Public Employee Press

Editorials
The disgrace of a city

As right-wing attacks threaten to decimate the gains by public service workers, one of the principal arguments of conservatives is that these employees are abusing the collective bargaining process.

Nothing could be further than the truth.Too many city employees reportedly live in homeless shelters and overcrowded apartments - and in the case of one worker reported on recently, his car. These are proud, hardworking public workers - and are the very people who make this city function.

In the last two decades, the economy only benefited a select few while communities throughout the five boroughs were transformed by the building of high-rise condominiums, expensive rental apartments, and small businesses pushed out by high rents - shredding the fabric of our city one neighborhood at a time.

The cost of living for the average New Yorker has risen to the point of being unaffordable. For the city's public workers, the failure of the previous Bloomberg administration to negotiate a fair contract for four years has had a devastating impact on those facing economic hardship.

Much must be done to fight back to make our great city again a place for our middle class.

As a first step, we demand a fair contract for CUNY workers, many of whom make below poverty wages and have gone without a contract for seven years. Major Bill de Blasio's affordable housing and homelessness initiatives should begin to address these problems.

It is time we stand up, and end this disgrace.