Public Employee Press

City plans full-time posts for 2,800 per diems

Later this year over 2,800 per diem workers — mainly DC 37 members — will move into full-time positions with full benefits under union contracts.

Under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s January financial plan, about 2,000 per diem employees at the Dept. of Social Services, nearly 700 at the Dept. of Homeless Services and another 150 at the Administration for Children’s Services will go into “per annum” positions.

The conversion is scheduled for fiscal year 2005, which begins July 1. But the city has not yet given the union a detailed timetable.

“This is a tremendous development,” DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said. “The union has fought for the rights of per diem workers for years in the courts and at the bargaining table. Now the city is finally recognizing that it was an injustice to deny them full-time positions and benefits. While these folks were technically classified as being employed on a daily basis, in reality they were part of the permanent municipal work force.”

The use of per diems exploded in the 1990s under the Giuliani administration. DC 37 contended that hiring a vast army of per diem workers was a ruse to reduce the official headcount of the work force while saving millions of dollars by cutting the cost of benefits.

“This was a really sneaky practice in which the city fooled the bean counters while shortchanging workers,” Ms. Roberts said.

“To his credit, as someone coming from the private sector, Mayor Bloomberg has always wanted to get a clearer picture about the number of people the city actually employs,” she said. “He has made a good decision by putting a stop to this practice, which cheated workers out of benefits and misled taxpayers.”

Per diem workers used to have to wait two years before they were entitled to the same contractual rights and benefits as ordinary city employees— paid holidays, accrual of annual and sick leave and city-funded health and welfare benefits.

In the 2000-2002 contract, DC 37 reduced the waiting period to 18 months. Then, last year, the union won an arbitration decision that granted full-time, permanent per diems status equal to their per annum coworkers.

About 500 permanent per diems will soon benefit from the ruling. Many are members of Locals 371, 768 and 1549 who were appointed from civil service lists into permanent per diem status.

Leave time, pay restored
Under the arbitration decision, the city must restore to the workers’ annual leave bank any annual leave and compensation time they took before reaching the 18-month period.

They will be entitled to cash payments to cover unpaid holidays that they took. The union is urging the city to provide the cash payments and adjust the leave banks as soon as possible. This month, the affected workers are supposed to be entitled to floating holidays.