NEW YORK — Working the overnight shift in a building where rents top out at $8,000 a month, concierge David Long has a front-row seat into how spendthrift some residents of this city’s luxury properties can be.
Long, 38, accepts and secures about 300 packages each night for the residents in his 370-unit building along the East River in Manhattan. And some nights, the food deliveries he intercepts for tenants never stop arriving — one apartment can order a dozen DoorDash and Uber Eats meals in a single day, he said.
That’s in sharp contrast to how Long, who lives in Brooklyn, carefully spends his $60,000-a-year salary.
“When I shop, I go to one store because eggs are on sale and a different store where bread is on sale,” said Long, who has been a concierge and doorman for nine years. “… I go to multiple stores to chase the savings.”
Long is among the 34,000 doorman, concierges, building cleaners and property managers threatening to strike over stagnated wages in an increasingly testy battle over who can afford to live and work in New York. The debate is centered around what’s considered a fair wage for workers who support an estimated 1.5 million residents, many of whom live in comfortable conditions that far outstrip those who serve them.
The dispute sets up yet another test for a labor movement that appears poised for a renaissance under new Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist. It also poses a challenge for property owners who fear higher labor pay will collide with soaring insurance, regulatory and utility costs.
Service Employees International Union 32BJ, the union representing the building workers, has scheduled a strike vote for Wednesday. If a strike occurs, New York’s more than 3,000 affected apartment and condominium buildings could face an array of operational issues affecting such services as garbage disposal, package delivery and security.
“Nobody would be taking out the garbage, and nobody would be keeping the building secure,” said Long, noting the porters in his building take out the garbage at least twice a day. “I don’t think these buildings would function without us.”
Doormen and concierges have stood guard at thousands of New York apartment and condominium buildings since the mid-1800s. Besides opening doors and greeting tenants, they handle package deliveries, keep tabs of who is entering and exiting a building and, especially in the most exclusive buildings, handle tenant requests.
Manny Pastreich, president of the SEIU Local 32BJ, said building workers are on the verge of striking because they are “insulted” by residential property owners’ recent contract proposal.
The Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, or RAB, which represents about 3,000 building owners, is asking union workers to share in the costs of their health insurance benefits for the first time. The board also proposed a two-tier wage system that could result in some buildings paying newer employees less money.
Salary bumps for building workers could also be scaled back this year, even after rents in many apartments have steadily increased in recent years.
“These are the folks who make these buildings run every day, who were there during covid and there during snowstorms,” Pastreich said. “Are they the ones who are really going to take it on the chin at this moment?”
Howard Rothschild, RAB’s president, said property owners must rein in costs because of the city’s uncertain political and economic climate, including Mamdani’s pledge to freeze rent on nearly 1 million rent-stabilized units.
RAB officials say those plans would gut revenue for property owners, many of whom maintain some rent-stabilized or low-income units even in luxury properties. Even without higher wages for building employees, residential property owners have been warning they may have to increase rents on market-rate units should Mamdani’s rent freeze be adopted.
“The likelihood of [zero percent] rent increases across nearly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City for years during the entire life of this contract will significantly limit the industry’s ability to support wage growth.” Rothschild said. “At the same time, co-ops and condos basically operate as nonprofits, and they are already contending with rising tax burdens and increased common charges.”
RAB estimates that the average door person in New York earns $62,000 annually, but those costs rise to about $112,000 when benefits, including full family health insurance benefits, are included. Board officials said it is reasonable to ask building workers to help cover health care premiums.
Pastreich said doing so would reduce his members’ wages while doing nothing to address the growing cost of health care.
“It is just making working people trying to get by in this city even poorer,” said Pastreich, who added that labor costs account for only 10 percent of expenses for a residential building. “We are very disappointed, given the work we have done to control health care costs, that the employers would propose cost-sharing.”
The potential strike is the latest sign that the city’s labor movement is reenergized after Mamdani’s election.
Over the winter, about 15,000 nurses at New York City area hospitals held a 41-day strike for higher salaries and benefits including a 12 percent pay raise over three years. Mamdani joined the nurses on the picket line. Several other labor disputes still loom, including a potential strike by 27,000 New York hotel workers while the city hosts visitors for World Cup matches.
Pastreich said the building workers union, which backed Mamdani during his general election campaign, has been assured it would have the mayor’s support if there is a strike. In a statement, Mamdani did not address a potential strike but said he supports building workers’ quest for “a fair contract that honors their contributions to our neighborhoods and our city.”
“In the midst of an ongoing real estate boom, the New Yorkers who keep our residential buildings running deserve their fair share,” the statement added.
New York doormen last went on strike in 1991, when they stayed off the job for 12 days. Some apartment dwellers said at the time they didn’t know how to dispose of their trash, with building workers who cleaned their high rise’s chutes off the job.
“It could get to be a mess,” one told the New York Times at the time. Residents were also signing up for shifts to provide building security, according to the Times.
Justin Lashley-Maloney, who works in a 15-story Tribeca apartment building where units sell for as much as $7 million, said in an interview that his workplace could “become a disaster” if a strike occurs.
“Imagine if we are not there — the garbage compactor would be filled until at least the second floor,” he said. “It will all back up in the building and it will stink.”
He’d feel badly about the building being in that state, but said he also has to prioritize his family’s needs. Lashley-Maloney, 42, earns $61,000 a year and is raising two teenagers.
He said being a doorman is far more stressful than it may appear. They have to remain vigilant to protect tenants. That can range from blocking a homeless person looking for a place to rest to keeping a former partner away from a tenant with a protective order.
“We are ready to respond to anything,” he said. “It’s a demanding job.”
Even simple tasks, Lashley-Maloney said, require care. At his building, doorman are asked to keep track of how to reward residents’ dogs after they come in for a walk.
“Each dog has its own treat and when they come in, these dogs demand their treats,” Lashley-Maloney said.
But while the dogs get pampered, Long and Lashley-Maloney said it’s increasingly hard for them to take care of their own families. Each live in Brooklyn apartments that cost more than $2,100 per month in rent.
Long said his salary has increased by about $2 an hour over the past nine years while his duties have increased dramatically. Since the pandemic, more people work from home and have things delivered to the building. The 300 packages he estimates he handles each night is about double the volume he managed pre-pandemic.
With such low raises, any increases in health care premiums could leave their finances overstretched, Long and Lashley-Maloney said.
“Sometimes kids break their glasses and break their phones,” said Lashley-Maloney, who has worked as a concierge for 13 years. “Already, life, it’s tight.”
But as he waits for the strike vote, Lashley-Maloney remains optimistic that his other “family” — the residents of his building — will help convince the property owners that building workers deserve a pay raise.
“We know our residents love and appreciate us,” Lashley-Maloney said. “But we just don’t want to be taken for granted.”
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