By LEE SAUNDERS
Administrator, District Council 37, AFSCME

The challenges that face all New Yorkers in the year 2002 are daunting, but they are not insurmountable – and quick fixes conceived in anxiety will not solve our problems.

With fiscal experts predicting a nerve-jangling city budget gap of $4 billion, the New York press corps recently devoted considerable space to Mayor Bloomberg’s call for agency heads to consider cuts of up to 20 percent. But the new Mayor won’t present a budget until February, and there will be long, long hours of analysis and discussion before the new budget is adopted in June.

As grueling as this process will be, we are encouraged by Mayor Bloomberg’s public declarations that city workers are part of the solution to the city’s fiscal woes, not part of the problem.

Unfortunately, not everyone appears willing to respect this process.

Over at the Health & Hospitals Corporation, for example, administrators jumped the gun and issued pink slips to 110 per diem employees during the Christmas season without advance notice to the union – a clear violation of DC 37’s contract. A contract arbitrator has put the layoffs on hold until HHC management sits down with us to discuss job-saving alternatives.

Adding insult to injury, DC 37 has learned that two years ago the HHC board of directors voted behind closed doors to give its top officials six-figure payouts if they are removed without cause. The great unfairness here is that while the HHC’s top executives land softly with golden parachutes, the agency appears willing to sacrifice its front-line employees.

By contrast, in a ludicrous example of misguided charity, the city has announced that it’s bailing out entertainment conglomerates such as Disney by purchasing millions of dollars worth of Broadway theater tickets. As if phenomenally successful productions such as “The Lion King” and “Beauty & The Beast” – with their $100 ticket prices – can’t fend for themselves.

DC 37 fights for every member
We are well aware that difficult decisions will have to be made in order to restore the city’s economic stability. But the city cannot balance its budget on the backs of the working men and women who provide the energy and ideas that make it run.

Your union will continue to fight like hell to remind them of this.

Most recently, DC 37 fought to save $1 billion in budget cuts that were a “farewell gift” from the Giuliani administration. We lobbied the City Council and secured millions of dollars in restorations, saving members’ jobs in city museums and libraries. Like the HHC, some of these institutions had gone so far as to issue layoff notices. But DC 37’s efforts have made these job cuts unnecessary.

And when the union learned that Mayor Giuliani was considering hiring a San Francisco-based private contractor to replace the 60 Local 375 Everyday Heroes who’ve been in charge of the most critical engineering work at Ground Zero, we worked with local media and elected officials to save their assignments. Union teamwork and determination convinced the mayor to stick with public employees.

From HHC to libraries and cultural institutions to Ground Zero, DC 37 has shown again that we care about every member.

We also care deeply about our city, and we respect the new mayor. We hope to work cooperatively with him to solve the coming budget problems, but we want him to understand a basic fact about DC 37: We fight aggressively for every member.