Public Employee Press

Local 375 Celebrates 75 years of fighting for members

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

75 years battling contracting out

For three quarters of a century Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375 has been at the forefront of the struggle against contracting out of public service jobs to the private sector by the city. The local celebrated that historic milestone May 12 at the Terrace on the Park restaurant in Queens.

Local 375 has 7,000 members who work as Engineers, Architects, Chemists, Scientists, Urban Planners and more at the School Construction Authority, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Dept. of Environmental Protection, the Parks and Recreation Dept. and almost every city agency. Together they design the subways, highways and bridges, water and sewer systems, public buildings and parks - the massive infrastructure that makes life possible in the nation's largest city, a metropolis of 8 million.

Members and former members joined friends and elected officials to commemorate the local's 75th anniversary. "Three generations of our local's existence is a great reason to celebrate," said President Behrouz Fathi at the Sunday afternoon gala attended by 300 people.

"This local was in the lead of the struggle for union representation for city workers back then, and 75 years later they're still fighting the good fight," said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, who was honored at the gala along with former Local 375 President Louis Albano.

Former members and elected officals join 75th anniversary commemoration.

"I'm extremely proud to have led this local," said Albano, who served as president for 17 years.

City Comptroller John Liu, state Senators Joe Addabbo and Malcolm Smith and City Council members Letitia James and Leroy Comrie joined in the historic occasion. Addabbo presented the local with a proclamation honoring members' service to the city and said, "The way to thank you is by creating more jobs, not by tinkering with your pensions."

Zack Ramsey, executive assistant to AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, spoke on his behalf. "Fighting for workers is the best and most noble thing you can do in your life," said Ramsey, who attended the local's 50th anniversary celebration when he was a DC 37 local president. City engineers began organizing aggressively after Feb.14, 1934, when Mayor Fiorello La Guardia suddenly laid off 5,000 of the city's 6,000 engineers. That date became known in the local as the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre."

"We civil service workers were treated as second-class citizens," said Local 375 founder Al Lurkis. "La Guardia thought anyone working for the city was a Tammany Hall politician," he said, referring to the once powerful Democratic Party political machine that lasted until the 1960s.

The Civil Service Technical Guild received its charter in 1959 as Local 375 of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, DC 37's 1.6 million-member national union.

Reaching out to members to get them more involved with the local and increasing their participation in PEOPLE, AFSCME's political fundraising arm, are important newer goals for the local, but one objective has remained the same for 75 years.

"It's the same fight as 75 years ago," said Fathi. "The city continually undermines the civil service system by contracting out our jobs. Together with our union brothers and sisters, we'll continue to fight to protect jobs and provide the city with our expertise while saving them money, something that consultants don't do."