(NEW YORK CITY) – Union-represented School Cleaners and Handypersons rallied last week near City Hall for a contract that improves their pensions - and it won’t cost the City anything, according to their Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ.

The Workers are demanding increases to their pensions, which haven’t changed since 2018.

The contract, which covers more than 5,000 School Cleaners and Handypersons who work in the City’s 1,800 Public Schools, is set to expire on June 30th.

“We deserve this pension improvement,” said Kevin Jefferson, a Handyperson employed at P.S. 2 in Manhattan. “I gave twenty-five years of my life to them, I expect to retire with some dignity and some respect for the services that I gave to the school system.”

The Union began bargaining in March with New York City School Support Services, which contracts with the city Public School System.

The Workers earn Prevailing Wages and Supplemental Benefits - Cleaners are paid $29.90 an hour, while Handypersons earn an hourly wage of $32.62.

Their salaries were determined last December by the commercial contract agreement between 32BJ SEIU and the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations.

But as part of its negotiations with New York City School Support Services, 32BJ wants to reallocate a larger portion of the Prevailing Wage Supplemental Benefits Funds to the Workers’ pensions.

Shirley Aldebol, 32BJ’s Vice-President and Director of the Union’s Public Schools Division, said: “A pension improvement will not cost the City a penny more.  Because this is a Prevailing Wage contract and we can take money and reallocate it to pensions.  But the employer has to agree.  We think we’re going to have to fight for it, because they’re pushing back.”

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