Public Employee Press

HHC workers
Union blasts laundry contract

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

At a City Council Health Committee hearing June 22, DC37 leaders blasted the Health and Hospitals Corp. for ramming through a nine-year, $130 million contract to privatize its laundry work.

The HHC Board voted 8 to 2 June 3 to shutter Brooklyn Central Laundry and was scheduled to sign a contract July 1 handing the work to three private firms - Sodexo, Nexera and Unitex - at a claimed annual savings of $6.1 million.

Without studying it seriously, HHC rejected DC 37's counterproposal to keep laundry processing in-house at $1.07 a pound and further cut costs to 82 cents with modest investments in upgrading BCL.

Health Committee Chair Maria del Carmen
Arroyo and members Inez Dickens, Jumaane Williams, Debbie Rose, Mattieu Eugene and Rosie Mendez questioned HHC President Alan Aviles about why he never sought funds to upgrade BCL or considered the full impact of closing BCL on the workers or the economy.

HHC has agreed to redeploy 83 BCL workers and on June 17 announced that it would also redeploy 92 other employees who deliver and distribute laundry.

"HHC's savings predictions are entirely exaggerated," wrote DC37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts in a May 26 letter to Aviles, but "closing BCL will deal a severe and permanent economic blow and put patients and hospital workers at risk." DC 37 Associate Director Henry Garrido testified June 22 that handing health care services to a private operator accountable to no one and replacing living-wage jobs in East Flatbush with outsourced low-paid jobs "will affect the quality of service and fundamentally go against HHC's mission."

Sodexo subcontractor Unitex will avoid city taxes by doing the laundry at its Mt. Vernon facility, where workers earn $8 to $10 an hour. HHC will now pay by the piece to rent linens from Sodexo, shell out undetermined consultant and administrative fees, and hand the contractors rebates worth millions of dollars that vendors previously returned to HHC, said Local 420's Beryl Major.

Roberts summarized Sodexo's predatory history of human rights and safety violations, cost overruns and billing fraud, which in 2010 led to a record $20 million fine for overbilling 20 upstate school districts.

"We work hard, we clean 185,000 pounds of laundry despite old equipment," Chapter Chair Patsy Carter testified tearfully. "We are like family and we don't understand why HHC is breaking us up."

"BCL workers are professional with a time-tested and unmatched record of delivering clean linens cheaper and faster," Local 420 President Carmen Charles testified. "HHC never intended to keep the laundry."

DC 37's Legal Dept. has sued HHC for breaching a 2005 agreement to contract in more work, and is considering legal avenues to address HHC's failure to give its board a complete picture of the contractors' records.

With no checks and balances to manage costs that are sure to balloon, and Sodexo's record of rip-offs, Garrido testified, "Once HHC dismantles the Brooklyn Laundry and is on Sodexo's hook, there will be no way to hold anyone accountable."