A union representing apartment building workers across the Bronx reached a contract agreement with their management last week, narrowly averting a strike that would have kept some 3,000 superintendents, janitors, handypersons, porters, firepersons, doormen, elevator operators and garbage handlers in the borough from heading to work.

32BJ, the union representing the workers, had been in contract talks with the Bronx Realty Advisory Board (BRAB) since February, and had already rejected one proposed contract that they said cut needed healthcare and retirement benefits.

The two groups came to an agreement on March 14, just a day before the workers’ current contract expired. The tentative agreement, if approved, will provide a roughly 6 percent wage increase and maintain employer-paid family healthcare and pension benefits.

“We were able to keep what’s most important to our families, affordable healthcare and pensions,” Angel Ortega, a Riverdale super said in a statement. “It was a tough few months, but we’re glad we didn’t inconvenience the residents and are eager to keep serving the Bronx.”

Last summer, hundreds of maintenance workers in Co-op City went on strike for a week during contract negotiations with their management group. Garbage and debris piled up outside the sprawling 35-building housing complex, to the dismay of residents there.