By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME

I want to start 2010 by wishing our members and their loved ones a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year. In my decades of life and union leadership, I have learned if you have your health, you can deal with whatever problems come your way.

This will be a tough year and a hard-working one for DC 37. We are in the middle of national, state and local economic crises. Unemployment is high, foreclosures continue, homeless shelters are overcrowded and hunger is growing.

We will join our national union in fighting for economic justice for the working people of this country and for those who are tragically left out in the cold. Nobody can seriously claim the economy is recovering while 10 percent of Americans are out of work and almost 30 percent of our teenagers can’t find a job.

DC 37 will have a very busy agenda here in New York. Our economic agreement expires in March. Our lobbying in Albany helped curtail the recent mid-year education and hospital fund cuts, and we are fighting to reduce the effects of the reductions in aid to cities and schools by the governor and Legislature. We will be working intensely through the spring to limit the harm that closing the city and state budget gaps does to the vital public services our members provide.

And in November, our junior U.S. senator, our Congress members in the House of Representatives, the governor and all our state legislators are up for election.

We also have important unfinished business. I am pressing to resolve the issues our locals raised in their presentations to the Salary Review Panel set up under the 2005–2008 contract. We also must finish winning raises for prevailing rate workers, get the Transit Authority to pay the 4 percent raises they have been stalling on, and settle contracts for members in the City University system.

I am happy to report that we are making progress on some of our most important issues. A new law that we pushed hard for will establish government watchdogs to monitor excessive spending, borrowing and contracting out by hundreds of state authorities, which until now have largely escaped public accountability.

The bill was sponsored by Westchester Democratic Assemblyman Richard Brodsky and Brooklyn/Staten Island Senator Diane Savino. Governor Paterson signed it into law last month despite Mayor Bloomberg’s efforts to block it. We are still working on a proposal to limit subcontracting by the authorities.

New Year, new City Council

Our union demonstrated tremendous spirit in the 2009 election, with a record 1,500 members involved in our get-out-the-vote effort. The hard work of our volunteers and Political Action Dept. staff helped elect John Liu as Comptroller and Bill de Blasio as Public Advocate, and 98 percent of the candidates we backed for the City Council won their races.

In the New Year, I believe these citywide officials and the new City Council will play an aggressive role in combating the waste of our tax money through excessive contracting out and by opposing harmful cuts and layoffs in health, education, social services and other vital government services. In addition to the human toll of layoffs, the city must take into account their heavy economic costs — such as unemployment insurance, welfare, Food Stamps and Medicaid.

I urge members to participate in our DC 37 Legislative Conference here on January 23. We have to fight for more responsible spending of the money the government takes from us as taxpayers. We have the right to representation on this issue and we will exercise it forcefully. If you want to help set the union’s legislative agenda for 2010, just return the coupon on page 9.

My New Year’s resolution is to carry the fighting spirit we showed in 2009 with us into the important battles of 2010.