By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

In a show of solidarity, hundreds of Off-Track Betting Corp. employees attended a City Hall hearing April 10 with a winning tip for the City Council: Bet on OTB and its unionized employees. Don’t let the city sell out OTB to private industry.

With placards that read “Hold Your Horses,” the crowd of Local 2021 members crammed the hearing room and spilled into the corridors as union leaders urged council members to rein in the mayor’s ill-conceived attempt to sell OTB.

“The city has benefited greatly from OTB’s 1,700 hardworking men and women, who have turned a loser into a winner,” Local 2021 President Leonard Allen told the City Council Committee on State and Federal Legislation. “OTB pays its own way and guarantees revenues for the city and state,” he said. Profits from OTB fund vital city services.

“Grave concerns" about sale
A report released that day by City Council Speaker Peter F. Vallone and council member A. Gifford Miller expressed “grave concerns about the merits of any proposed sale of OTB.” Mr. Miller also said he was “disappointed” that the Giuliani administration didn’t bother to attend the hearing and “let the public know what its plans are.”

In fiscal year 2000, the unionized OTB work force helped the corporation turn a $40 million profit. To sell OTB now, union leaders and City Council members say, would be a shortsighted gamble the city cannot afford. The one-time pay out from a quick sale would have long term, economically devastating repercussions.

“Now that OTB is highly profitable with obvious potential for growth,” DC 37 Deputy Administrator Eliot Seide asked, “why let someone else reap the profits?” But OTB’s lucrative operations are a lure as the international betting industry races to consolidate. The mayor wants to cash in and put more city workers out to pasture.

If OTB were sold, nothing would prevent the private company from moving New York City’s OTB out of state or abroad to a back office operation where customers could place bets over a toll-free number with a credit card.   “The good, living wage jobs created by New York’s betting industry should go to New Yorkers,” Mr. Seide said. “To do otherwise is just bad public policy.”

Speaker Vallone called for a “full investigation into the sale process and a real acceptance of the risks involved.” In March, DC 37 and Local 2021 sued the city, the OTB and the NYC Economic Development Corp., claiming that prematurely putting OTB up for bid violates state law and the City Charter.

After the hearing, OTB workers gathered on the steps of City Hall. “Today we showed our strength,” Mr. Allen told his members. “We can sustain and even build on our success at OTB. Our track record indicates that we can do the job best.”