PEP, April 2008: Local leaders speak out: For jobs, money, services

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

Since January leaders of DC 37 and its locals have been speaking out for union members’ needs at numerous City Council and state committee hearings. The unionists have been advocating for affordable housing, health care funding and an end to contracting out public services to the private sector.

“We will continue to fight for adequate funding and restoration in critical areas that our members service,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts.

At a March 11 hearing on the health budget for fiscal year 2009, DC 37 Field Operations Director Barbara Ingram-Edmonds spoke on behalf of Executive Director Lillian Roberts. She called on city health and hospital officials to increase funding and work with the union to plan innovative and productive ways to increase access to quality health care.

“The need is increasing. This is no time to decrease public health funding,” she said.

At the same hearing Local 420 2nd Vice President Togba R. Porte criticized the privatization of hospital services. “Instead of contracting out at a higher cost, we recommend that Health and Hospitals Corp. management work closely with the union to improve the efficiency and quality of services,” he said.

Public hospitals deliver

“HHC has proved to be the least costly and most efficient health care delivery system,” Local 1549 2nd Vice President Ralph Palladino told the Health Committee. “It needs to be shielded from cuts and have its services expanded.”

At the Finance Committee March 4, Palladino also hit contracting out and called for the uniformed services to have civilians instead of higher-paid uniformed employees do clerical work.

David Moog, president of Assessors, Appraisers and Housing Development Specialists Local 1757, told the Finance Committee that funding the hiring of 100 new Assessors would “bring staffing levels back up to their pre-9/11 level and allow the proper assessment of all property.”

Moira Dolan, assistant director for public policy in the union’s Research Dept., spoke at the finance hearing on behalf on the union and the New York Union Child Care Coalition. She urged the City Council to continue funding its highly successful union-backed child care demonstration project.

DC 37 Secretary Cliff Koppelman testified on cable franchise renewals Feb. 7 before the Information Technology Committee. He urged the committee to continue the franchise of the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, which carries the union’s television show, “so the exemplary service MNN provides can continue.”

Ralph F. Carbone, president of Rent Regulation Services Employees Local 1359, testified Jan. 29 before the state Joint Legislative Fiscal Committees on the state housing budget. To deal with the shortage of affordable housing, he suggested creating a low-income housing trust fund with a dedicated funding source, such as a portion of real estate transfer taxes and related fees, to “provide regular support for affordable housing initiatives statewide.”

He also addressed the continuing loss of Mitchell-Lama housing, where another 9,000 apartments may soon join the 1,700 that have left the program in the past year. He called for legislation to “place any development that buys out of the program under rent stabilization.”

Bad policies at DOE
Speaking March 3, on behalf of Local 372 and DC 37 President Veronica Montgomery-Costa, Exec-utive Vice President Santos Crespo blasted Mayor Bloomberg’s school policies before the City Council Education Committee.

“It was a bad decision to award no-bid contracts to outside companies that take jobs away from New Yorkers who are parents in our schools,” he said. “It was a bad decision to award contracts to vendors with past histories of fraud and to increase the number of charter schools. Who really pays for these bad decisions? New York City’s 1.1 million school children pay.”