Labor Board Could Lift ‘Destructive’ Lockout of New York Housing Workers

After nearly a year locked out of their jobs, porters and maintenance workers at a massive New York housing complex see a ray of hope. A Labor Board complaint described the lockout as “inherently destructive” of workers’ rights, making the 70 Service Employees members optimistic they will prevail.

After nearly a year locked out of their jobs, porters and maintenance workers at a massive New York housing complex see a ray of hope. A Labor Board complaint described the lockout as “inherently destructive” of workers’ rights, making the 70 Service Employees members optimistic they will prevail.

“We don’t have any money but unemployment,” said Joseph Mitchell, a member of SEIU’s mega-local 32BJ. “But we’re going to get rid of David Bistricer.”

Porters and maintenance workers in Flatbush Gardens’ 59 buildings in Brooklyn were locked out in November 2010 by Bistricer’s Renaissance Equity Holdings when their union refused to concede to draconian contract demands after months of talks.

Bistricer wants workers to accept a 34 percent across-the-board wage cut, reducing maintenance workers’ hourly wages from $21 to $14 and porters’ from $19 to $12. He is also pressing them to pay 15 percent of the cost of their health care.

Conditions at the complex landed Bistricer on the “Worst Landlord” list compiled by New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. According to union officials, residents filed 3,187 complaints with the city’s Department of Housing, objecting to piled-up trash, flooded basements, and vermin. Even before the lockout, workers called OSHA on the landlord when he refused to pay to fix overflowing sewage and leaking pipes.

Conditions deteriorated further after the workers were locked out.

Flatbush Gardens is home to 3,000 families, and tenant groups in every building voted to support the locked-out workers, said Martin Cornish, vice president of the tenants association.

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Like many of the locked-out workers, Brian Roach both lives and works in the complex. He said management’s contract demands were outrageous.

“I can’t exist with the type of cuts they want,” Roach said. “I haven’t got money to pay my son’s school fees, my mortgage, or credit card bills,” he said. “I need my job back.”

Mitchell, a porter, said he had to send his daughter to live with her grandmother in Puerto Rico because of the lockout, which has also taken a physical toll.

“We’re out here seven days a week in the heat and the cold,” Mitchell said.

The National Labor Relations Board will present its case against Renaissance, potentially liable for as much as $2 million in back pay, before a judge on November 14.

Spirits were high as hundreds of SEIU members joined the 70 locked-out workers for a boisterous end-of-summer rally at the sprawling housing complex.

“Come back to the negotiating table or we will force you to come back,” said Local 32BJ Secretary-Treasurer Hector Figueroa, as managers and non-union replacement workers watched from the steps of the property’s leasing office. “The time to negotiate is now. We’re not going anywhere.”

Jenny Brown contributed to this piece.