Public Employee Press

Budget fightback saves jobs

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

The new city budget canceled some of the most painful slashes called for by Mayor Bloomberg, including the layoffs of 4,100 teachers and up to 1,500 DC 37 library workers. The spending plan keeps firehouses and swimming pools open and restores some of his deep funding cuts to health and children's services, education, cultural institutions and parks.

But some jobs of DC 37 members remained on the chopping block as the City Council voted 49 to 1 on June 29 to approve a $66 billion budget for fiscal year 2012, which started July 1.

"The budget is a mixed bag," DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said. "We worked well with the City Council to achieve millions of dollars in important restorations. But we are very upset that the administration plans to move ahead with any of its unnecessary layoffs.

After Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg outlined his cutback plans in February's preliminary budget, DC 37 launched an aggressive push to restore the funds.

The campaign included local union demonstrations, visits to City Council members, letter-writing, testimony by local leaders at budget hearings, media outreach and two union hearings that highlighted contract waste and fraud and available revenue sources untapped by the Bloomberg administration.

Roberts to mayor: "Do your job."

A radio ad by Roberts called on the mayor and the City Council to "Do your job" by cutting wasteful contracting out and ending tax breaks for the wealthy "without raising taxes one cent or firing one worker."

The union drive culminated in a demonstration June 14 that drew 20,000 protestors to City Hall (pages 13-16).

The City Council added back about $150 million of the restorations sought by DC 37. Word of the Council's restorations came out before the DC 37 delegates met June 28, and many of them praised the union's efforts to win back the funds.

At the meeting, Lifeguards Local 461 President Franklyn Paige expressed his relief that the fightback by his members, Lifeguard Supervisors Local 508 and DC 37 had paid off. Nearly $3 million in extra funding led the administration to scrap its plan to close four pools and to end the swimming season in mid-August. The cuts would have left youths on hot city streets and put scores of Lifeguards on unemployment, Paige said.

Speaking on behalf of the locals representing library workers, Local 1482 President Eileen Muller thanked the union for supporting their aggressive fightback and expressed hope that restored funds would eliminate the need for layoffs. Her hope was fulfilled as the city's three library systems said they would not be laying off employees. But they also indicated that remaining funding shortfalls would cut service at branches from six days a week to five.

"We averted layoffs through a concerted campaign for restorations," said Local 371 President Anthony Wells. One children's service position remains on the chopping block, "which is one too many," he said.

DC 37 leaders were angry at the administration's unwillingness to seek savings in its more than $10 billion in annual spending on outside consultants and contracts or make efforts to bring in at least $500 million in uncollected revenue identified by the union's hearings to avoid service cuts and layoffs.

Class bias

"When we have identified hundreds of millions of dollars in savings and the administration is unwilling to make the wealthy pay their fair share, the logical conclusion is that the mayor's public policy is ideologically driven and tilted more toward serving the rich than helping the poor and the middle class," said Associate Director Henry Garrido.

After the budget passed, the Dept. of Education wrote principals that there would be an average budget cut of 2.4 percent at the city's 1,700 schools and instructed them to look for possible staffing reductions. Local 372 President Santos Crespo said the cuts could cause hundreds of layoffs.

"Once again, the DOE is targeting low-paid employees while keeping high-paid consultants and managers," said Crespo."They have even added $20 million to hire consultants and attorneys for labor relations. We will be fighting to protect our members all summer."

The union hopes the budget agreement will now open the way for contract talks. PEP erroneously reported in its last issue that bargaining would open immediately after the June 14 demonstration.