Public Employee Press

Fiscal crisis, New York City
DC 37 local leaders blast service cuts

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

As the city’s economic crisis deepened, DC 37 members, locals and leaders rallied and testified at City Hall to battle cuts in jobs and services and looming layoffs.

The union fought back when the New York City Housing Authority announced that it would close 18 community centers in January and lay off 236 workers, 165 of them members of District Council 37’s SSEU Local 371. Labor leaders, community activists and elected officials closed ranks and came together on the steps of City Hall on Nov. 24 to blast the plan.

“This is a cynical attack on minority communities by a mayor who is out of touch with the daily lives of poor and working people in this city,” said Local 371 President Faye Moore.

She was joined in the news conference and rally by DC 37 Associate Director Oliver Gray, Local 1549 President Eddie Rodriguez, Local 957 President Walthene Primus, state Sen. Eric Adams and Ed Ott, executive director of the Central Labor Council.
“I’m a graduate of public housing,” said Gray. “I was lucky that we had community centers back then. DC 37 is in this fight all the way to save services and jobs.”

The giant housing agency claims that a budget shortfall of $200 million is causing the cutbacks, while unions, NYCHA residents and community groups are calling on the city to stop charging the Housing Authority $200 million a year for services like police, sanitation and fire protection.

“NYCHA can no longer serve as a cash cow to fund the police and other agencies,” said Moore.

The action then shifted inside as DC 37 local leaders testified before the City Council Finance and Cultural Affairs committees, protesting Mayor Bloomberg’s planned budget cuts and attacking city spending on private contractors.

Contracting out denounced
“In a city budget with over $9 billion in contracted services, it is DC 37’s position that there are better ways to save money than cutting vital jobs and services,” said Assistant Director Moira Dolan of the DC 37 Research and Negotiations Dept. “City tax dollars should be used to directly provide services that are transparent and accountable to you, the members of the City Council, and the taxpayers.”

Local 372 Executive Vice President Santos Crespo pointed to the waste in contracting out. “The mayor contracts out for a computer solution to studentabsences, which costs the taxpayers close to $100 million and produces no effective results. Where’s the common sense here?”

Crespo also denounced the growing number of charter schools. “They siphon off an ever-increasing share of the education budget,” he said. “They also drain higher-performing students from their neighborhood schools and prevent our public schools from attaining racial and academic diversity.”

Private contractors are creeping into the publiclibrary system as well. “Recently, the Brooklyn Public Library contracted with the United Parcel Service to deliver books from branch to branch. Prior to UPS, my members did that work,” said Eileen Muller, president of Brooklyn Library Guild Local 1482.

Reggie Qadar, president of Local 1306, which represents security guards at the American Museum of Natural History, said the institution faces a budget cut of $2.3 million. “I am concerned that the museum will no longer be able to absorb these reductions in city support and will be forced to reduce staff through layoffs,” he testified.

“Many people do not realize that for every dollar the city provides in funding to the museum, $7 comes back to the city,” said Peter Vreeland, president of Local 1559, which represents other AMNH employees.

Queens Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, New York Botanical Garden and Wave Hill are also targeted for cuts, Cuthbert Dickenson, president of Local 374 said, “These institutions cannot remain an attractive magnet for tourists and residents and a viable education tool for generations to come if funding levels are not maintained.”