Public Employee Press

Blue collar locals battle DOE privatizers

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

The Department of Education appears to be racing to lead city agencies in contracting out work that should be done by civil servants. DC 37 local presidents Gene DeMartino, Victor Emanuelson and Kyle Simmons fought back when this critical issue was addressed Dec. 8 at the City Council Contracts Committee.

There is general agreement that DOE has a backlog of maintenance and repair jobs on its 1,200 buildings, but the battle lines have been drawn over the agency’s solution: laying off public employees and increasing contracting out to private firms.

According to Victor Emanuelson, president of Prevailing Rate Employees Local 1087, “The solution is not contracting out and reducing the in-house workforce, but reforming the procurement process and relying more on the current workforce to do the tasks they perform so exemplarily.”

As many as 486 jobs could be lost under DOE’s plan, with 13 of those jobs being taken from members of Local 1087. The city is considering expanding the use of the Job Order Contractors program, which was intended to complement the efforts of skilled trades workers at DOE. JOC handles 25 percent of all DOE work orders, but the agency wants to expand that to 75 percent.

“It is now our understanding that DOE is seeking to reduce the number of in-house skilled trades professionals on payroll and essentially shift the workload to independent JOCs,” said Deputy Comptroller Greg Brooks, on behalf of Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. He said his office has received more than 30 charges to date about underpayment of workers by JOCs and shoddy work.

“Poor quality workmanship can drive costs up and lead to the very inefficiencies that the DOE is trying to combat,” said Brooks at the hearing.

The JOC program is administered for the DOE by the Gordian Group, which receives a hefty fee, ranging from 11.5 to 13.9 percent. In the private sector, construction management fees usually do not exceed 5 percent.

Kyle Simmons, president of Laborers Local 924, expressed concern for the safety of the schoolchildren. Currently, all city employees go through an extensive background check. “Employees from the private contractors do not have to go through the same security measures,” he said. “Workers with criminal histories could be in the schools everyday with our children.”