Thousands of unionized doormen, porters, superintendents and handypersons voted Wednesday to authorize a strike against residential building owners, with their contract set to expire today, April 20.

The vote puts the 32BJ SEIU on a collision course with the Realty Advisory Board, which represents building owners in contract talks. Without major concessions from the RAB in the next five days, workers who keep the city’s apartment buildings running could walk off the job, leaving packages piled up, trash uncollected and heating systems unrepaired across thousands of residential buildings citywide.

At the center of the dispute: wages, healthcare and pensions. Union members say they need a real wage increase, zero cost-sharing on healthcare, and higher pension contributions to keep pace with New York’s cost of living. Members told amNewYork that a full pension currently pays out roughly $15,000 a year. In this city. In 2026.

That number is staggering.

Fifteen thousand dollars. That’s what a worker gets after a career of hauling trash, fixing boilers and signing for your Amazon deliveries.

32BJ has called the RAB’s current offer “insulting.” April Verrett, president of SEIU, told the crowd gathered on Park Avenue that the stakes stretch far beyond a contract dispute. “It’s not just a contract expiring,” Verrett said. “It’s respect expiring, it’s fairness expiring.”

The rally itself was something to see. Union members in purple and gold packed Park Avenue in Manhattan from 79th Street to 82nd Street, cheering, chanting and dancing under warm spring sun for roughly three hours. Cherry blossoms lined the avenue. Over a dozen elected officials showed up in person, including City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Council Majority Leader Sean Abreu, City Comptroller Mark Levine, Borough Presidents Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Antonio Reynoso, Council Member Farah Louis, and Chair of the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection Harvey Epstein. Council Member Shirley Aldebol, who also leads 32BJ’s public school service workers, was there too. Brad Lander, running for New York’s 10th congressional district, attended. So did Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Mamdani didn’t hold back. He told workers he sees the gap between their daily lives and the lives of the building residents they serve. “I know that I’m speaking to those who handle DoorDash deliveries for so many, and yet when it comes time for them to go to the grocery store are straining to afford what they need,” Mamdani said. “I know that I’m speaking to those who look after luxury cars and yet sometimes have to be stuck on the slowest buses in the United States of America to get home. I know that I’m speaking to those who maintain multimillion dollar apartments.”

As someone who rides the Staten Island Ferry into Manhattan every morning and watches people head off to buildings all over the city, I can tell you that the workers 32BJ represents are not peripheral to New York. They are the infrastructure of the buildings where millions of New Yorkers live. The super who fixes the boiler at 11 p.m. The porter who mops the lobby before anyone else is awake. The doorman who keeps a mental log of every resident’s habits so he can spot trouble before it starts.

These aren’t gig workers you can swap out with an app. They’re long-term, skilled employees with institutional knowledge that can’t be downloaded. That’s why a strike wouldn’t just inconvenience residents. It would expose how much of this city’s daily function rests on people who can’t afford to live here.

The RAB has not yet responded publicly with a revised offer. The five-day clock is running. If the two sides don’t reach a deal, the disruption won’t be abstract. Buildings that rely on 32BJ members for garbage removal, package handling and mechanical systems will feel it fast, especially in a spring when building systems are cycling between heat and cooling.

For the M15 riders heading up First Avenue, for the people on the express buses coming out of the Bronx and Brooklyn, the workers making this city function are already squeezing onto the same slow routes Mamdani called out. A $15,000 annual pension isn’t a retirement. It’s a punch line.

The next five days matter.