Legislative pact could
stop 10,000 firings in
“doomsday” plan

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

DC 37 is fiercely fighting Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposed budget, which calls for thousands of layoffs and the worst devastation of city services since the 1970s fiscal crisis.

As PEP went to press — only days after 30,000 members rallied at City Hall — state legislators reached agreement on a budget plan that would restore most of the health care and education cuts, give the city additional taxing authority, and make the mayor’s “doomsday” cutbacks unnecessary.

Gov. Pataki refused to drop his opposition to “job-killing taxes” and threatened to veto the accord, but legislative leaders said they could override his veto. On April 15, the mayor unveiled a “doomsday” budget calling for 10,000 layoffs beginning July 1 if more than $2.7 billion in state aid and new revenue fails to materialize.

“What the mayor presented is an outrage that puts both the city’s economic recovery and its safety at risk,” DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said.

“We will fight for our members’ jobs in the courts, in the streets, in the Legislature, in every way we can. And we will fight not just for our members but for all New Yorkers, whose quality of life is imperiled by the callousness of politicians who have failed to act in the best interest of the people of New York.”

Layoff lists
The “best case scenario” version of the fiscal 2004 budget, which assumes the city receives the state help, still calls for over 5,000 layoffs, including those ordered earlier this year and the others planned for May 17. As the state accord emerged, Ms. Roberts and teachers union head Randi Weingarten asked the mayor to stop the clock on these layoffs, too.

On April 17, the Bloomberg administration notified municipal unions that it intended to lay off 3,400 of those workers effective May 17. More than 2,000 workers are at risk at the Dept. of Education, although the agency has not given the unions a detailed listing.

Out of the 3,400 targeted workers, the layoff list included 1,613 DC 37 members. (By contract, the city must give the union 30 days’ notice of agencies and job titles where it is planning layoffs. Management must give individual workers two weeks’ notice, and the city issued thousands of pink slips on May 1 and 2.)

The administration announced the 3,400 layoffs after rejecting a proposal from municipal unions that would have achieved the $600 million in productivity savings that Mr. Bloomberg requested.

Roberts leads fight-back
Faced with the massive layoffs, the union is waging a full-scale counter-attack in the courts, city and state legislatures, media and communities throughout the city and in the streets.

The union is also challenging the firings in several lawsuits. The suits seek to overturn layoffs by showing, for example, that the Dept. of Education violated layoff procedures; that the city is illegally replacing civil servants with welfare recipients, and that the School Construction Authority has failed to meet its legal obligation to keep 40 percent of design work in-house.

The fightback includes a $500,000 media campaign to get DC 37’s message out on the radio, cable TV and newspapers. In an op-ed piece in the Daily News on April 22, Ms. Roberts wrote that the Bloomberg budget “will send our city hurtling back to the 1970s, when residents and commuters had to deal with rampant crime, piles of garbage and high unemployment.”

In the article, Ms. Roberts argued that rather than cutting services, the city should restore fairness to the tax system to bring in more revenue.

With the approval of the State Legislature, the city could increase its revenues by $5.7 billion — and could easily close its $3.8 billion projected budget gap for fiscal year 2004. This would require a small increase in the income tax on people who earn over $150,000, reinstituting a commuter tax, restoring the stock transfer tax and closing corporate tax loopholes.

In March and April, DC 37’s Health and Hospital Corp. locals ran a petition and letter-writing campaign against Medicaid cuts. Library locals 1930 and 1321, facing hundreds of layoffs, held demonstrations, and Local 375 rallied against further downsizing at the School Construction Authority.

About 2,100 DC 37 political activists bused to Albany April 1 to lobby together with thousands from New York State’s five other affiliates of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. They pressed state legislators to restore $4 billion in cuts to education and health care in Gov. George E. Pataki’s proposed budget and to plug the $11.4 billion gap with new revenue.

On April 28, Carmen Charles, president of Hospital Employees Union Local 420, appeared at a joint city-state hearing to urge lawmakers to restore cuts in Medicaid and other funding to the Health and Hospitals Corp.

Massive turnout on April 29
Thousands of municipal workers hit the streets April 29 for the fight-back rally sponsored by DC 37. To publicize the rally, DC 37 used mailings and phone banks. Local activists and staff leafleted at work sites and subway stations. With the Community Service Society, headed by David Jones, the union hosted a breakfast meeting with community and religious organizations April 25 to organize for the rally and to build a lasting grassroots progressive movement for future political, contract and budget fights.

As PEP went to press, union leaders were meeting with city officials to discuss the layoffs and explore options for saving jobs. And the union’s political action apparatus was gearing up for DC 37’s annual Lobby Day in Albany on May 6 to press state legislators for greater funding for health care, education and other vital services.

“Our massive turnout on April 29 showed that there is a growing movement of unions and community and religious groups,” Ms. Roberts said. “We are united in our commitment to protecting the jobs of municipal employees and protecting the vital services they provide.”