People rally with SEIU 32BJ leadership in New York, September 17, 2021. The union filed a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission last year about the use of restrictive covenants on behalf of Planned Companies workers.
This article is a joint publication of The American Prospect and Workday Magazine, a nonprofit newsroom devoted to holding the powerful accountable through the perspective of workers.
For almost six years, Raymond Pearson has been working as a front-desk concierge at one of the Galaxy Towers condominiums in Guttenberg, New Jersey, answering phones, getting packages to residents, dealing with food delivery, and developing bonds with the people who live there.
“The residents become your family,” says Pearson, who is 34 years old and lives in nearby North Bergen. “You’re spending a lot of time with them. I’ve seen some of the residents’ kids graduate. I’ve seen some leave for prom. The same ones who left for prom, I’ve seen them leave for college.”
But it wasn’t until this year, he says, that he learned that this whole time his livelihood has been subject to a contract—made without his participation or consent—that contains a poison pill.
The troubling provision is not in Pearson’s own employment contract, but the one between his employer Planned Companies—a contractor that hires concierges, janitors, maintenance, and other building service workers—and the Galaxy Towers Condominium Association. According to Pearson’s union, SEIU 32BJ, the provision says...
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