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Public Employee Press
Poltical Action 2006
Lobby Institute: prep session
At its 12th Annual Grassroots Lobby Institute April 22,
DC 37 readied 160 of its activists to combat the governor’s attack
on working families with a three-point agenda — to improve Workers’
Compensation, stop hospital closings and keep the cap on charter schools.
To prep members for Lobby Day May 9, the Political Action Dept. put together
a program that included a panel of experts on these issues and the
guest speaker was state Assembly member Roger Green, a 2006 candidate
for U.S. Congress. Political Action Committee Chair Len Allen, president
of Local 2021, emceed the event.
“The governor has 255 days left,” said Art Wilcox of the state
AFL-CIO. “Let’s make sure he doesn’t hurt us.”
Wilcox and DC 37’s Safety and Health Director Lee Clarke agreed that
the Workers Comp system needs reform because it favors employers and has
failed to keep pace with the cost of living. While Pataki has proposed
minor increases, DC 37 is pressing to increase compensation rates to two-thirds
of a worker’s average income.
DC 37 and the rest of the “Save Our Safety Net” grassroots coalition
are lobbying to increase Medicaid payments and put Pataki’s hospital
closing commission on ice until after the 2006 election for governor.
“Cuts would threaten our union with reduced services and lost jobs,
and any closings would harm local economies,” said panelist Ralph
Palladino, the 2nd vice president of Local 1549. “ In a city with
three million people uninsured, these cuts would be devastating,”
he said. “We have to say no to hospital closings.”
The union also opposes Gov. Pataki’s plan to add 150 more charter
schools, “which are run for profit, and have no record of success
and no accountability,” said DC 37 Political Director Wanda Williams.
DC 37 wants lawmakers to invest in public schools and cap the number of
privatized charter schools.
“We have to fight for our children and for our public schools,”
said panelist Pleas M. Myers, PTA president of P.S. 149A. Dr. Sam Anderson,
a mathematics Ph.D. and a member of the Independent Commission on Public
Education, said the city needs more parental involvement and a return
to local community school boards instead of charter schools.
“Understand your power, DC 37,” Assemblyman Green told
the corps of activists. “Work in unity and you can achieve economic
and social justice.”
—Diane S. Williams
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