PEP, June 2007: 1,100 at DC 37 lobby day

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

For the first time in a dozen years, DC 37 activists at the union’s annual Lobby Day in Albany — 1,100 strong — were greeted by the governor of New York State. When the group assembled May 8, Gov. Eliot Spitzer was the first in a long line of politicians to thankDC 37 members for their support last November and for “getting the job done. The greatest city in the world would not work without you,” he said. “DC 37 is the backbone of labor and the union that makes New York City run.”

“Governor Spitzer has supported us and delivered an on-time budget and he recognizes the power we represent in this room,” said DC 37 Political Action Committee Chair Lenny Allen, president of Local 2021, who ran the daylong event with union political action staff. “We can look forward to great days and years to come for New York.”

Allen said the governor supports DC 37’s political agenda and since coming to office in January has reformed the state Workers’ Compensation law, restored $350 million to health care for public hospitals, and increased educational funding by $1.76 billion over the next four years.

Following the general session, DC 37 members fanned out to lobby legislatorson issues such as pension legislation and the 55/25 re-opener, affordable child care and housing, air temperature control in public school cafeterias, and employee protections such as the Weingarten rights bill. After a court denied workers’ rights to union representation at any investigatory interview, DC 37 lobbied on the issue and Sen. Joseph Robach and Assembly member Peter Abbate stepped up and sponsored a bill that would restore members’ rights.

The activists also lobbied to protect the pensions of Board of Education Local 372 members in the Board of Education Retirement System from being swallowed by the Teachers Retirement System and the New York City Employees Retirement System. DC 37 wants BERS, which provides pensions for 34,000 part-time BOE workers, to continue as a stand-alone pension fund.

DC 37 developed its political agenda, in part, at the annual Grassroots Lobby Institute on April 21, which featured a day of training for union members. The day included plenary sessions led by DC 37 pension expert Dennis Deahn and Health and Safety Director Lee Clarke, with guest speakers Assembly member Michael Benedetto of the Bronx and state Assembly Deputy Counsel Charlotte Hitchcock from Speaker Sheldon Silver’s office.

On Lobby Day, pro-labor Republicans and Democrats including State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, Assembly Committee Chairs Susan John and Peter Abbate, and Speaker Silver met with DC 37 activists. They heard members’ concerns that included the 1-in-3 rule, water rate hikes, reinstatement of the commuter tax, universal health care and repeal of the extreme Rockefeller Drug Law and the Urstadt Law, which prohibits the city from adopting its own rent controls.

“New day in Albany’’
DC 37 Treasurer Maf Misbah Uddin, Secretary Cliff Koppelman, Allen and Political Director Wanda Williams, and state AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes agreed it is a new day in Albany. Williams said, “Legislators have an open-door policy with us and we appreciate that. Working families are welcomed, public employees are appreciated and we have a fighting chance.”

“All of us have a responsibility to be activists,” Uddin told the crowd. “Our presence in Albany helps convince lawmakers to work with us to get the job done. This is what makes democracy work.”