Public Employee Press

Union staffers defend members at workplace and in court

Dorothy Lorenzo has been promoted to assistant director of DC 37’s Clerical Division, where she will supervise the reps for Local 1549 members at the Human Resources Administration, including the Administration for Children’s Services and the departments of Social Services, Homeless Services and Youth & Community Development.

“Budget cuts are creating a lot of problems, but I welcome the challenge of protecting our members,” she said.

Lorenzo has two daughters and four grandchildren and serves as an ordained deaconess in her church, where she has been active in the “Youth Prisons” ministry and the “Abused, Battered and Confused” ministry for victims of domestic abuse.

Dottie’s roots are in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where she married and had children before going to college, starting work at HRA’s Dept. of Social Services in 1972, and quickly became a Local 1549 shop steward.

“I went to a union meeting to find out about my benefits, and I liked it,” she said. She took civil service tests, got promotions, became a grievance rep in 1983 and a council rep in 2002, representing Local 1549 members at the Health and Hospitals Corp. until her recent promotion.

New in the union’s Legal Dept. is attorney Aaron Amaral, who late last year worked with Meaghean Murphy and other DC 37 lawyers on a suit that kept some 500 School Aides on the payroll for an extra four weeks before their layoffs. Amaral graduated from CUNY Law School in May 2009.

“It’s an honor to work at DC 37,” he said. “My goal has been to help working people. That’s why I went to CUNY Law School,” which is noted for its emphasis on public service law.

Amaral grew up in Worcester, Mass., “in a union household and a union neighborhood,” he said. His mother was in the teachers’ union and his stepfather was an undercover union organizer in industrial laundries.

He spent most of the 1990s in South Africa, where he did graduate studies, worked with the outstanding labor journalist Terry Bell, and had the opportunity to meet with Nelson Mandela. “This was a time of transition for South Africa and its unions,” he said.

Amaral and Murphy were recently featured in their law school’s Alumni Newsletter for their work on the lawsuit against the Local 372 layoffs, which he said, “gave me insight into how important our work is to the livelihoods of our members.”