Public Employee Press

Fiscal Crisis, New York
Conservatives target public employees

Amid the grim news, as they do in every downturn, the conservative vultures have begun circling City Hall.

Community and union activists will have their hands full countering the calls of groups like the Citizens Budget Commission to use the budget crisis as a pretext to push their agenda of cutting services and rolling back the gains of public employees.

The business-dominated CBC issued a report in January full of misleading data and calling for the city to take out its economic pain on the backs of its employees through cutbacks in employee wages, pensions and health care coverage.

Attacking what it calls “six-figure civil servants,” the commission is backing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s demand that municipal unions agree to $200 million in annual savings in health care and a poorer pension for incoming employees.

“Why, during what’s possibly the worst recession in history, has scapegoating working people become the order of the day?” asked DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. “We ought to focus on the real reason our economy is in free fall —corporate greed, a leadership deficit and a lack of government regulation and oversight.”

“The CBC should be looking at the real problems, rather than just suggest cutting workers’ benefits,” said Harry Nespoli, chair of the Municipal Labor Committee, which represents city unions on health benefits. “Health care costs are high because there is no national health policy. Pension costs are high because retirement system investments have lost $20 billion due to the failure of the national economy.”

By lumping together managers, uniformed workers and teachers with other generally lower paid municipal employees, the CBC report says the average compensation of city employees is $106,000.

Retirees President Stuart Leibowitz noted Jan. 14 at the DC 37 Executive Board that the CBC’s compensation figures vastly distort the reality ofDC 37 members, whose pay averages about $33,000 — including the increases in the new contract — and whose pensions are modest. “The typical total compensation of DC 37 members is around $50,000, well under the $100,000 that the CBC screamed about,” Leibowitz said.

“My members would love to actually get what they are saying the average city employee is paid,” said Brooklyn Library Local 1482 President Eileen Muller.

“Our union fought long and hard for our moderate wages and benefits,” Roberts said. “Not only will we fight to protect them, we will fight to make sure other workers have them.”

— Gregory N. Heires