By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME, AFL-CIO

One of the smartest political moves DC 37 ever made was supporting John Liu for Comptroller. His audit found the contracted-out CityTime payroll project $1 billion over budget and a decade late due to fraud and waste. The contractor had to return $500 million to the city to avoid criminal charges, and Liu took the bold action DC 37 called for: He forced the mayor to agree to transfer the work to city employees.

For eight long years I used our DC 37 White Papers to expose Mayor Bloomberg's vast expansion of contracting out. Our research - much of it conducted by Associate Director Henry Garrido - showed how contracting out projects that can be done at lower cost by union members wastes our taxes, ships work out of state and abroad at a time when every job is precious, and destroys the civil service system that has traditionally offered an unbiased route to middle-class incomes for minorities, women and immigrants.

Only one citywide elected official paid attention and took action: John Liu. He is talented, innovative and strong enough to stand up to the profiteers as he has stood up to our billionaire mayor.

I am proud that our Delegates voted unanimously May 28 to endorse John Liu for mayor. I will be in the field for him myself and I urge members to volunteer to help get out the vote in the September 10 primary by calling our Political Action Department at 212-470-8527 or 212-815-1550.

Liu cut waste, saved tax dollars

Acting on behalf of all taxpayers, Liu has worked closely with DC 37 to rein in the widespread waste and corruption in the Bloomberg administration:

• His audits found Bloomberg's project to upgrade the city's 9-1-1 emergency call system seven years behind schedule and $1 billion over budget and revealed that the contractor had overbilled taxpayers by $163 million. Local 1549 Executive VP Alma Roper, a veteran 9-1-1 worker, said the recent wave of breakdowns would not have occurred if union computer professionals had designed the system.
• Liu showed the potential harm to motorists and the city budget in the mayor's plan to privatize parking meters, which was then canceled.
• In negotiations with the administration, he saved taxpayers $100 million on wasteful information technology contracts.

Liu also charged that Bloomberg's labor policy, "abdicated his responsibility" by leaving hundreds of thousands of public service employees without pay increases for many years while handing outside contractors annual cost-of-living increases of 3 to 7 percent and leaving city taxpayers "deep in the red with personnel costs that should have been addressed a long time ago."

He helped win prevailing-rate pay increases for our City Laborers, Radio Repair Mechanics, Sewage Treatment Workers and thousands in other unions and opposed Bloomberg's plan to wipe out workers' right to seek prevailing pay rates.

We can bring change with John Liu

Right now, we have a mayor who governs for only business and the wealthy 1 percent. Bloomberg is trying to make city employees eat zeroes for all the years we have waited for raises, kill our prescription drug benefit and ram through outside contracts that will last 25 years - wiping out the democratic rights of a whole generation of voters and future mayors.

Think what it would be like to have a mayor who respects the workers who keep this city running every day and respond in every disaster, a mayor who keeps libraries and neighborhood health clinics open instead of handing public funds to the private sector. Think what it would be like if 20,000 children didn't have to go to school from shelters and we had a mayor building affordable housing instead of paying $3,000 a room of our tax money to dump homeless families in buildings rife with prostitution, violence and vermin.

We can make this change happen. John Liu would be a truly great mayor for DC 37 members, our communities and all New Yorkers. He would be the best possible city leader for all working, middle-class and disadvantaged people who depend on public services and the union members who provide them.

It is your responsibility to yourself to make sure everyone in your family is registered to vote in the September 10 primary by the August 16 deadline. If you need help, call Political Action at the numbers above.

Change will come only if we work hard for it. Tell your neighbors and everyone in your faith community that this is our once-in-four-years opportunity to end the era of government for the wealthy and put city government on the side of the 99 percent by electing John Liu. And volunteer in this election like your future depends on it - because it does.