Public Employee Press

Lobby Prep

Annual grassroots Lobby Institute

At DC 37’s annual Grassroots Lobby Institute April 26, members and retirees prepped to press the union’s legislative agenda in Albany. Saving members’ jobs at the Off-Track Betting Corp., the Chapter 96 pension reopener, and restoring state funding to the New York City Housing Authority dominated discussions at the daylong session at union headquarters.

The institute featured guest speakers Margarita Lopez, NYCHA commissioner, and Gary Pretlow, chair of the state Assembly Committee on Racing and Wagering. (See OTB story) DC 37 Pension Committee Chair and Local 1320 President Jim Tucciarelli and pension expert Dennis Deahn led a plenary session on pensions and the Chapter 96 reopener.

“Let me end the rumor: New York City will not privatize, sell or demolish public housing,” said Lopez. She praised the mayor for protecting the city’s largest source of affordable housing and offering a NYCHA environmental plan that would create green jobs, which Lopez said would not be outsourced.

NYCHA is not for sale
Since 2001, the Bush administration has withheld $611 million from NYCHA, creating huge deficits that have forced NYCHA to cut workers’ jobs and services to residents. DC 37 and a citywide coalition are demanding that the federal government reinvest in public housing (see NYCHA story). While one-fourth of NYCHA residents are families with children who receive public assistance, Lopez said, three-fourths are working people, including 15,000 DC 37 members.

Activists also planned to press Albany lawmakers to reopen the Chapter 96 pension plan, allowingDC 37 members to opt into the plan and retire at age 55 after 25 years of service, or at 50 after 25 years in physically taxing jobs, or at age 57 after five years of service.

“Members would pay for this out of their own pockets, so it would cost the government nothing,” explained Tucciarelli. Of the 110,000 DC 37 members in the city and Board of Education retirement systems, only 11,000 opted for the plan in 1995, and the union estimates that only 3,000 members would participate in the reopener should the legislation pass, said Political Director Wanda Williams.

— Diane S. Williams