Thirty-four thousand NYC doormen, porters, and supers are gearing up to strike because the real estate industry — the one that made billions turning housing into a speculative asset — can’t stomach paying them a fair contract. These workers make about $62k a year in a city where rent on a shoebox is $4,000 a month. They keep your building running, accept your packages, fix your pipes, and somehow haven’t burned the whole thing down yet. The Realty Advisory Board’s counter-offer? Try to gut their healthcare and strip legal aid from immigrant members. Classic.
If they walk out on April 21, 3,500 buildings and 600,000 households lose the people who actually make New York livable. Every luxury condo owner on the Upper East Side suddenly has to figure out how to take out their own trash. Good. The real estate lobby in this city has spent decades profiting off the housing crisis it helped create, and now it’s trying to nickel-and-dime the workers who mop the floors of buildings they can’t afford to live in. Vote yes on the 15th. Shut it all down.