NYC Landlords, Workers Reach Deal

Union leaders representing thousands of New York City apartment house doorpersons, superintendents, and other workers said Friday that they had reached a tentative contract agreement with building owners, averting a strike at the homes of an estimated 1.5 million people. The current contract covering nearly 34,000 workers with an array of private building owners would have expired at midnight Monday. A strike would have been the first in 35 years, the AP reports, and some apartment-dwellers had been bracing to haul trash, postpone renovations and major deliveries, and volunteer to staff lobby doors, sort packages, and mop hallways. Workers will vote by May 28 on the deal.

"Our goals were simple: to raise the wage to a level that our members can live in this city, to protect health benefits and to improve pensions," union President Manny Pastreich said, calling the agreement "an incredibly good deal for both sides." It includes pay raises and a 15% pension boost. Average annual wages for a doorperson or porter, for example, would rise from about $62,000 to $71,000 in four years, and new training would offer future hires a faster route up the wage scale. Building owners retreated from proposals to have employees start paying health insurance premiums and to create a new job classification for future hires. The union said newcomers would be paid less. The organization representing the owners had pointed out that their costs are rising and that landlords face a potential rent freeze on 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, an idea championed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.