I know the Executive Board and staff join me in my heartfelt hopes that 2003 will be a happy and healthy New Year for our members and their families and a year of peace for our troubled world.

At DC 37, we were glad to see the Transport Workers Union reach a new contract without a strike, and we hope they enjoy the package they settled on. Every union’s priorities are different, of course, and when we negotiate we will aim at a package that is tailored specifically to the needs of our members.

To make 2003 a year of progress, we are moving ahead on two tracks:
We are fighting to prevent the hundreds of layoffs that the Dept. of Education has planned for January. And we have initiated negotiations on a new contract for most of our 125,000 members.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has asked the municipal unions for $600 million to help balance the budget and has linked the issue of wage increases to additional savings based on productivity. With huge city and state budget gaps looming, sisters and brothers, we are heading into the most difficult year this union has faced since the city almost went bankrupt in the mid-1970s. As a leader of DC 37 in those days, I gained a lot of valuable experience. As a union, we took some body blows, but we survived and thrived.

Since you elected me your executive director last year, I have stressed that vast savings are possible within the city budget without laying off our members or cutting off essential services. To identify areas for savings, I asked union staff to undertake a series of studies of contracting out and privatization.

As we studied city contracting practices, we realized that quietly, mayor by mayor, one schools chancellor after another, more public jobs and public services have been handed over to the private sector. According to the city’s Independent Budget Office, from 1996 to 2001, spending for contractual services grew twice as fast as general spending.

Today, a Shadow Government, a combination of contractors, consultants and appointed officials, controls over $6 billion of the city budget. To achieve major savings, we must shrink the budget of this Shadow Government and restore funding to elected officials (who are responsive to the taxpayers, organized labor and the City Council) and civil service employees hired through the merit system.

In the Dept. of Education, the Shadow Government eats up more than $1.4 billion every year. The savings we have identified can readily be achieved through eliminating and reducing contracts with over-paid consultants, over-priced contractors and over-charging vendors.

Parallel Work Force competes with civil service
The Shadow Government employs a Parallel Work Force of more than 100,000 employees. They have never taken civil service examinations or had their backgrounds checked. Nobody makes the parallel work force live in the city and pay city taxes as 85 percent of our members do. The shadow employers are often incorporated in other states, skipping out on their own tax responsibilities to the people of New York City. One Dept. of Education contractor has four companies, all headquartered in the same Delaware office.

Mr. Mayor, you did not create this situation, but right now you have a historic opportunity to shine some light on the Shadow Government and save hundreds of millions of dollars. If you truly do not want layoffs, now is the time to take our savings proposals seriously.

For example: Tell the Dept. of Education to evict the consultants who charge from $250 to an extreme $5,000 a day for jobs our members do for $200 a day. Tell the school food service to stop contracting with delivery firms that carry frozen foods in non-refrigerated trucks — endangering school children’s health — while refrigerated city trucks stand idle. Stop paying poorly trained, highly paid outsiders who have failed at the job of attendance outreach — as evidenced by the rising dropouit rate — when union members do this work more effectively at less cost.

In short, declare a moratorium on the layoffs and work with us to identify and cut the waste. You cannot in good conscience lay off hard-working public employees who have been doing a dedicated job for the city while real savings are within reach.