PEP, June 2009: Union tells Albany: Save jobs, save the economy

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

Hundreds of DC 37 members and retirees bused to Albany May 5 for the union’s annual Lobby Day — their chance to press state legislators to take action on DC 37’s legislative agenda.

Union leaders and activists urged the lawmakers to allocate disproportionate share funding to city hospitals and close the $460 million structural budget deficit and prevent layoffs at the Health and Hospitals Corp., restore funding for 48 members’ jobs being eliminated at the Wildlife Conservation Society, end consideration of the reduced Tier V pension plan, and enact due process rights for noncompetitive and labor-class employees.

They also pushed for affordable, quality child care, increased aid to HHC hospitals and clinics, Medicare Part B reimbursement for all retirees, and an end to housing vacancy decontrol and mayoral control of the schools.

“One of the major problems we face is contracting out our members’ work to high-priced consultants. It’s time to stop the waste!” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. “Wall Street executives have their bailouts and golden parachutes, but City Hall undermines civil service with union-busting tactics, hires contractors that pay employees less than the living wage and tries to put us out in the streets.”

Political Action Committee Chair Lenny Allen, who is the president of OTB Employees Local 2021, chaired the program at the daylong event organized by the DC 37 Political Action Dept. Among the guest speakers were Gov. David Paterson; Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Minority Leader Brian Kolb and Deputy Speaker Earlene Hooper; Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, and Minority Leader Dean Skelos; Sen. Diane Savino, a former DC 37 member; and state AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes.

The union hopes to build on recent legislative successes, which include saving 1,500 Off-Track Betting employees’ jobs, winning air quality control for Local 372’s cafeteria workers, protecting the jobs of 300 drug counselors at city schools, getting new legislation against workplace violence, establishing a 9/11 task force, passing “Fair Share” tax increases on wealthy New Yorkers, and improving unemployment services for laid-off workers.

Thanking the DC 37 members “for the work you do,” Paterson pointed out that during the fiscal crisis that hit New York City in the mid-1970s, “DC 37 showed its love for New York and came to its aid. Without DC 37, New York City would not have survived. The question now is whether the state and city love DC 37 back.”

DC 37 local presidents whose members face layoffs at HHC urged the lawmakers to provide additional funding. “We will correct the mistake we made when we excluded HHC from the budget,” said Smith, a longtime Albany ally.

The governor said he and legislators had taken “a scalpel and not an ax” to the budget and that by increasing welfare and Food Stamp allocations, they “did not forget those on the edge of survival.”

Looking past this year’s fiscal challenges, Paterson said, “Just as we share in the pain, when we bring New York back to prosperity, we will share in the resources.”