Catherwood LibraryILR School

In an effort to appease a jittery public and avoid adding further impetus to the possible outflow of businesses in the wake of the September 11 attacks, Manhattan's real estate industry and Service Employees International Union Local 32B-32J reached a preliminary three-year contract agreement yesterday. The agreement, coming almost two months before the current contract expires, breaks with a long tradition of notifications to tenants of discontinued service as janitor's threaten and often go out on strikes every three years right after Christmas. The building managers group---which conceded a 9.5% raise over the life of the contract, as well as large increases in medical benefits, without its usual insistence on increased workloads---cited the importance of focusing on security rather than work stoppages, as the main motivating factor in the agreement which has been praised by the director of the ILR School's New York City campus as "a good example of labor-management cooperation."