Public Employee Press

Local leaders testify on budget
Battling layoffs and contracting out

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

As the City Council considered the budget for fiscal year 2010, which starts July 1, DC 37 local leaders took the battle against the mayor’s proposed layoffs and service cuts to several council committees where they urged city legislators to restore funds and halt contracting out. In many cases their efforts bore fruit in the final budget compromise between the mayor and the council (see 'Budget saves 1,500 jobs; layoffs still loom').

Clerical-Administrative Employees Local 1549 President Eddie Rodriguez testified before three committees. He protested city plans to lay off clerical workers in the Administration for Children’s Services (see 'Fighting for workers who prevent child abuse'), called for support for Speaker Christine C. Quinn’s proposal to increase taxes on the wealthy, and urged the Police Dept. to cancel planned layoffs and save money by using civilian employees instead of highly paid uniformed officers for non-law enforcement duties.

Speaking at a joint hearing of the council’s Finance and Education committees on May 27, Local 372 Executive Vice President Santos Crespo addressed mayoral control of the public schools and the Dept. of Education’s extensive contracting out.

“Since the mayor obtained sole governance of the schools, we have witnessed an astonishing acceleration in outsourcing of services that would be most economically and best performed by Local 372 members,” he testified. “We have also seen a proliferation of fiscal abuses costing the taxpayers of New York City millions of dollars. Many layoffs could be avoided if DOE was fiscally responsible.”

At a Health Committee hearing on May 27, Judith Arroyo, president of Local 436, which represents 1,000 Public Health Nurses and Epidemiologists, pressed for adequate funding for child health clinics, summer school health services and infant mortality programs. “For almost 100 years these clinics have provided essential health services to our most vulnerable communities,” she said. “These clinics serve as a portal of entry into the health-care system for many immigrant families and provide preventive services such as immunizations, health education, and access to health insurance programs such as Child Health Plus and Family Health Plus.”

Funding crisis

Barbara Ingram-Edmonds, DC 37 director of field operations, emphasized the importance of restoring health program funds for city clinics. “We must continue to support the city’s gains in addressing infant mortality through the restoration of $3.5 million to the Infant Mortality Initiative,” she said. In addition, she called for the restoration of $6.1 million to the Health and Hospitals Corporation’s 24 health clinics. “We cannot cut our way out of this crisis,” she said.

At the same hearing, Togba Porte, 2nd vice president of Municipal Hospital Employees Local 420, criticized HHC’s continued contracting out of services.

“Not only does this undermine the quality and continuity of care that a patient receives, but hiring personnel through outside agencies is more expensive than using full-time HHC staff,” Porte said.

The mayor’s proposed budget for 2010 targeted the city’s libraries for a major hit, calling for a cut of $28 million in operating funds and possible layoffs of hundreds of union members.

“With the proposed cuts, we will see a reduction in hours of service, staff and library materials,” Queens Library Guild Local 1321 President Margalit Susser told the Committee on Libraries May 28. Presidents Carol Thomas of the New York Public Library Guild Local 1930 and Eileen Muller of Brooklyn Library Guild Local 1482 joined Susser at the hearing.

“There’s no telling which child using our public libraries will be the next Barack Obama or Sonia Sotomayor, but we need to keep our libraries open for them,” said Muller.

“My members are blue-collar workers who don’t drive Mercedes and come in from Connecticut,” said American Museum of Natural History Local 1559 President Peter Vreeland. “So if these cuts go through, it will be hitting people who pay taxes, live in the community and send their kids to public schools.” The workers at the city’s botanical gardens, members of Local 374, are also facing layoffs. “All of our members in the botanical gardens have taken furloughs in order to save money,” said Local 374 President Cuthbert Dickenson.

At the final budget hearing, held June 1 by the Finance Committee, Local 1549 2nd Vice President Ralph Palladino stressed the union’s call for the city to stop contracting out jobs, a policy that costs taxpayers some $9 billion dollars annually.