Building trades seek union jobs, reforms post-Pfizer incident

The buckled beams in the former Pfizer building didn’t just set off emergency stabilization efforts and city investigations. The incident set off a talking point free-for-all as the city grapples with potential changes to a key development pipeline.

Leaders from the building trades and other union heavyweights seized upon the open shop at MetroLoft Management’s office-to-residential project to point out what they consider the pitfalls of any job without a project labor agreement.

Galvanized by last week’s frenzy around the risks posed by structural issues at the ex-Pfizer building, union leaders are looking to capitalize on increased scrutiny from the public and lawmakers to push their vision of a city that compels developers to tap unions for big projects.

The incident has unions squaring off with one of the city’s most prominent developers of office-to-residential projects while the mayoral administration seeks to telegraph emergency preparedness without hindering future conversions, which will be central to its housing plan goal to deliver 200,000 new affordable units in the next decade.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Deputy Mayor Leila Bozorg and DOB commissioner Ahmed Tigani have walked a tightrope with their messaging since the incident at 235 East 42nd Street, careful to highlight shoring measures and investigations widening into a broader construction safety sweep, while stressing the key role conversions play in the toolbox for building more housing.

“Worker safety, public safety, construction safety in general is central to all the work we’re doing as we try to build our way out of the housing crisis,” Bozorg said at a press conference days after the incident. “With respect to this specific project, it’s just too soon to say. The investigation has kicked off, if we learn something new that requires us to reevaluate some piece of either a policy or procedure, we absolutely will.”

‘Built right, built once’

A Steamfitters Local 638 shop steward was credited among the first workers to spot the structural failure at the former Pfizer headquarters below the upper floor additions in the residential conversion, which labor leaders attribute in part to rigorous job training and union protections.

“Without the representation, the non-union worker traditionally does not have anyone else to call if they recognize a hazard,” Brian Hunt, a business agent for Steamfitters Local 638, told The Real Deal. “The buckling beam is one thing, I think now it’s a big picture that we are all looking at to correct some of this stuff.”

Hunt cited data from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, which found that 81 percent of construction workers who died in 2024 across the state were non-union. Statewide, 55 construction workers died in 2024, with 19 of those deaths occurring in New York City.

Brendan Griffith, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, testified at a charter revision committee hearing last week that time is of the essence when it comes to job site safety.

“The greatest example of a lack of project labor agreement that we have seen over the last week is on 42nd Street, where I could say that project is not more efficient, is not working and there will be significant delays,” Griffith said to the Commission on Government Efficiency panel on Monday. “Perhaps a unionized workforce throughout that construction may have prevented what thankfully did not end in a loss of life, but it certainly is going to be a delay and posed a tremendous risk.”

MetroLoft plans to reconstruct the 15 cantilevered floors that were added to the original building as part of its conversion project, replacing facade, slabs and steel on those levels, Berman told Bloomberg. Nathan Berman told The Real Deal shortly after the incident that the structural failure was a “freak accident” impacting only a limited area of the overall project.

A spokesperson for the firm cited the developer’s track record of successful office-to-residential conversions over the past three decades. Berman was an early leader in office overhauls, fueling a development boom that was poised to expand even further, at least until columns buckled last week inviting an influx of new scrutiny to the method of residential retrofitting.

“Safety is our highest priority,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We continue to work closely with the Department of Buildings, and our focus remains on ensuring the site remains safe as we complete the work necessary to move forward with the successful completion of the project.”

Meanwhile, unions are looking to make safety synonymous with the building trades, even in some cases before construction has begun on major projects across the city.

“You can count on a project being built right, being built once and being built with excellence because of the men and women of the Building and Construction Trades Council,” Gary LaBarbera, the umbrella union organization’s president, told the crowd at the groundbreaking of an American Express office tower at 2 World Trade Center last week.

Building pressure

Unions plan to push the Mamdani administration, along with legislators in Albany and City Hall, to enact higher standards for office-to-residential conversions and more general reform around union labor requirements on construction projects.

“What we deal with when we look between Albany and City Hall is this patchwork of laws that we just try to make sure that we somehow meet a threshold that’s been decided by politicians, so that we can get good footing on a job,” said Brett Thomaston, political director of Steamfitters Local 638. “That is frankly untenable, the union market share in New York City has dropped precipitously decade after decade. Our lawmakers are not going to save us at the current rate.”

Scrutiny in the wake of the incident unearthed past infractions by the project’s developer, contractor or other subcontractors, adding to the optics battle as unions seek concrete support.

GACE Consulting Engineers blamed the buckling columns on a failure to install reinforcing steel to support additional floors as laid out in its structural plans for the conversion, Gothamist first reported.

A spate of safety complaints and DOB violations in the year before the structural failure also exacerbated the optics around job site safety at the project. Domani Inspection Services, a private firm that conducted special inspections of the building slated for conversion, had also received citations for issues across other projects before certifying the safety of high-strength bolting, steel welding and the structural stability of other alterations, the New York Times first reported. It’s unclear if Domani’s inspections tie directly to the buckled columns at the site.

“A self-certification program, to me it’s like a fox watching the hen house,” LaBarbera said, citing the business relationship that can exist between owners or construction managers and their chosen inspectors. “Moving forward, I think there has to be a kind of recalibration in how projects are looked at.”

Demolition subcontractor Northeast Service Interiors LLC also drew scrutiny for past issues and complaints, including one fine for omitting protective netting at the project site. Laborers Local 79 has been protesting MetroLoft’s hire of Northeast Service Interiors LLC as a demolition subcontractor. “Scabby,” the inflatable rat known as a fixture at labor demonstrations in New York City, reappeared near the site following last week’s incident.

“We’ve been told that there are probably not going to be non-emergency workers in that building for the next couple of months,” Thomaston said. “When people do go back to work on that, it really should be an all-union job and have the properly skilled, trained workers on that job.”