No wind, no rain: Drizzle didn’t dampen the spirits of a Halloween rally to protest non-union working conditions.
These Halloween parade marchers didn’t let the fear of unemployment prevent them from dragging their grievances into the vampire-vaporizing light of day.
Striking workers, in costume, were joined by members of the building service union they aspire to join — 32BJ SEIU — for a rally held on the afternoon of Thursday, October 31. Just a day before, six doormen, porters and concierge workers began an “unfair labor practice strike,” in response to an atmosphere of intimidation at their place of employment — a high-priced building near the High Line, where a one-bedroom recently sold for close to a million dollars.
The Halloween-themed protest, which originated at the contested building (520 West 23rd Street), morphed from a rally into a costumed procession making stops at three other nearby non-unionized luxury residences.
Perhaps the pressure generated from masked crusaders, a cutlass-carrying Zorro and dead ringers for Assemblymember Richard Gottfried and then-aspiring City Councilmember Corey Johnson had an effect. The next day, the workers were back on the job — in what a 32BJ spokesperson described as a “show of good faith,” after the building’s management service scheduled a November 5 meeting with the condo board. No agreement came from that meeting, noted the spokesperson, who remained hopeful that the situation could be resolved without further costumed actions.
—Scott Stiffler
