A dozen office-cleaning contractors avoided a looming strike by nearly 4,000 cleaners in Westchester and Fairfield counties when a tentative contract settlement was reached with union negotiators three days before a New Year”™s Day deadline.
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The four-year contract, which members of Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ were expected to ratify in voting Jan. 12, expands health benefits for part-time workers, including fully employer-paid family health coverage for workers in the region”™s largest buildings, and sets wage hikes amounting to $2 an hour over the life of the contract, a 19 percent increase.
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Negotiations on separate contracts for Fairfield County and the Hudson Valley began in October. On Dec. 28, the same day that union members authorized a strike if no settlement was reached when their contracts expired at the end of the year, bargaining sessions and the contracts were merged, union spokeswoman Lynsey Kryzwick said. A settlement was reached that night.
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Shirley Aldebol, Hudson Valley director for Local 32BJ, said the union had proposed merging the contracts at the start of bargaining talks last fall. “We see Fairfield and Hudson Valley really as one market,” she said. “It”™s just logistically better. It”™s better for the workers because now Fairfield workers have parity with Westchester in wages and benefits.”
The contract covers maintenance contractors and cleaners in about 125 office buildings and facilities in the Hudson Valley area, including the majority of large offices in downtown White Plains, and nearly 200 buildings in Fairfield County, including more than 90 percent of large commercial buildings in downtown Stamford, union officials said.
With the tentative agreement, full-time workers will continue to receive fully employer-paid family health coverage. Improved health benefits for part-time workers will include life insurance, a prescription drug benefit and dental and optical insurance, union officials said.
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Employers also agreed to extend fully paid family health coverage to all cleaning workers in office buildings over 400,000 square feet by the end of the contract. That will affect a total of about 400 workers in eight to 10 office buildings in White Plains and about an equal number of offices in Stamford, as well as several other buildings in the region, Aldebol said. “We”™re hoping it will result in more full-time work” for cleaners in those buildings, she said of the provision.
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“Expanded health care coverage will allow workers to take better care of themselves and their families ”“ without worrying about breaking the budget on basic health expenses,” said Kurt Westby, Local 32BJ”™s Connecticut director.
“I just think that this is a very good contract,” Aldebol said. “It”™s a big victory for workers.” She called it “a tremendous achievement for our members.”
Management negotiators at American Building Maintenance in New York City and Kencal Maintenance Corp. in White Plains declined to comment on the agreement before it was ratified by union members. A spokesperson at A&A Maintenance in Yonkers did not return a call for comment.
Local 32BJ, the largest property services union in the country with 100,000 members, reached a cleaning contract in Hartford in early January. Bargaining for 26,000 commercial cleaners in New York City continued last week.
