DC 37 blasts Dept. of Education for planning layoffs and cutting union jobs while keeping high-priced consultants on the payroll. New union study shows agency could save over $145 million by eliminating contracting out and letting union members do the work.

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

C 37 head Lillian Roberts and leaders from 10 locals met with officials at the Office of Labor Relations Dec. 10 to fight for 366 union jobs slated to be cut from the Dept. of Education in January.

At the session, the union presented a new study pointing to cost-cutting measures that would protect members’ jobs, save the city between $145 million and $260 million dollars, and deliver better services to 1.1 million public school children (see list on page 12 of Public Employee Press, January 2003 issue).

In “Learning for Less,” an analysis of more than 15,000 DOE contracts, DC 37 documented a clear-cut paper trail of waste, overspending, excessive consultant fees, contract rigging and other daily abuses at the agency. The report, available at the union’s Web site (www.dc37. net), also exposed the DOE’s two-tiered employment system that short changes civil servants and pads the pockets of high-priced consultants.

“Members’ jobs are being eliminated and high-priced consultants are being paid $250 to $5,000 a day to replace them,” Ms. Roberts told Labor Relations Commissioner James Hanley. The meeting was attended by leaders from DC 37 locals 372, 375, 376, 924, 983, 1087, 1407, 1597, and 2627, DC 37’s Research and Negotiations Director Dennis Sullivan, General Counsel Joel Giller and other staff. Leaders of other unions — CWA Local 1180, Teamsters Local 237 and Service Employees Local 300 — were also at the meeting.

The union report proved that DOE has undermined the civil service system by contracting with outside vendors, temporary agencies and consultants to replace unionized municipal employees in areas such as food trucking services, computer technology, pest control and drug prevention counseling. Within the public agency, the private firms operate a $1.4 billion empire (see page 13 of Public Employee Press, January 2003 issue and Cyber wasteland) with a parallel workforce where outsiders are paid substantially more to do civil servants’ jobs at taxpayers’ expense.

“This agency is riddled with fiscally irresponsible policies carried over from the Board of Education,” said Veronica Montgomery-Costa, president of Dept. of Education Employees Local 372. For example, she pointed out the agency leases space in the Brooklyn Marriott Hotel at $2.3 million a year, while five blocks away three of its facilities sit vacant. Refrigerated city-owned trucks sit idle while DOE awards contracts to delivery companies convicted of fraud and bid-rigging. The DOE also pays $14.6 million a year to the United Way to do work that union members have done more successfully. Vendors are getting a free ride on the Big Apple gravy train.

“New York has become Contract City, USA,” said Ed Hysyk, DC 37 secretary and Local 2627 president. His members are being replaced by a slew of independent consultants who have become permanent fixtures in the DOE’s information technology unit.

In a time when politicians call for cuts in government spending and size, they overspend tax dollars on independent contractors who do not meet the rigorous qualifications municipal workers are subject to, and often do not pay taxes here, and ultimately rely on civil servants to train them to do the work, Ms. Roberts said.