Public Employee Press

School Construction Authority
Back on the job!

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

About 40 Local 375 members who were laid off in the budget crisis of 2003 have returned to the School Construction Authority, capping a long campaign by the union to win back their jobs.

When the SCA laid off 100 workers in the spring of 2003, Local 375 started a fight-back that included demonstrations, publicity, a lawsuit and labor-management meetings.

The campaign paid off a year ago, when DC 37 and the local won the suit against the SCA. After several months negotiating the recall and additional hiring, the union and the SCA agreed on a window period from March to September for eligible laid-off workers to return.

“Four years ago, the union faced difficult times, but we were committed to getting you back,” Local 375 President Claude Fort told the returning workers Sept. 19 at a lunchtime celebration.

“The needs of each of our members are special to me,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, explaining that her commitment to restoring the jobs stemmed partly from her concern about the personal hardships involved.

Zigmunt Jagiello, president of the Civil Service Technical Guild’s SCA chapter, said the local would work to get the members pension credit for the years they were laid off. Local 375 will also monitor SCA’s hiring of scores of additional professionals fordesign, drafting and inspection work, he said.

Other key players in the union’s fight-back were Local 375 1st Vice President Jon Forster, 2nd Vice President Michelle Keller and Business Rep Karl Toth as well as Frank Burns of the DC 37 Research and Negotiations Dept. and Special Counsel Robert Burzichelli, who handled the case for the DC 37 Legal Dept.

The authority’s failure to meet its legal obligation to assign 40 percent of its design, drafting and inspection to in-house staff was at the core of the lawsuit. For years, the local had contended that SCA was not meeting that requirement; the suit showed the union was right.

When thousands of layoffs hit city workers in 2003, DC 37 helped laid-off members find new positions in other agencies. Working with Local 375, Roberts arranged for some former SCA employees to go to the Dept. of Environmental Protection. A lot of those workers have now returned to SCA, where their salaries are higher.

Some workers were not covered by the lawsuit because their jobs didn’t involve design, drafting and inspection, and some are earning more in the private sector. Altogether, over half the workers eligible for the recall have returned to the SCA.

“I liked the way they fought for us,” said Associate Architect Chinedu Akaolisa. While laid off, Akaolisa said he pursued real estate work but never secured the steady income he earned as an SCA employee.

The recall and hiring “will help the SCA by building up its in-house staff — a core group committed to ensuring that school construction projects are done efficiently,” he said.