By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME

I want to offer my thanks once again to all the delegates who placed their faith in me as Executive Director and all the members who supported my re-election, and I want to share with you some of my priorities for the coming years.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Labor Commissioner James Hanley called to congratulate me, and I told them my number one priority is getting our members a decent contract with fair raises. With the full strength of the membership behind me, I believe we are closer than ever to that goal.

As an experienced negotiator, I understand that after you get a contract, you have to protect your gains. Too often unions have seen the fruits of tough negotiations whittled away in the political process.

I intend to increase our voting strength so we can elect political leaders who will not impose rent increases, tuition increases and transit fare increases to pick our pockets and take away what we win at the bargaining table.

On the national level, President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy have turned a huge surplus into a record government deficit that endangers funding for the public services that people like us provide. His administration has already destroyed 3 million jobs and the White House is pressing hard to privatize public sector work and the Social Security system. For us, removing President Bush from office has become a matter of survival.

I believe that by working together we can register thousands more members to vote, build our political power to its highest level ever, and start electing top officials at all levels who are truly sensitive to our needs.

On the job, I want to open wide the doors to advancement so tens of thousands of members can go beyond the contractual percentage increases to the even larger raises that come with promotions.

As the founder of our union’s upgrading programs, I am proud that DC 37 already offers a broader array of educational opportunities than other unions. Right now, we are readying hospital workers for training to become Licensed Practical Nurses and to move into other career ladder programs. We are preparing members to take civil service exams for Associate Bookkeeper, Sewage Treatment Worker, Construction Project Manager and Computer Associate (Operations).

In the next issue of PEP you will read about a tremendous accomplishment by new DC 37 Secretary Clifford Koppelman and Local 1070. After they opened a career path by making court clerical workers eligible for the Court Clerk promotional test, the local negotiated reduced fees for members in a prep class — and most of them can have their fee refunded through the DC 37 Tuition Reimbursement benefit. The local buys the books at a quantity discount price and provides them free to members.

Members who are successful in this program can raise their pay from the $22,000-$30,000 range all the way up to the $46,000 - $60,000 range! This is a great example of what we can do, and I intend to push hard for more skill improvement and test prep courses.

Tools for success
By giving our members the tools they need to succeed, we can make civil service what it was for earlier generations and what our members deserve today: a system that gives city workers a clear pathway into the middle class.

I also intend to expand opportunities for our members by intensifying our effort to drive out the wasteful, over-priced “shadow government” of consultants and contractors that has taken over thousands of our jobs.

It has taken faith and hope and a lot of perseverance, but little by little our white paper reports are having a big effect on municipal government (see page 7). Since the beginning of this year, the city has scheduled union members to fill more than 1,000 jobs instead of using the temp agencies we said were wasteful, brought in millions of dollars by following our recommendation for a tax amnesty, and confirmed the allegation in our white papers that an outside food vendor has been overcharging the schools.

By these actions, the mayor is demonstrating that he is beginning to realize the true value of the work force we represent. His new budget proposal shows that he understands that city employees are more efficient than outside contractors and that full-time city workers are more dedicated than office temps.

Now I am calling on Mr. Bloomberg to share the savings the city has made by implementing our ideas for cutting waste. And I am urging him to show his understanding of the value of our members in a tangible way — with a fair pay increase.