Public Employee Press

City Council breakfast
Union presents legislative agenda

By MIKE LEE

DC 37 leaders and activists met April 7 with members of the New York City Council for the annual City Council breakfast to discuss the union's agenda and priorities during this year's budget process.

The union's agenda includes:

• $65 million in additional funding for operations at the city's three public library systems and an additional $100 million for capital improvements;
• full funding of the troubled Cultural Institutions Retirement System;
• funds to allow Emergency Medical Services to take over additional ambulance routes, and
• funding for more day-care workers and substance abuse prevention counselors (SAPIS), as well as year-round benefi ts for School Crossing Guards.

The speakers included DC 37 ExecutiveDirector Henry Garrido; Council majority leader Jimmy Van Bramer; City Council Finance Chair Julissa Ferreras-Copeland, and New York City Public Advocate Letitia James.

James spoke forcefully about the priorities and challenges facing the council.

"Clearly, we must make sure our libraries and cultural institutions run efficiently and are funded, and our children are protected," she said. James said the city needs to hire more School Crossing Guards. Citing the heroin epidemic in Staten Island and elsewhere in the city, James called for more SAPIS workers.

James also discussed her work with union leaders to push for city EMS workers to takeover the ambulance routes of TransCare, which recently went bankrupt.

"We must make sure that these jobs are turned over to public workers. If not, this will set a dangerous pattern,"

James said. "We must turn back the tide of privatization and outsourcing. When a private company goes belly up, those jobs should go to DC 37."

Julissa Ferreras-Copeland spoke about the importance of fully funding the CIRS pension. "Those in our cultural institutions should also have the same stability in their retirement system as other city workers," she said.

Garrido thanked the City Council for their hard work in addressing the needs of middle-class New Yorkers through the legislative process. He stressed the importance of the services provided by public employees, and he spoke of his vision for the role of DC 37 in the political process.

"This union should not only be concerned about issues that impact its members; this union is concerned with the entire community - because we live in the community," Garrido said.