By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

Highlights of DC 37’s legislative goals 2003

City

Call for a mayoral commission on waste End contracting out and privatization Increased HHC funding Access to training and education Retirees’ pension enhancements

State

Pension enhancements Permanent agency shop Equitable NYC school aid funding Reinstatement of the commuter tax Medicaid tax

More than 600 members participated in the 24th annual DC 37 Legislative Conference Feb. 1. The daylong event galvanized membership toward greater political participation and helped determine the union’s legislative agenda for 2003.

“With layoffs and increases in subway fares and property taxes threatening city workers, it’s time to test the friendships of those we elected,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts.

She hammered home the importance of the White Papers, DC 37’s analyses documenting vast numbers of overpaid consultants doing members’ jobs. Ms. Roberts told the audience, “We’re in court fighting the ‘Shadow Government.’ We have to call for civil service lists, move provisionals into permanent jobs and get Albany to reinstate the commuter tax.”

State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, a guest speaker, praised Ms. Roberts as a “tough negotiator” for a union whose strengths are its numbers and activism. “There is a leadership problem in Washington and in Albany,” Mr. Spitzer said. “We have to hold politicians’ feet to the fire and get the truth told: Tax cuts do not work. Fund the infrastructure and the economy will grow.” Mr. Spitzer praised DC 37 members for their work after Sept. 11 and said, “It’s time we make you partners for equity in government.” But his message is not shared by the governor, whose proposed budget would decimate New York City services, public education, jobs and the economy.

“It’s clear that Governor Pataki has turned his back on New York City because we supported his opponent,” said PAC Chair Leonard Allen. “How he could do this to us after the Sept. 11 attacks is unconscionable.”

Other speakers agreed:
“The governor’s budget is a slap in the face,” City Council Speaker Gifford Miller told members. “We asked for a lifeline and he threw us a brick.” “New York City cannot afford layoffs or service cuts,” U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said. “After Sept. 11 no one ran. But if services are cut, no one will stay.”

Without intervention from DC 37’s political allies in City Hall, the State Legislature and U.S. Congress, the city stands to lose billions in state and federal aid. The 9-11 attack and a recession burst an inflated economic bubble, said economist James Parrot of the Fiscal Policy Institute. “The state’s reckless tax cuts, tantamount to corporate welfare, were not realistic.”

Members heard from Adelaide Sanford, Vice Chancellor of Board of Regents, who pointed to the glaring disparities in the state’s public education system. “An eight grade education is not enough. I call that a sharecroppers’ arrangement,” said Ms. Sanford. “Children are taught by uncertified teachers, attend schools part time, have no science labs, use 25-year-old textbooks but are expected to fare well on standardized tests. Education is today’s civil rights issue.”

The DC 37 Political Action and Legislation Dept.’s conference stressed the union’s fight for affordable housing. Its five workshops on education, civil service, pension, retirees and health and safety issues helped members shape an agenda for what will be one of the most challenging years to come.

Showdown 2003 campaign

The countdown to Showdown 2003 has begun. Showdown 2003 is the campaign DC 37 and the advocacy group Tenants and Neighbors have launched to continue the fight to protect rent control and rent stabilization laws in New York. Hearings have been held and the laws come before the City Council for renewal by March 31.The State Legislature will vote by June 15, the day the laws are set to expire. The housing stock primarily affected by the laws is rent controlled and rent stabilized apartments. A recently passed Assembly bill expands rent regulations to Mitchell Lama, Section 8 and loft apartments. DC 37 is pushing for rent laws to be strengthened and extended, said DC 37 Housing Committee Chair Barry Jamison. Additionally, the union is calling for a repeal of high-rent vacancy decontrol, where landlords raise rents to over $2,000 a month. In recent years this loophole has cost New York City close to 100,000 regulated housing units. “Affordable housing is under attack,” said Ralph Carbone, president of Rent Regulations Services Employees Local 1359, whose members’ jobs are jeopardized. “Unless we put pressure on Gov. Pataki and Sen. Bruno to protect these laws, the city’s working and middle class won’t be able to afford to live here anymore. But we are DC 37 and we will not run from anyone.”