July 20, 2026
The near-collapse of the former Pfizer building in Midtown, New York City's largest office-to-residential conversion, has triggered a labor fight that could reshape how these projects get built. According to The Real Deal, in the days since structural columns buckled at 235 East 42nd Street, leaders from New York's building trades unions have seized on the fact that the project was an open shop using non-union labor. They are now pushing to require all-union labor, through project labor agreements, on office-to-residential conversions going forward. Here is the full picture, including the parts that cut against the argument.
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After structural columns buckled at 235 East 42nd Street, the former Pfizer headquarters and New York City's largest office-to-residential conversion, leaders from New York's building trades unions seized on the fact that the project was an open shop using non-union labor. They are now pushing city officials to require all-union labor, through project labor agreements, on office-to-residential conversions going forward. This is advocacy aimed at the mayor's office, the Department of Buildings, and the City Council. Nothing has been enacted.
Union representatives argue that non-union workers who identify a hazard on a job site often lack a channel to report it without risking their job. They point to data from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health finding that 81 percent of construction workers who died in New York State in 2024 were non-union. Statewide, 55 construction workers died in 2024, 19 of them in New York City.
A project labor agreement, or PLA, is a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement that sets the terms and conditions for everyone working on a given construction project. In practice, a PLA requirement means the work goes to union labor. That is why the push is significant: it would guarantee union work on an entire category of projects, which is both a worker-safety argument and a jobs argument at the same time.
There are several worth weighing honestly. First, there is a clear self-interest at play, since project labor agreements guarantee union work, so the push is about worker safety and union jobs simultaneously. Second, the cause of the failure at 235 East 42nd Street has not been determined. The Department of Buildings investigation is ongoing, so the claim that non-union labor caused the failure remains an allegation rather than a finding. Third, all-union mandates raise project costs, which could slow or deter the very office-to-residential conversions the city is relying on to add housing supply.
On this project, the developer hired a private firm to inspect and certify its own work. Union leaders and others argue that this self-certification model, in which owners effectively police themselves, is a core problem, and they are calling for more independent Department of Buildings inspectors who are not paid by the owner. Depending on what the investigation finds, that reform may end up mattering more than the union-labor question.
No. None of it has been enacted. These are proposals being pressed on the mayor's office, the Department of Buildings, and the City Council, and any mandate would require legislation. The two things to watch are the City Council, where a project labor agreement requirement would have to pass, and the Department of Buildings investigation into what actually caused the columns to buckle, since the findings will shape which reform gains traction.
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