An end of the year piece of good news happened over the weekend–from the announcement by 32BJ in NYC:

The Local 32BJ Bargaining Committee announced on December 29th a tentative agreement on a new $6.8 billion contract for 26,000 commercial property service workers in New York City that provides more than 16% in pay increases over the life of the contract, improves the pension benefit for the first time in four years and maintains fully employer-paid family health care coverage.

 

"We achieved our goal to secure real raises that will help hard working cleaners continue to live in the city where they work," said Michael Fishman, Local 32BJ President. "Further, we’ve made an unprecedented improvement to our defined benefit pension plan, at a time when most workers are seeing their pensions decreased or eliminated."

The tentative agreement will provide $4.6 billion in wages over four years. The average wage for cleaners will go from $19.50 to $22.65 per hour by the beginning of the fourth year of the contract. The contract also improves members’ pension benefits by raising the employers’ annual contribution by more than 40% over the life of the agreement. This will raise the monthly pension cap over time from $1250 to $1400.

     Cool.