Lillian Roberts
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME, AFL-CIO
As District Council 37’s executive director, Lillian Roberts says her leadership will be rooted in the lessons she learned growing up on welfare in a Chicago tenement and fighting for better working conditions as a nurse’s aide.

A former associate director of DC 37, Ms. Roberts is returning to a union where she played a major role in organizing new members and establishing an array of benefits that became the envy of the nation’s labor movement. Ms. Roberts aims to reinvigorate DC 37 with the idealism and militancy that characterized the union in the 1960s and 1970s. She said she was deeply disheartened by the recent corruption that tarnished DC 37’s previous image as the most progressive and powerful municipal union in the country.

“I want to see that old time religion return to DC 37,” Ms. Roberts said. “If it was there when I left, it can come back.”

Ms. Roberts is a person driven by compassion for the downtrodden and known for the toughness that once earned her a headline as labor’s “Lady of Steel.”

Ms. Robert’s upbringing as one of five siblings in a family on welfare instilled in her a deep concern for the needy and a passion for fighting social injustices. Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, she remembers going hungry before her family’s government-provided box of food staples arrived at the end of the month.

“It was never a good feeling being on public assistance,” Ms. Roberts said. “It was a feeling of helplessness.”

She also remembers the quiet strength of the elderly women neighbors who used to gather nickels and dimes to help her buy food while she attended the University of Illinois on a tuition scholarship. Unfortunately, Ms. Roberts had to drop out of college to assist her family when her brother Robert was drafted into the Army during World War II. The memory of her student hardships was vivid as she pressed to set up the education program and the affordable four-year College of New Rochelle campus at DC 37.

Ms. Roberts’ first full-time job was as a nurse’s aide in a Chicago hospital, where she became active in the union, a local of DC 37’s parent, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Her strong advocacy for her co-workers as a shop steward and officer in the late 1950s led Victor Gotbaum, then head of District Council 19, to hire Ms. Roberts as a staff rep. She spearheaded the creation of five locals and led an organizing drive in four Chicago mental hospitals.

When Mr. Gotbaum became DC 37 executive director in 1965, Ms. Roberts came to New York and built up the union’s Hospitals Division. She became associate director of DC 37 in 1968, second in command of the country’s largest municipal union. Essence Magazine called her “probably the most influential black in American labor today.”

“What drew me to New York was the wonderful possibility of doing something to create a better society,” said Ms. Roberts.

At DC 37, Ms. Roberts distinguished her career by her skill as an organizer, ability to connect with rank-and-file members and in-your-face labor militancy. During her 17-year tenure, the union’s ranks skyrocketed from 30,000 to 120,000. Ms. Roberts led DC 37’s campaign to organize thousands of city hospital workers in 1966. In 1968, she was jailed under the state’s Taylor Law – which prohibits public employee strikes – for leading a walkout of state hospital employees.

During the Koch administration in the late 1970s and early 1980s, she brought into the union thousands of workers in federally funded jobs. Today, Ms. Roberts said, that experience offers a blueprint for creating unionized jobs for welfare recipients.

Ms. Roberts played a central role in building up DC 37’s services. She is particularly proud of creating career ladders in formerly dead-end jobs and of building the Education Fund, the largest union-based adult education program in the United States. She also helped establish the Municipal Employees Legal Services program, the Personal Services Unit and the Help Our Own program.

Ms. Roberts left DC 37 in 1981 to become state labor commissioner, a post she held until 1987. She was senior vice president of Total Health Systems, an HMO, from 1987 to 1992. Recently, she served as a consultant to the administrator of DC 37.

“It was very painful for me to see so much of what I helped build be undermined,” Ms. Roberts said. So, for Ms. Roberts, her return to DC 37 is a new rebuilding process that represents a personal calling.

“What the members want is loyalty, trust and honesty from their leaders,” Ms. Roberts said. “I don’t want them to ever see the union fall down again. My goal and aspiration is to make us a family again, a powerful family.”

Veronica Montgomery-Costa
President
District Council 37, AFSCME, AFL-CIO


“The focus of our leadership team will be our commitment to all of the 56 locals in District Council 37. We’re going to make sure they have a voice,” said Veronica Montgomery-Costa, DC 37’s new president. She was elected Feb. 26, 2002, without opposition.

Ms. Montgomery-Costa is deeply concerned about the state of the economy and the effect of the proposed budget cuts on municipal employees. “We represent low-wage workers. We have to make sure that our members do not suffer as the city looks to trim fat from the budget,” she said.

Since July 15, 1999, Ms. Montgomery-Costa has headed Local 372, a union with more than 26,000 members. The local includes many part-time employees, who enjoy the best benefits of any part-time workers in the country. It covers School Aides, School Lunch Workers, Substance Abuse Prevention and Intervention Specialists (SAPIS), Family Paraprofessionals, Community Coordinators, school-based Health Service Aides, and Loaders and Handlers in the Board of Education and School Crossing Guards in the Police Dept.

A Harlem native and 27-year-veteran of Local 372, Ms. Montgomery-Costa first demonstrated her organizing ability in1974 when she helped organize her SAPIS coworkers into Local 372. She was also instrumental in organizing Crossing Guards and Community Coordinators. When DC 37ís national union, AFSCME, needed her skills, she went to Gary, Indiana and organized public hospital workers.

She served as a Grievance Rep, SAPIS Chapter Chair and Local 372 Executive Board member from 1977 until 1982, when she became a DC 37 Rep, working with all job titles in the local.

Ms. Montgomery-Costa served her co-workers at DC 37 as Vice President of the Federation of Field Representatives from 1982 to 1986, when she became assistant director of the Schools Division. As assistant director she was responsible for negotiating with management at all levels, including school administrators, district and central Board of Education labor relations officials, and chancellors.

Recently Local 372 has organized an “Earned Income Tax Credit Campaign.” Ms. Montgomery-Costa arranged for the Internal Revenue Service to train volunteers to help eligible members receive their tax credit.

“It’s been very successful,” she said. “We have several members who have gotten as much as $5,000 back, and one woman showed up at a meeting waving a check for $6,800.”

As president of DC 37, she wants to expand union services for members in every local.

Mark Rosenthal
Treasurer
District Council 37, AFSCME, AFL-CIO


“Big, bold, brash and bent on change,” is the reputation Mark Rosenthal has earned because of his efforts to root out corruption in his local and District Council 37.

In 1998, Mr. Rosenthal became president of Local 983 and quickly began exposing the fiscal fraud and election rigging that marred the union’s reputation. He was a founder of the Committee for Real Change in DC 37, and he plans to continue rebuilding the union’s strength and integrity.

As DC 37’s Delegates elected him treasurer on Feb. 26, 2002, Mr. Rosenthal said his watchword would be, “The members come first.”

In Local 983, he turned a $140,000 deficit into a surplus and began fighting aggressively for members’ needs. The local represents eight job titles in 50 agencies and is proud of its many members who showed their dedication to public service by volunteering around the clock at Ground Zero.

“Municipal employees make a 25-year commitment to the government,” Rosenthal said, ”and the new DC 37 leadership will see that the government upholds its commitment to its employees. We will fight to protect the benefits, pensions and dignity of DC 37 members and their families.”

Mr. Rosenthal has spearheaded victories for his members, restored the career ladder for Parks Dept. employees, battled to contain the cost of prescription drug benefits and pressed for social justice for working families.

When allegations of entrenched racial bias in promotions scandalized the Parks Dept., Mr. Rosenthal helped rally DC 37 members to file complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In 1999, Rosenthal and DC 37 fought and won a lawsuit on per diem employees. Since then five civil service tests have been offered, union classes have prepared members for exams, and more than 700 Local 983 members have become permanent civil servants.

In 1999, he filed a lawsuit to prevent WEP workers from replacing civil servants in Parks Dept., and this year the local is fighting to provide real city jobs for former welfare recipients in the job opportunity program. “Our target is always public sector jobs with living wages and union benefits,” said Rosenthal.

“This is what the union stands for: fair employment practices, permanent jobs, respect, integrity and democracy,” said Mr. Rosenthal. He vows to fight for a better future for members and their families and a stronger labor movement in New York City.

Edward W. Hysyk
Secretary
District Council 37, AFSCME, AFL-CIO


Edward W. Hysyk (pronounced hiss-ik) was elected Secretary of District Council 37 at the delegates assembly on February 26, 2002.

“This is a great honor,” said Mr. Hysyk. “Along with the other elected officials I will do everything in my power to restore the honor of this union and make it once again worthy of the trust of the members. DC 37 is the ultimate safety net for the workers of New York City. This is a union that fights for its members. That is our tradition, and I am proud to be a part of it.”

Mr. Hysyk was elected President of Local 2627, NYC Electronic Data Processing Employees, which represents 3,200 municipal workers, in 1999. In 2000 he was appointed to the DC 37 Executive Board and elected co-chair of the DC 37 Civil Service Committee. He worked his way up through the ranks serving as a shop steward before becoming president. As President of Local 2627 Mr. Hysyk helped provide promotional opportunities for members and participated in major negotiations for the local.

Prior to becoming President, he was Assistant to the President of Local 2627 where he worked with shop stewards, local leadership and staff on civil service and personnel practices, citywide and unit contracts. He was chairperson of the local’s Education Committee.

He began his career with the city more than 30-years ago as a social worker later becoming a training supervisor with the Human Resources Administration (HRA). He then became a project manager with the HRA Bureau of Computer Equipment Services in which he helped plan and coordinate the installation of computer hardware for the Welfare Management System.

Since 1967 Mr. Hysyk has been a proud member of the Army reserves serving on active duty in Europe and the United States.

He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics/history from the University of Colorado and holds a Master’s degree in American History from New York University and a Master’s degree in guidance and vocational counseling from Hunter College.

Born in Astoria, New York, Mr. Hysyk’s father was a Polish immigrant who became a member of the window cleaners union. His mother was a UAW shop steward. Mr. Hysyk resides in New Hyde Park, New York.