Contract talks continue with city's office cleaners.

With the contract for 26,000 commercial office cleaners in New York City set to expire on December 31, Local 32BJ has stepped up its ad campaign to highlight the differences between a prospering $248 billion industry and its struggling low wage workers.

Formal negotiations have been ongoing since early November to produce a new collective bargaining agreement for building service employees in New York City office and other commercial buildings.

The owners and operators of over 1,000 commercial buildings--mostly in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens--are represented by the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, Inc. (RAB), as ate the majority of the cleaning contractors in the City. Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union represents the employees in these buildings.

There has not been a strike in the commercial sector since January 1996, when a month-long strike occurred. Through preparation and unity in the real estate industry, the commercial buildings were successful in weathering the 1996 strike and obtaining a fair agreement. Subsequent commercial contracts were amicably settled without strikes.

"Local 32BJ commercial building employees are the highest paid in the nation, with generous healthcare, pension, annuity, training and other benefits," said James Berg, president of RAB. "While New York's commercial real estate industry has had several successful years, storm clouds are on the horizon, and the new collective bargaining agreement must look forward to what appears to be difficult economic conditions."

Mike Fishman, president of Local 32BJ said failure to reach a new contract by December 31, could lead to a strike of some 25,000 commercial property service workers at more than 2,000 buildings, including landmarks such as the World Financial Center, the Met Life building and the Empire State Building.

Office cleaner Luis Poposki said, "We all have families to support and it's getting harder to do so on what we make. We're not asking for anything other than what other hard working men and women want-better pay for the jobs we do."