Building owners prepare for labor negotiations.

The Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations (RAB) is preparing for negotiations with Local 32B-32J of the Service Employees Union International Union, whose contract for approximately 30,000 porters, doormen and handymen expires on April 20th. The first negotiating session with the union is expected to take place the first week in March.

The RAB negotiates on behalf of the owners of 2,900 buildings, including rental and cooperative apartments. Most of the buildings are located in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island, with some in Nassau and Suffolk counties. (Bronx residential workers are in a different union local and not involved, and the contract for most superintendents does not expire until June.)

The RAB negotiations are being led by James Berg, RAB's president; labor lawyer Paul Salvatore, a partner in Proskauer Rose LLP, the RAB's law firm; and Kenneth Patton of Manhattan Apartments, Inc., who is chairman of a seven-member negotiating committee.

"For the first time in more than 20 years, we are going to be sitting across the table from a new union leadership," Berg pointed out, referring to the fact that Gus Bevona resigned as the union president in 1999. "While this adds an unfamiliar element to the talks, I am hopeful that we will reach a new accord by the time the contract expires on midnight of April 20th."

"These are the best paid porters, handymen and doormen in the country, and we have always dealt fairly with them, even during hard times in the real estate industry," Berg said.

Under the contract, doormen and porters earn $597 a week. The total cost to a building, including pension, health care and other benefits, is $47,200 per doorman or porter.

While the RAB does not anticipate a strike, Berg said "Given the uncertainty around this year's talks, it is every building's obligation to prepare for one." The RAB is helping its membership by issuing a preparedness manual and holding meetings throughout the city to show how to keep buildings operating normally in the event of a strike. Topics include security, collection of garbage, building cleanliness, communications with residents and other issues.

In addition to Patton, the other members of the RAB negotiating committee are Rita Chu of East 67 Tenants Corp.; Arnold Goldstein of Samson Management Co.; James V. O'Connor of Insignia Management Services; Jack Levy of Rose Associates, Inc.; Mary Ann Rothman of the Council of New York Cooperatives; and Seymour Zuckerman of Zuckerman & Waldorf, Inc.