By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

For years, City Hall has been holding a garage sale. Piece by piece, municipal agencies and operations have been put out for bid. Now there’s a $400 million price tag hanging on the Off-Track Betting Corp.

For every attempt to sell off chunks of the Big Apple, District Council 37 has fought back with protests, lobbying efforts, lawsuits and court battles — using every available means to block the city from stuffing public funds into privateers’ pockets.

DC 37 is adopting an aggressive strategy against privatization in 2001.

“We oppose the sale of OTB,” said DC 37 Administrator Lee Saunders, “and we stand firmly against privatization.”

Last year, OTB handled more than $1 billion in bets — a 12-year high. The agency made a $40 million profit and paid $89 million to the racing industry, $36 million to the city and one-third that amount to the state, in part “because DC 37 members have worked hard to ensure a steady profit,” Mr. Saunders said.

“We will fight this sale, and we will save members’ jobs,” said Leonard Allen, president of NYC OTB Employees Local 2021.

The sale of OTB would need the approval of Gov. George E. Pataki, the state Senate, led by Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, and the Assembly, led by Speaker Sheldon Silver. Union lobbyists are already working with state legislators to protect the jobs of more than 2,000 members in Local 2021 who keep OTB operating at a profit.

DC 37 sees privatization of any agency as a high-stakes gamble that New York City cannot afford. Selling-off public services could have devastating effects on the economies of both the city and state. Across the nation, AFSCME and the AFL-CIO are waging battles to protect the unionized public work force against privatization.

Privatization could result in the wholesale auction of thousands of union jobs as well as the undermining of progress unions have gained over the years toward the equitable distribution of pay across race and gender lines. And privatization of public sector jobs, which have accounted for 20 percent of all U.S. employment since the 1940s, would close a vital bridge to the middle class for many Americans.

At a recent conference on privatization at Fordham Law School on Feb. 2, economist Elliot Sclar said the word “public” has developed a bad connotation, as in the case of public housing or public schools.

Privatization at work: California blackout
“It’s lazy conventional wisdom that assumes anything labeled ‘private’ is better,” he cautioned, and cited California’s energy deregulation debacle as a recent example of privatization gone awry.

AFSCME Research Director Kerri Korpi said the problem is in the system — which often gives public funds to privateers without building in accountability protections for members — but the real solutions often come from the work force. “Across the nation,” she said, “unionized workers are prepared to work with management to improve services without privatizating.”

Examples of local union ingenuity abound at District Council 37 as it successfully faces down privatization challenges:

• When City Hall threatened to privatize the Dept. of Environmental Protection, a battle of David and Goliath proportions ensued, pitting Sewage and Senior Sewage Treatment Workers Local 1322 and DC 37 against the huge DEP and the powerful federal Environmental Protection Agency. But the union won out by devising a plan that saved members’ jobs and kept the work in-house at a considerable savings to the city. more...
  
  
• After years of starving out the Brooklyn Central Laundry by not allocating funds to update equipment, the Health and Hospitals Corp. tried to close BCL and hand the huge laundry operation to an out-of-state company. But Municipal Hospital Employees Local 420 and DC 37 fought a two-year battle that kept BCL open, negotiated for updated equipment and gave the workers a say in the laundry’s operation. more...

The union is also fighting privatization of ambulance services at the Fire Dept., which is letting the private MetroCare Ambulance Group operate in the municipal 911 system. DC 37 has joined EMS Employees Local 2507 and EMS Lieutenants and Captains Local 3621in a lawsuit charging that the practice violates the City Charter.

The department says private ambulances in the 911 system supplement emergency services, but the union charges that the real goal is to replace EMS ambulances with private ambulances.

Recently DC 37 broadened its aggressive strategy against privatization to push for two bills in the City Council — the Responsible Contractor Bill and the Living Wage Act.

The Responsible Contractor Bill is a charter amendment that would screen out companies that do not pay fair wages, fail to provide benefits like health insurance or violate labor and safety laws from competing for city contracts. The bill would hold contractors more accountable for how the taxpayers’ dollars are spent. DC 37 Deputy Administrator Eliot Seide said, “The bill represents an economic investment in raising the standard of living in this city.”

Protecting members’ jobs
In 1996 DC 37 was at the forefront of a coalition to pass the city’s first living wage bill. This year, the union supports strengthening the legislation to improve wages for the city’s lowest paid workers.

“DC 37 is committed to the struggle to save union jobs,” Mr. Saunders said, “and we promise to use all of our tools — protests, bargaining, litigation and legislation — to stop the city from using privateers that violate workers rights.”