PEP, June 2010: 11,000 city jobs in danger

Faced with looming city layoffs, District Council 37 is also battling proposed furloughs of state workers.

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Last year, as a mayoral candidate, Michael R. Bloomberg pledged to “create or save” 400,000 jobs in New York City over six years.

So far, he’s off to a dismal start with the city workforce.

In addition to devastating services, Bloomberg’s savage, job-killing budget for fiscal year 2011, which begins July 1, would wipe out 11,000 city jobs through layoffs and attrition.

And the slaughter has already begun.

The Bloomberg administration fired nearly 200 DC 37 workers at the Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene on May 14, and the mayor expects to lay off a total of 500 DC 37 members by the end of June. The city has notified the union of the layoff of 120 Local 372 substance abuse counselors and more than 100 employees represented by Local 371 at the Administration for Children’s Services.

“During an economic downturn, it’s not the time for government to be cutting back,” DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said. “The lives of thousands of workers and their families stand to be shattered. And adding so many people to the unemployment line will only worsen the state of our local economy.” Bloomberg unveiled his proposed $66.2 billion executive budget May 6. The plan would decrease spending by 1 percent.

A dysfunctional state capital

Bloomberg’s preliminary plan released in January called for 834 layoffs and the elimination of 3,452 positions. In an apparent effort to pressure the state, he has blamed the much larger downsizing of the executive budget on the failure of Albany to meet its April 1 deadline for a new state budget and Gov. David Paterson’s proposed $1.3 billion cuts in education and health-care assistance to the city.

The downsizing includes the layoff and attrition of 6,414 teachers at the Dept. of Education, where 279 non-pedagogical employees would also be let go. The plan also calls for the elimination of 164 positions and layoffs of 790 workers who provide health and welfare services.

Other mayoral agencies would lose 1,116 jobs through layoffs and attrition. Cultural institutions and the city’s three library systems would be hit with 889 layoffs and the elimination of 135 positions. (Library administrators say the downsizing would be worse — about 1,300 positions.)

Citing a federal law that requires 90-day notice of mass layoffs (at least 50 jobs) of private-sector employees, Queens Library has notified 329 workers — an astounding third of the library system’s workforce — that they could be out of work in August.

As PEP went to press, Queens Library Guild Local 1321 was mobilizing its members for a noontime library-sponsored demonstration at City Hall Park on May 27. On June 1, Local 1321 will protest at the Central Library in Jamaica, Queens, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, DC 37 leaders are pressing for budget restorations at City Council budget hearings. The union is calling for cutbacks in the city’s expenditures on wasteful contracting out, which would increase by $250 million next year to $9.5 billion. (See article on page 8.)

There’s also bad news at the Health and Hospitals Corp., where a restructuring plan would eliminate 10 percent of the work force by fiscal 2014. (See article below.) This year, HHC has eliminated 1,200 positions, mostly through attrition.

Meanwhile, DC 37 joined with the Professional Staff Congress, the Civil Service Employees Association and the Professional Employees Federation in a battle against Paterson’s plan to impose furloughs without pay one day a week on 100,000 state employees as the budget stalemate in Albany continues.

Paterson also withheld a 4 percent wage increase and health and welfare contributions that were due April 1.

Unions succeeded in obtaining a judge’s order that halted the furloughs pending a hearing on May 26. Assistant General Counsel Erica Gray-Nelson and Associate General Counsel Robin Roach worked on the case.

“For many of our members, the furlough would mean the difference between eating two or three meals a day,” said Dennis Ifill, president of Rent Regulation Services Employees Local 1359, whose membership include clerical workers who earn modest salaries.

“The fight over the budget in Albany is not just about political jockeying or some abstract numbers game. People’s livelihoods are at stake,” said Ifill, who spoke against the furloughs at a rally outside the governor’s office in May.