Public Employee Press

Union halts hundreds of layoffs
Bloomberg threatens 10,000 more firings as he attacks pensions and benefits


By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Shortly before Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg threatened city workers' pensions and health benefits in his Jan. 19 "State of the City" address, his administration agreed to hold off on almost 300 layoffs.

A deal between the City Council and the administration saved the jobs of 200 workers at the Administration for Children's Services. Separate negotiations led to the postponement of the layoff of 78 Office Machine Aides at the Dept. of Finance.

Defending the safety net

The 200 jobs at ACS include 90 of the 118 Local 1549 Clerical Associates targeted for layoffs and 70 child welfare workers and trainers represented by Social Service Employees Union Local 371.

"We must thank the City Council for listening to the union's concerns about the unfairness of the proposed layoffs," said Local 1549 President Eddie Rodriguez. "We still have some more members who are in job jeopardy, so we will continue the fight."

"These restorations show that people are finally realizing we can't continue to shred our safety net," said Local 371 President Faye Moore, who led the fight to save the ACS jobs through a letter-writing campaign, budget testimony and meetings with City Council members. "This agency cannot continue to take huge hits and fulfill its mission of protecting children."

The 200 ACS positions and 120 jobs at the Dept. of Finance were targeted under a $585 million budget cut announced in November by the Bloomberg administration.

Union lobbying and protest also helped secure the funding that averted the immediate layoff of the Office Machine Aides, including many disabled workers, and keep the Local 1113 members on the payroll at least until May while the union seeks a permanent solution.

DOE consultant funding cut

Funding for the restorations resulted in part from a $4.5 million reduction in the Dept. of Education's spending on information technology and other professional consultants.

"The decision to reduce the spending on consultants at the Dept. of Education is a sign that our message against contracting out is resonating," said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. In December, the Bloomberg administration was embarrassed when the U.S. Justice Dept. charged four consultants of the troubled CityTime payroll project with stealing $80 million - more than enough to fund all the jobs the mayor targeted for January layoffs.

"We will continue our campaign to denounce the vast waste in the administration's annual procurement budget of more than $10 billion a year," Roberts said. "Much of the money spent on contracting out would be better spent on civil servants, who do the work more efficiently than consultants."

As the union awaited confirmation that the Office Machine Aide layoffs were on hold, the Finance Dept. went ahead with its plan to eliminate the positions of 30 other employees who got pink slips in December, including Associate Investigators, Tax Map Cartographers and others. Members of Locals 1113 and 375 rallied Dec. 21 at City Hall against the layoffs, and union leaders and activists spoke against the firings at a City Council budget hearing and met with City Council Budget Committee Chair Dominic Recchia Jr.

"The plan to lay off the OMAs never made any sense," said Local 1113 President Deborah Pitts. "While the department seeks to get rid of modestly paid civil servants, it plans to hire a new class of managerial employees who are paid up to six figures."

Also in January, nearly 140 layoffs of blue-collar workers at the Dept. of Transportation were avoided under a furlough agreement between the union and the administration.

The union does not regard furloughs as a viable model for responding to layoff threats to full-time workers at other agencies, but a precedent exists for furloughs at DOT. The furloughs affect a total of 650 members in the titles of Assistant City Highway Repairer (Local 983), Highway Repairer (Local 376) and Supervisor Highway Repairer (Local 1157).

The DOT workers approved the agreement in a mail-ballot vote tabulated Jan. 4. The pact calls for five unpaid furlough days between Jan. 10 and March 14.

In January, a group of Local 374 members at the Queens Botanical Garden also voted for a furlough agreement to avert 13 layoffs there by taking a day off once a week for 10 weeks.

Mayor threatens pensions

In his Jan. 19 address, Bloomberg pledged not to raise taxes and said he would refuse to negotiate raises for city employees unless unions accept pension and benefit cuts. In an interview after the speech, Bloomberg threatened to fire up to 10,000 workers if he doesn't get his way on the cuts.

"The funding challenges of the city's pension systems are largely the result of the fraud and recklessness on Wall Street that caused the downturn in the economy. They certainly aren't caused by the modest pensions of
DC 37 retirees," Roberts said.

"There is a $10 billion gorilla out there to help the city address its budget problems. That $10 billion gorilla is the city's wasteful spending on contracting out," she said.