and operators with John Santora of Cushman & Wakefield and John Whalen of Fisher Brothers.
“Both sides came to this negotiation in good faith to negotiate an agreement,” Rothschild says. “We received some of our goals, the union achieved some of their goals and at the end of the day, the winners in all of this are the industry and its workers.”
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