(NEW YORK CITY) - When the day is done for the tens of thousands working in offices in the Empire State Building, at One World Trade Center, Hudson Yards and hundreds of other buildings in New York City, Cleaning Crews move in, carry out their tasks in relative quiet and anonymity and, after a few hours, also leave.  But the Commercial Cleaners, along with Handypersons and Porters, now have another job: Securing a contract with the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations before the end of the year.

They’re doing so at a fraught time for both sides as office vacancy rates hover around 20% and with hybrid work arrangements becoming the norm, uncertainty in that sector prevails. 

And for the 20,000 Cleaners, Handypersons and Porters, all Members of 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), meeting the increasingly pricey cost of living in a city some rank as the most expensive in the country is at the top of their agenda. 

“I think this is going to be an extremely tough bargaining and especially given how it's getting harder and harder for our Members to survive here in New York City due to the high cost of living, rising housing prices, inflation.  It's like a struggle every single day for our Members to get by,” 32BJ’s executive vice president, Denis Johnston, said in a phone interview with The Chief Leader earlier this month - just days after hundreds of the Workers rallied in Midtown in support of raises and to retain health benefits the Union says have raised thousands of city families, most of them with Immigrant and Working-Class backgrounds, toward the Middle-Class.

The current deal expires at midnight December 31st. 

Although Johnston, who is also director of the Union’s New York City Commercial Division, noted that the Cleaners - who also work at Top of the Rock, The Edge at Hudson Yards, the World Trade Observatory and the Museum of Modern Art, on average earn just over $61,000 a year, that figure has been whittled away, obliging an increasing number to settle outside the City.  

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