PEP, December 2007: Grassroots conference sets 2008 legislative agenda

With residency and congestion pricing high on their agenda, hundreds of DC 37 members met at the union hall Oct. 27 for the annual Grassroots Legislative Conference. “This is a critical time for our city, and we want to make sure we get equal treatment on residency with other city employees,” said Barbara Ingram Edmonds, DC 37 director of field operations, who welcomed the crowd of unionists.

DC 37’s Political Action and Legislation Dept. organized the all-day event, which included panels, workshops and question-and-answer sessions.

At the conference the union set its city and state legislative proposals for 2008, an important election year. In addition to pressing the City Council to pass Intro. 452, the residency bill, the union wants to see members included in the ambitious PlaNYC 2030, the mayor’s far-reaching approach to managing New York City’s fast-growing population and aging infrastructure and developing the city’s economy, ecology, transportation systems and communities for the 21st century.

Plan for the future
The comprehensive PlaNYC 2030 includes congestion pricing to control traffic in Manhattan; ‘greening’ the city by planting one million trees; cleaning up contaminated brownfields, revitalizing waterfronts, and giving every resident access to a park within a 10-minute walk of their homes.

The union wants to see that the jobs created by PlaNYC 2030 are unionized, provide livable wages and are not outsourced or privatized. It wants local and state lawmakers to increase aid for quality affordable child care, health care and housing.

Elaborating on PlaNYC 2030 and its three-year pilot program, Ariella Maron, policy analyst from the mayor’s economic development office, painted a rosy future based on recent Big Apple transit improvements, new housing, job creation and “record low unemployment,” she said.
But many members of DC 37 locals at the conference related the flip side — a city where they and other working-class New Yorkers are being squeezed out of jobs and affordable housing.

In a lively discussion union members raised the question of affordable housing for whom. They cited the outrageous, ongoing 60 percent unemployment rate among African American and Latino males. They said they fear that air quality will likely worsen in neighborhoods like the South Bronx and Harlem as the city adds buses and motorists attempting to beat congestion pricing in Manhattan circle for parking spots. New construction, they said, exacerbates rat infestation in their neighborhoods. They questioned even the one million new trees, foreseeing roots wrapping around and damaging underground water pipes with the city passing on repair costs to homeowners.

“Will New York remain a union town or will there be two cities? A New York City heaven for the rich and a hell for the poor?” said panelist Edgar deJesús, DC 37’s interim organizing director. To protect jobs and avoid the feared negative consequences, deJesús said, “Public employees have to be at the table as these issues are discussed and plans are made.”

The union’s sweeping 2008 agenda also includes: a broad civil service plan that calls for the city to offer more education and experience exams; increase civilianization; eliminate the 1-in-3 rule; offer pensionre-openers and COLA improvements; enhance revenues by restoring the commuter and stock transfer taxes and reforming business and personal income taxes, and increase city and state funding for child care, public housing and the Health and Hospitals Corp.