Friday, April 11, 2014

Deceased L'Wren Scott's 200 11th Ave. apartment in the news as NYC doormen negotiate for new contract, NY Times notes 200 11th Ave. bldg. is non-union. Update, 4/13, Doormen have reached tentative agreement, strike unlikely

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Update, 4/13, I just saw a note posted in my East Side building saying the sides have reached agreement, a few formalities remain, but we no longer need to prepare for a strike of our building staff. Susan.

NY City doormen union contract is up April 20, 2014. Negotiations are ongoing with SEIU Local 32BJ:

4/10/14, "For New York City Doormen, Some Closed Doors," NY Times, Real Estate, Julie Satow

"Several developers I spoke with said that hiring union employees raises a building’s expenses by as much as 40 percent, which can translate into much higher monthly common charges for apartment owners. Firing a union employee who is not working out can also be more arduous.

Nonunion buildings include 231 10th Avenue, 245 10th Avenue and 200 Eleventh Avenue, called the “sky garage” because it has private garages attached to each of its apartments. The high-rise on 11th Avenue was recently in the news as the home of L’Wren Scott, the clothing designer and girlfriend of Mick Jagger, who took her own life there. The building has many multimillion-dollar units, including a penthouse that is on the market for $23 million.

Many nonunion buildings either hire a third-party vendor who employs the doormen and other staff, or, less frequently, hire nonunion workers directly. Nonunion building staff members typically earn wages similar to those of union employees, but often do not receive health benefits or a pension plan, said Dan Wurtzel, the president of FirstService Residential New York, a property management company.

“There are plenty of buildings along the High Line with very large apartments, but not very large buildings, so to keep costs down they will not hire union workers,” Mr. Wurtzel said. While it is less expensive, there is typically more employee turnover at buildings that do not have union doormen, he added.

The many new high-rise condominiums around the High Line that are nonunion buildings illustrate a larger shift afoot. Not only have new-construction luxury condominiums pushed prices ever higher here, they have also seized much of the cachet that was once the sole dominion of the city’s large co-op buildings.

In particular, new-construction condominiums are a marked contrast to the staid co-ops of Park and Fifth Avenues. These broad streets have served for the last century as historic corridors of status, their understated elegance and unionized doormen in gold-buttoned uniforms and white gloves serving as globally recognizable markers of success."...

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Added: The High Line is "an area from 34th and 10th to 14th and 10th."

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200 11th Avenue shortly after Ms. Scott's death, Reuters via UK Independent. 3/17/14, "L'Wren Scott dead: Fashion designer and Mick Jagger's girlfriend 'found hanged' in NYC," UK Independent, Jenn Selby


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