By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME

The record-setting 98 percent vote in favor of our new economic agreement says loud and clear that DC 37 members believe it’s a great contract for today’s tough times.

I want to thank every member who voted. Your participation showed your faith and confidence in your union.

We won this contract through active leadership in the bargaining process by your local presidents, who make up the DC 37 Negotiating Committee, through skillful staff work and through strong support from the membership.

Your huge yes vote proves that this union listens to its members. You said you needed a contract that protects benefits and pensions and guarantees decent pay increases — even as the economy around us takes a nosedive — and this contract does exactly that.

Even before the vote was counted December 8, I started pressing the city to pay the increases quickly. As a result, most of our members will get their first 4 percent pay increase (retroactive to March 2008) in February 2009. The second 4 percent, compounded, is due by April, so members will see their paychecks go up by 8.16 percent over just a few months (See details).

But we cannot rest on this victory. The harsh reality is that the nation is still plunging into what will probably be the most severe recession since the end of World War II. Nationwide, 2 million Americans have been thrown out of work in the last year, a half million in November alone. The effects of the crisis on Wall Street are spreading throughout the local economy, and 150,000 New Yorkers may be added to the rolls of the unemployed next year.

We know through bitter experience that tough times in the private sector put the squeeze on the public sector by shrinking tax revenues. New York City forecasts growing budget gaps and the state expects an immense $14 billion fiscal shortfall this year and next.

But we can face these difficulties with a spirit of optimism, because Barack Obama will be inaugurated as president of the United States on January 20. We saw the importance of political activity as working people made the difference in his sweeping election victory.

Although the labor movement agreed that Bush’s bailout plan was necessary, it focused mainly on saving bankers and brokers from the effects of their own greed. Obama’s bailout will be for working people, just as he promised in his campaign. He will take office with a recovery plan focused on creating jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure and rescuing cities and states.

And DC 37 will be on the job to protect our members. We are urging the city and state to resist the knee-jerk reaction of slashing vital services and cutting the jobs of workers who provide them. That is too much like business as usual.

Take a broader approach to budget balancing
We urge the city to look to change the way it uses reserves and revenue increases in a broader approach to budget balancing and also to use current revenue in a more creative and responsible way.

I will meet with any commissioners who propose layoffs and press them to find less harmful ways to reduce their budgets—by using a scalpel instead of an axe.

It is an affront to the city and the working people who make it run to talk draconian cuts and layoffs while outside contracts fork over $9 billion of the city’s budget to private business and create a shadow government.

Your union is investigating this, and rest assured that we will not stand still while any city official tries to use the financial crisis that is gripping both city and state governments to usurp our civil service status and the important jobs our members do to maintain the quality of life that makes New York City great.

I wish you and your loved ones happy holidays and a healthy New Year, and I urge you to find your own personal way to help those who are less fortunate.