By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME

The Executive Budget is out and the war is on. This heartless budget sacrifices vital public services and wipes out workers’ jobs, but it hardly touches the $9 billion the city hands over to the private sector by contracting out.

Protecting giant giveaways to contractors and consultants while eliminating services and jobs during this devastating recession tells us this administration has lost touch with the needs of its people.

Contracting out public services to private business wastes money and destroys good government, as we showed in our white paper, “Massive Waste at a Time of Need.” We documented how contractors cost more for the same work, skip the testing and background checks required for civil service staff, violate the Living Wage Law to exploit their own employees, and keep “temporary” workers in city jobs for 15 years or more, denying positions and promotions to union members.

The union’s recent City Council testimony showed how contracting erodes services, raises costs and squanders the hard-earned money of city taxpayers — including our members.

This budget would axe hospital workers during a flu epidemic, fire Librarians who help the unemployed find job information, close zoo exhibits that bring the world to children whose families cannot afford foreign travel, and lay off the child welfare workers who prevent abuse and neglect. Any administration that prefers these cuts to trimming the contract budget clearly doesn’t care what happens to working people and the middle class.

We are fighting contracting out and the misguided priorities of the Executive Budget with every weapon we have — legislation, legal action, community organizing and public opinion.

Union ads pack a punch

We are calling on the City Council to be tougher than ever this year as the public’s counterbalance to the administration by restoring the harmful budget cuts.

And we are going public with our message.

As you ride the subway to work, look up. On every line from the A train to the Z, you will see the faces of dedicated DC 37 members who provide important public services — an Emergency Medical Technician, a School Crossing Guard, a Construction Manager and more — maybe someone you work with. We are educating the public about the issues with the help of our national union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Our ads pack a punch. Each one urges viewers to take action by going to our Web site, www.dc37.net, where they can send a message to the mayor: Cut the private contractors, not public services! I urge every member to help get this message out. To protect your job, be sure to use your own computer, not a computer at work.

We will also use radio ads to hit hard at the layoffs and spread our message at Community Association meetings and through leaflets that staff and members will hand out at subway stops, public buildings and key locations in neighborhoods citywide.

You can make a difference in this aggressive campaign against the budget cuts, layoffs and contracting out by volunteering to hand out fliers. If you want to help save jobs, call our Political Action Department at 212-815-1550.

Once the public learns the truth about how contracting out wastes their money and how the layoffs will hurt them, I believe they will back our stand. If we all do our part, we can win this battle.