New York: Apartment building workers locked out for refusing cuts

After proposing to slash wages by more than 30 percent and cut benefits, workers from one of Brooklyn's biggest apartment complexes in New York received yet another slap in the face from employer Renaissance Equity Holdings when they arrived to begin their shifts last Monday morning.

Flatbush Gardens workers, which include "handymen" and porters at the 59 building complex, were locked out by their employer, effectively preventing them from performing their jobs and serving thousands of tenants at the massive complex.

The employer's action to lock the workers out took place following their refusal to accept a more than 30 percent cut in wages and cuts to benefits that would leave most workers without health care coverage. "I'm really scared," said Emanuel Dover, 50, a 22-year veteran porter who also lives in the complex. "It's Christmas season. I can't afford to buy gifts for my kids," he said. "I'll have no income. I can't pay my rent. ... It's shameful and embarrassing."

Unsafe & Unsanitary Conditions at Flatbush Gardens

In just the past month and a half, Flatbrush has been slapped with 400 housing code violations, which include unsanitary situations related to bedbugs, roaches, or rodents.

Tenants have also been subjected to everything from leaking pipes to open drains and sewage, due to management's failure to perform the structural repairs or updates to the plumbing and sewage systems (that would prevent these recurring floods of sewage).