Strike-Ready SEIU Workers in NY Made the Bosses Blink - Here’s What They Got…
The thousands of unionized building service workers who flooded the streets of NYC on Dec. 20 made it clear they were ready to strike. Photo by Steve Wishnia
By Steve Wishnia
Commercial-building cleaners in New York City and hospital and university service workers in Rochester have won significant raises and averted threatened strikes this week.
In New York, SEIU Local 32BJ, representing 20,000 cleaners, announced it had reached a tentative four-year agreement with commercial building owners in the wee hours of December 28, less than four days before the union’s strike deadline. The members will be voting by mail on whether to ratify it throughout January, a union spokesperson told Work-Bites.
In Rochester, more than 1,800 workers at University of Rochester Medical Center and the University of Rochester’s River Campus ratified a three-year contract Dec. 27, approving a deal reached after 1199SEIU and SEIU Local 200 scheduled a vote to authorize a three-day strike. Union officials called the ratification near-unanimous, with only about 10 no votes.
All three unions also beat back management demands that workers pay part of their health insurance premiums, preserving an important benefit for relatively low-wage workers. 32BJ had said it would go on strike to protect premium-free health care.
The 32BJ Deal
The proposed contract would give cleaners “the biggest wage increases in 32BJ history,” the union said: If it’s ratified, at the end of the four years, workers would be making $3.725 an hour more than the current $29 base rate, a raise of almost $150 a week, about 12.8%. They would also get a $3,000 bonus in March and a 10% increase in pensions — the first improvement in 15 years, the union said — which would raise retirees’ incomes by up to $140 a month.
The union’s 33,000 residential-building workers in the New York metropolitan area would also get those pension increases, the 32BJ spokesperson said.
The deal would not reduce wages and benefits for workers hired in the future, a management proposal that 32BJ President Manny Pastreich had called a “clear strike issue” earlier this month.
“We fought back a two-tier wage system that would have been a blow to the future of this movement and the strength in our unity,” Pastreich said in a statement. “That was an important line in the sand that we drew, and refused to cross.”
The deal also includes “Sign One, Sign All” language, another of 32BJ’s five main priorities. It means that building owners or cleaning contractors covered by the agreement in New York City agree to labor peace — not interfering with union organizing — anywhere the Service Employees International Union has a presence.
Another issue was the landlords’ demand for “flexibility,” the ability to reduce the number of cleaners in their buildings. The number of union cleaning jobs has fallen by about 2,000 since the COVID pandemic hit in early 2020, although 32BJ says enough workers retired to prevent layoffs.
The compromise in the proposed contract gives incentives for early retirement. Workers who are 60 or older and have 15 years of service could get a $20,000 contribution to their 401(k) plan, a 5% higher pension, termination pay, and continued health-care benefits until they’re 65 and eligible for Medicare.
“We’re proud to come to an agreement that reflects the economic realities that commercial real estate faces by creating the flexibility the industry needs to survive for the long term,” Howard Rothschild, president of the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, the trade group representing the owners, said in a statement released by 32BJ. He praised the union for “working with us to find solutions that will benefit our workers and our industry.”
The Rochester Deal
The Rochester workers won raises of 6.98% to 10.58% in the contract’s first year — retroactive to when the old agreement expired Sept. 23 — with additional increases of 4% in the second and third years, according to 1199SEIU. Wages for newly hired workers, now $15.45 an hour, will go up to $17 on Dec. 31 and to $18.38 by the end of the third year.
“There is still some work that needs to happen, but we are closer than we were four months ago.” — Tracey Harrison, 1199SEIU lead negotiator. Image courtesy of SEIU.
More than 600 workers are in that lowest pay grade, 1199SEIU lead negotiator Tracey Harrison told reporters in a press conference announcing the ratification.
“At the end of this contract, we will be closer to a living wage for those who come in the door,” said 1199 member Sharif Hill, a cook at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC).
The deal will cover the about 1,500 caregivers and patient-service workers 1199 represents at URMC’s Strong Memorial Hospital complex, and the 300 to 400 food and service workers at the River Campus represented by SEIU Local 200.
If non-union employees at URMC receive any additional wage increases during the contract’s term, 1199 said, union workers will get the same raise.
The union had sought a minimum of $19.16, citing a common estimate of a living wage for a family of three in the Rochester area with two adults are working full-time. “There is still some work that needs to happen, but we are closer than we were four months ago,” Harrison said.
The deal was reached after four months of talks, in the 33rd bargaining session, he added.
It will also increase child-care benefits and includes extra raises for workers training for promotions, less probation time for temporary employees to become full-time, and more adult-education hours.
April Shepherd, a patient-care technician at Golisano Children’s Hospital, part of the Strong Memorial complex, for 13 years, said that would give her “a lot of free time for school.” She is studying to be certified as a licensed practical nurse.
“It gives me a little more latitude to be at home taking care of my loved ones,” said Sharif Hill, who is caring for his elderly mother. “If you invest in us, you’re going to be rewarded 100 percent. More than money, it’s respect.”
Having to push for a better contract “woke up a sleeping giant,” said Local 200 member Robyn Wilcox-Davis, a River Campus cook’s helper who was on the union’s negotiating team. During the two unions’ 17-hour strike Dec. 13, she added, “even children were walking the picket line.”