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With no agreement on a contract between building owners and doormen, porters, concierges and superintendents in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, Local 32BJ has their members geared up for a walkout after midnight on Friday. At the heart of the disagreement between the two sides are wages, pensions and health coverage with current members averaging about $37,315 a year. Sounds like another strike that recently ended, yes?
Less than an hour ago, Gothamist got an email from FreshDirect letting us know that they'll still deliver:
As you may know, if an employment contract agreement is not reached, 28,000 doormen, elevator operators, porters, and other residential building employees have indicated that they will strike on Thursday, April 20, at 11:59 p.m.We anticipate a strike could bring delivery complications for your FreshDirect order. As a result, we encourage customers in affected buildings to schedule deliveries for early in the week. In the event of a strike, we plan to reduce time-slot availability on Friday, April 21.
Since we may need to make additional arrangements during your delivery, please use the Your Account section of our website to make sure your phone number and contact information are accurate and up-to-date.
Your building management staff may have additional information on delivery restrictions. As a reminder, in the event we are unsuccessful in delivering your order, standard restocking fees will apply.
As always, thank you for being a valuable customer. Please know we will do everything in our power to bring you quality service whether or not this strike occurs.
Lucky for us (or not), Gothamist doesn't have a doorman, but some of friends say that their buildings are passing around sign-up sheets to help cover shifts. So a few questions for those that have doormen and the such: How are your buildings preparing for the strike? Will they be turning away deliveries? And are you generally more receptive to the doorman strike than the MTA strike?
If the strike happens, New Yorkers will rue the day when they couldn't get their Chinese food delivered.
Photo of doorman by Rion Nakaya via Flickr
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I didn't get this email - does that mean FreshDirect doesn't love me?
So does this mean there will be more or less of their polluting trucks double parked in my 'hood?
doorman strike? whats next? i don't have a doorman so they can strike forever for all i care..
In my building we have signed up for two hour shifts from the moment of strike through the next week. I'm talking 3-5 am shifts and the like. Our doormen are suggesting that it isn't going to happen but who knows...I am sure they don't. In anticipation of the strike, however, many of my fellow shareholders are doing as much as they can now (like getting their deliveries early) so it won't be a pain in the ass. For example, if we have any guests, we have to go down and get them and sign them in and out and take them down when they leave. This isn't a big deal for me, but I am going to laugh my ass off when some of these old biddies and bejewelled, coifed ladies who lunch are coming down from their penthouses to let their "help" in. hahaha. (Actually, we were given cards to assist whomever is on "shift" at the time so they know who is a resident and who is not.)
I want a Graphic Designer Union, man.
I went through a strike a little over 10 years ago.
Best thing that happened. People threw out their own garbage, apparently some tenants don't know how to use the refuse room.
The manager in my building says he thinks there'll be a strike.
My building is pretty much like what brooke said, except we're having paid security guards but they still want us to volunteer to help out checking building passes and such.
Biggest PITA for me is the concierge usually keeps the extra keys to give my dog walkers -- now I have to give the keys and a pass to the walker and it's a lot more complicated if I need my dog to be walked outside of the usual hours.
Oh, and, no moving in or out and no big (like furniture) deliveries during the strike. No renovations, redecorations, whatever with contractors. If you have emergency work to be done, you have to find a contractor who'll cross the picket line.
Hey, for $37k for a job that's pretty undemanding, I'd almost take it. Sure, it's not great pay, but it's not as demanding and stressful as most professional jobs.
If they dont want the jobs at the current pay and benfits (which are probably already way to high for the job), maybe we can get some "undocumented workers" to take them... lol. This comes right out of rents and mainenance fees, I think the union should think twice about striking with such unessential, overpaid jobs.
What about the doorman's doorman?
My building has warned us that UPS thinks its delivery men won't cross picket lines.
And our service entrance also will be locked if there's a strike, which could complicate FreshDirect and other deliveries.
damn! glennardo bitches and whines like a little hoe about everything!
I can't believe that those of you with doormen are acting like this is the worst thing EVER to happen to you. Maybe you will have to go to the store and carry your own groceries. Maybe you will have to have your packages sent to work. So many places in the country don't have doormen. This isn't like the freakin' transit strike. Geez.
Are you people kidding me? You have no clie what these building workers face everyday, PLEASE! don't comment on something you know nothing about!
Everybody thinks that a job is not demanding when they don't have to do that job themselves. Give them a break. 37k does not sound like much when compared to the amounts collected in rent, maintenance, etc.
In the "proffessional" world, the sky is the limit when it comes to raises and bonuses. For the rest of us doing "undemanding" jobs, simply trying to get a raise can be a highly stressful experience. The fact that they have to resort to such practices only serves to prove this point.
if we have any guests, we have to go down and get them, People threw out their own garbage, extra keys to give my dog walkers, you have to find a contractor who'll cross the picket line.
-37K is not nearly enough
"Are you people kidding me? You have no clie what these building workers face everyday, PLEASE! don't comment on something you know nothing about!"
yeah... sitting while waiting for UPS to come or the dry cleaning and holding extra keys... truly a back breaking job. lmao. most dont even open doors. give me a break.. it's not a tough job.
Whether it's a tough job or not, it's absolutely
INSANE that real estate management is trying to make the union workers pay 15% of their health care costs. (previously, it was provided for)
Real estate prices have gone up for 15 years straight, developers are making billions and they are crying about 37k + benefits!
I don't think its that insane... its reality, costs are soaring, its happening in the private sector... the alternative is higher rents or maintenance fees like someone else said earlier. Based on the nytimes article that was on gothamist a few weeks back about how doormen buildings were no longer considered a large value to buyers, if they push too hard they may push themselves out of jobs. With all the inflation going on now, residents are not going to keep eating these costs.
to the guy who said realestate prices have gone up, does that mean my monthlie costs should go up to the point I can no longer afford my appartment, just because on paper its value has gone up? its not like a stock, people live in their homes and monthly costs are already like paying rent and then a mortgage (i wont even get into property tax). everyone needs to be realistic, the money to pay these guys just doesnt fall from the sky.
so people will have to let in their own guests, accept their own deliveries, and take out their own garbage? is this really that terrible? my apartment doesn't even have a buzzer, and i survive somehow.
jeez, if you're rich enough to live in a doorman building, just go out and buy yourself a massage or something to cope with the added stress of opening your own freaking door.
Doormen are a completely useless stupid luxury that SHOULD only be for the rich or the elderly -- but many of us not-so-rich people have been forced by the market to pay for this so-called "service." For all I care -- strike, pigs, strike yourselves right out of a job. I hope it's looong, too, so everyone realizes how extravagant a waste of good money you truly are. The only thing that pisses me off about it is that their outrageous salary is paid for by higher rents that I have to pay. "Sir, you have a package." Oh, thanks Jeeves, my life would have been ruined if I had had to go to a package room or something, or if UPS had had to call me on an intercom. Speaking of intercoms, isn't a doorman just a fleshy variety of the former? I wish my landlord would fire that set of losers that luxuriate behind that marble desk of theirs all day, chatting with the janitors, and install the metal doorman that doesn't get a salary. I blame this all, of course, on you tacky native New Yorkers who perpetuate this expensive cultural quirk.
(I'd like to clarify -- the $37K? That's the average of the UNION. That means janitors probably get less and doormen even more.)
I do find it very funny that the landlord sent a letter to the tenants here asking us to help pick up some of the slack by "monitoring and maintaining cleanliness in the common areas," and some other things that *I* pay *them* to take care of. It is not my problem that repair men won't cross a picket line. This is not a coop or a condo, I do not own a stake in this property; all of a sudden I'm a partner? Excuse me, Mr. Landlord, I'm gonna share with you something you already know -- PARTNERS GET PAID. All I am is your customer, and soon to be a very disgruntled one if something breaks in my apartment and you don't fix it in a timely manner.
Anyway, what I don't understand, and hopefully someone could explain, is: who the hell does the union negotiate WITH? We're talking about thousands of individual landlords. Are they all a member of a landlord association that negotiates with the union for them? It's very confusing and the papers are no help at all.
In the end, it's just a job. I never understood unions. They were necessary when workers were locked in 110 degree rooms for 16 hours a day. They are a nuisance now. Don't like the pay as a doorman? Get a different job. Move to China, I hear they have a lot. America's not the end of history, you know.
Id like to the whining yuppies that complain the 37K job is cake.
TRY DEALING WITH YOUR SPOILED 'PROFESSIONAL' YUPPIE TYPE NEIGHBORS WHO THINK THEY ARE THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE LIKE YOURSELF
Better thought ,go back down to starbucks and order your $5 latte (while wondering out loud whats taking so long)
Uh, doorboy? 37K is more than my salary. But since I am a smart person, I have invested my meager income over my last 8 years here in the GROWN-UP WORLD, and I have pretty good supplemental income. In addition, I don't spend my money on the ridiculous crap that poor people statistically blow way more of their money on than wealthier people. I share my place with my partner, but then all these doormen who are complaining have families, so I assume their wives work. No? They should. And it's pretty cheap to live in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. They should check out those boroughs.
Frankly, you look like a bunch of whiny bitches, all of you who have just resorted to calling people of means "spoiled" for insisting a service we pay for is actually done by the people we pay to do it. You're lashing out wildly and you look ridiculous and ignorant. "Just buy a $5 latte!" "Just go buy a massage to make youself forget you have to open your own door!"
Bitter, bitter.
Besides, the doorman job IS cake.