Service workers say ‘No justice, no peace!’

Building service workers protest April 18. WW photo: Anne Pruden

Thousands of members of Service Employees Local 32B-J poured out of work on April 18 to jam streets in the exclusive residential area of Manhattan’s upper East Side. They blocked traffic as they marched and rallied on Fifth Avenue, chanting “No justice, no peace!” and demands for substantial wage increases and no givebacks. The 28,000 multinational members of the building services union—representing janitors, door attendants and other personnel who service 3,000 buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens—had voted overwhelmingly to strike on April 21, the date their contract expires.

The Realty Advisory Board, which represents residential building owners and managers whose property values have skyrocketed, is demanding a wage freeze, givebacks in health care and other concessions.

The gap in wealth between the top 1 percent of households and the average wage earner in New York City continues to widen at a rapid rate. According to New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, “The 2005 bonus tally was $2 billion more than the old record set in 2000. In 2004 Wall Street bonuses came to an estimated $18.6 billion.” And that didn’t include salaries, stock options and perks.

Meanwhile, wage earners in this city of high finance have lost ground to rising inflation as rents, energy, food, transportation and other necessities are rising at an alarming rate.

The class struggle is heating up in this citadel of corporate wealth