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A pro-union bill that would boost salaries for thousands of privately hired workers to minimum rates set by the city is slated to pass the City Council next week as Speaker Christine Quinn courts organized labor for her likely 2013 mayoral bid, The Post has learned.
Quinn told her Democratic members in a closed-door meeting this week she plans to move the controversial “prevailing wage” legislation at the council meeting on Wednesday, sources said.
The bill would expand the number of building-service workers — including janitors, cleaning crews and security officers — who are paid prevailing wages set by the city comptroller. The rates are often much higher than standard, non-union wages.
It would require private developers to pay prevailing wages for working at projects in which the city provides at least $1 million in subsidies.
The bill would also cover workers in city-leased office space in privately owned buildings of at least 10,000 square feet, provided the city occupies at least 80 percent of the space in those buildings, sources said.
The bill was introduced in 2010 by Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, but Quinn only recently took it up, with an eye to the support of the powerful Service Employees International Union 32BJ as she gears up for her all-but-announced mayoral run.
Under the comptroller’s prevailing-wage pay scale, a large office-building handyperson makes $24.77 per hour, and a cleaner, porter, elevator operator or fire-safety director in a smaller office building earns $22.57 per hour.
“When New York City funds new development or leases space in a building, we should be treating workers fairly by paying them fairly,” Mark-Viverito said. “Our taxpayer dollars shouldn’t go towards undercutting working families in a race to the bottom.”
The bill does not have the support of Mayor Bloomberg, spokeswoman Evelyn Erskine said.
Republican lawmakers in the City Council were leery of the measure, which would raise costs for business just as the city is trying to recover from a recession that hit the real estate industry hard.
“In an economy that we’re seeking to have recover, we need to take a look at all the impacts that this bill will have,” said Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-SI), who has not taken an official position.