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By Steve Wishnia

Bronx residential-building workers voted March 21 to authorize a strike if the Bronx Realty Advisory Board landlord trade group reopens their contract and demands concessions.

“The BRAB, they’re crying broke,” 32BJ SEIU secretary treasurer John Santos told more than 200 workers at a rally outside the Bronx Supreme Court building. “Are we ready to roll back wages?” “No!” shouted the crowd on the stone plaza, where the wind was blowing hard enough to make the union’s gold and purple banners flap violently and the temperature seem much colder than the listed 37°.

BRAB, which represents the owners of the about 500 buildings where some 1,400 32BJ members work — superintendents, handypersons, doorpeople, and porters — has said it wants to exercise its option to cancel the four-year contract agreed on last year. If it decides to do so by April 1, the union would be able to go on strike if a deal hasn’t been reached by April 30.

“No good can come of reopening the contract,” 32BJ executive vice president Shirley Aldebol told Work-Bites. “If they seek concessions, we’re ready to strike.”

The owners’ group hasn’t said what it wants to change; 32BJ has heard “really nothing” from them, says Aldebol. But last year, BRAB demanded a wage freeze, and for workers to start paying premiums for their health-care coverage.

“If they try to take away what we’ve achieved, we will be ready to strike to protect those wages and benefits,” 32BJ President Manny Pastreich told Work-Bites. “We don’t want to go through that again.”

BRAB did not respond to questions submitted on its website’s contact form. A man who answered a cell-phone number listed on the site said nothing after being asked “Is this the Bronx Realty Advisory Board?”

Free comprehensive health-care coverage is a crucial benefit for Bronx building workers, who generally make between $17.50 and $22 an hour, says Tony Ahmeti, residence manager of a Riverdale co-op building. “Even with $22, it’s not a livable wage.”

It’s “a matter of life and death” for his 20-year-old daughter, he says. “From the minute she was born, she’s had to be on medication.”

The owners should “take their hands off our contract,” he adds. “We just want them to leave us alone.”

“Already we don’t get paid a lot,” says Hilton John, a porter and shop steward in a building near Bruckner Boulevard in Soundview. He’s the father of three children ages 6 to 15, “a little architect, a little gymnast, and a football player.” Both the young and the old need health care, he adds: His 15-year-old son plays on his high school football team, which means “guaranteed ouchies and boo-boos.”

He describes building-service workers as “domestic first responders.” “You shouldn’t swindle a back door into our contract,” he says. “You touched that door handle during COVID — who wiped it?”

The contract provision that allowed BRAB to opt out after one year “was added 15 to 20 minutes before midnight” on March 14, 2023, just before the deadline, says Angel Ortega, a member of the negotiating committee. The union, which won raises of about 3% a year, nixed the owners’ demand for health-care premiums, and prevented cuts to pension benefits, wanted to avoid having to strike.

The landlords, explains Aldebol, were panicky about fallout from the collapse of Signature Bank, which held a lot of Bronx real-estate refinancing, just two days before the deadline. The fast-growing bank had been overloaded with uninsured deposits, especially in cryptocurrency, federal regulators said last year.

But “a lot of things have gotten better since then,” Aldebol adds.

“It’s about respect for the doormen. The doorwomen. The porters. The supers. It’s about respect for the work we do,” Pastreich told the crowd. The building owners say they’re feeling pressure from Albany, the city, and the banks, he continued, “but if they reopen this contract, they’re going to feel pressure from 32BJ.”