Public Employee Press

Court orders SCA to stop contracting

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

A state Supreme Court judge has banned layoffs and contracting out at the School Construction Authority until SCA assigns 40 percent of its design, drafting and inspection work to its in-house staff.

In the March 28 ruling, Justice Peter O’Donoghue sided with Local 375 and DC 37 on a 2002 lawsuit that charged SCA with violating the 40 percent rule. The rule orginated in the legislation that established the authority.

“This is a major victory against privatization. It should make the city think twice about contracting out our members’ work,” said Local 375 President Claude Fort. “This court decision is a sign that our long-term war against contracting out is paying off,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts.

O’Donoghue ordered SCA to comply with the law by restructuring its work assignments so that civil servants perform 40 percent of the work.

He also instructed the authority to account for how it calculates the percentage of work done by SCA employees.

By backing the union’s position that the authority erroneously counts supervision of consultants by SCA staff as part of the in-house design, drafting and inspection work, O’Donoghue’s ruling would potentially free up additional funding for in-house staff.

The city has indicated that it will appeal O’Donoghue’s decision. Attorney Robert Burzichelli is handling the union’s case. O’Donoghue’s order that the SCA comply with the 40 percent rule and restructure work assignments comes after years of downsizing and the layoff of 110 Local 375 members at SCA in 2003.

“We will push for the authority to call back our members and compensate them for their time out,” Fort said. “With the long-term erosion of its in-house staff, we believe SCA will have to bring back laid-off workers and hire additional workers.”

The union filed the lawsuit as it anticipated possible layoffs at the SCA and hoped to put the brakes on years of contracting out and downsizing at the authority, where the in-house staff has dwindled from 933 at the end of 2001 to 515 at the end of last year.

Earlier this year, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein told the union he did not expect layoffs at SCA anytime soon. The union criticized SCA’s use of consultants in its “white papers,” which highlighted the city’s wasteful practice of farming out the work of civil servants.