Public Employee Press

Council passes pro-organizing bill

The City Council is backing the labor movement’s campaign for federal legislation to make it easier for workers to join a union.

In a voice vote May 16, the Council overwhelmingly supported a resolution calling on Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

The New York City Central Labor Council, DC 37, the Doctors Council and other unions worked with Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., chair of the Civil Service and Labor Committee, and sympathetic legislators to enact Resolution 1180.

The resolution represents the collective sentiment of the City Council and adds to the political pressure on Congress to approve the act. The next step is for city legislators to work with the New York Congressional delegation to push for the EFCA, Addabbo told PEP.

Significantly, the resolution also signaled the City Council’s support for local unionization efforts. This is important as unions in New York City, including DC 37, focus increasingly on organizing.

“Every worker deserves the right to choose to join a union and to be treated with dignity, respect and fairness in the workplace,” DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said at a morning City Hall news conference before the vote. “Yet, even in a union town like New York, anti-union employers still seek to deny them that right.”

Currently, DC 37 is organizing about 300 workers employed by the Central Park Conservancy, which has responded with an anti-union campaign involving closed-door meetings with individual employees and attacks on DC 37.

“These hard-working men and women help maintain one of the city’s crown jewels,” said Organizing Director Edgar deJesus, discussing the Conservancy employees. “They see what union membership does for their unionized colleagues.

They want to join DC 37, but as soon as the employer found out that they were signing union cards, they launched a vicious anti-union campaign using fear tactics, misinformation and lies. The EFCA gives workers the protection they need and the freedom of choice they deserve.”

The Employee Free Choice Act would give workers the right to form a union as long as a majority signs up. Currently, federal labor law leaves the employees subject to management manipulation during a lengthy election process unless the employer agrees to be neutral. The act would penalize employers for delay, and it would penalize them for discharging or discriminating against a worker during an organizing drive.

At a hearing of the City Council Civil Service and Labor Committee on March 31, deJesus described the Conservancy’s “fear-based, anti-union campaign,” and said DC 37’s effort to organize the Central Park workers demonstrates the need for the EFCA.