PEP, September 2009: Contracting OUT wastes money, contracting IN saves

At a City Hall hearing June 2, DC 37 backed Dept. of Transportation contracting- in plans to obtain a former private asphalt plant in Queens and have municipal workers operate it, saving New York City an estimated $10 million a year.

“The DOT proposal for a third city asphalt plant makes sense on every level,” DC 37 Assistant Associate Director Henry Garrido told the City Council’s Landmarks, Public Siting and Maritime Uses Committee. “It makes economic sense, it makes environmental sense and it provides transparency and accountability for the taxpayers of the city.”

The plant, located near Willets Point in Flushing, would recycle asphalt that DOT workers would use to pave hundreds of miles of city streets and roadways. The contracting-in plan would cut oil consumption, decrease the number of miles driven by trucks that bring asphalt to city repaving crews, reduce waiting time for the workers and lead to better-maintained streets, said Garrido.

He pointed out that when the city gave up its municipal asphalt plants in the 1970s and let the private sector monopolize asphalt production, it opened the door to corruption, huge price increases and discrimination against paving projects run by DOT in favor of private contractors.

“Our members who operate DOT’s Hamilton Avenue asphalt plant in Brooklyn work around the clock in the paving season. They are proud that they are saving money for the city compared to buying asphalt from private businesses,” said Local 376 President Gene DeMartino. “And we are ready to run another plant at any time.”

DOT’s move to contract in “further proves DC 37’s point that when it comes to providing long-term services, the city always benefits from having public employees do the work,” said Garrido, who wrote “Massive Waste at a Time of Need,” the union’s latest white paper on how the city could save money by reducing its $9 billion of contracting out.

— Diane Williams

Chancellor, $250,000 – consultant, $348,000

A computer contractor charged the Dept. of Education $348,000 for the services of Director Tamer Sevintuna in 2009 — $100,000 more than the agency pays Chancellor Joel Klein, the city’s top-earning executive.

City taxpayers paid $345,000 to Jonathan Krohe, Sevintuna’s deputy at Future Technology Associates, and the consulting firm billed DOE $250,000 each — the same as Klein’s salary — for 63 of its consultants on the contract.

Yet visa applications FTA filed for its foreign workers show that the firm typically paid them only $45,000 to $65,000, according to the Daily News, leaving FTA to pocket the difference between their modest pay and the huge salaries it billed under the contract. At least a dozen FTA workers are foreigners with H-1B work visas.

“The whole thing is a rip-off,” said DC 37 Senior Analyst David Moog. “The company is ripping off the schools and cheating its employees. Taxpayers should be outraged.”

DOE originally hired Future Technology Associates for $2.5 million in 2005 to integrate the schools’ financial accounting system with other city agencies. For fiscal year 2009, the contract gained over 500 percent to $15.7 million. And in January, the department sought bids for a new $95 million contract for the project.

Robert D. Ajaye, president of Electronic Data Processing Personnel Local 2627, called the FTA contract a typical example of wasteful contracting out of jobs that municipal workers could do more efficiently.

“Too often the city justifies contracting out by saying our members don’t have the skills,” Ajaye said. “But the reality is that we often have to train the consultants to bring them up to speed. And even in certain cases where our members need specific skills, they would always be up to the task if the city would provide ongoing training.”

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts noted that Future Technology Associates’ official addresses are post office boxes in Brooklyn and Jacksonville, Fla. “All too frequently, the city uses contractors that aren’t even based here, so their profits are not funneled back into the city economy,” she said.

The Dept. of Finance is also employing computer consultants recruited from abroad. IBM has a $1.9 million contract to upgrade the agency’s outdated main databases. Seventeen employees from an IBM subsidiary in India are working on the job.

“We don’t really care whether the workers come from India or Ireland,” Ajaye said. “The issue is about the proper use of taxpayers’ dollars. With contracting out, there is very little accountability, while prospective civil service employees must go through rigorous background checks.”

In June, Roberts wrote Labor Commissioner James F. Hanley to request a meeting to set up a labor-management committee on contracting in and contracting out, which the union’s economic agreement calls for. A meeting is scheduled for later this month.

— Gregory N. Heires

Contractor out, jobs saved at library

Contracting in custodial and maintenance work will save money for the New York Public Library, and Local 374’s new working conditions contract saved the jobs of seven employees who used to work for the outside firm let go from the Bronx Library Center.

In negotiations for the pact, which members overwhelmingly approved earlier this year, the union convinced NYPL to put the workers on its payroll.

“For a long time, we have been concerned about the library’s unnecessary reliance on contractors, so we were pleased with their willingness to pick up these workers,” said Local 374 President Cuthbert Dickenson.

In a complicated arrangement a few years ago, NYPL agreed that the union could represent the workers from ABM Services Inc., but as contract workers, they were not eligible for all the benefits of unionized NYPL employees.

So when NYPL decided not to renew the ABM contract, DC 37 used the negotiations process to protect the workers and improve their benefits, Research and Negotiations Director Dennis Sullivan said.

In addition to becoming regular library employees, with greater job security and promotional opportunities than private-sector workers, Dickenson said, the new Local 374 members are now eligible for a tax-free savings plan, a tuition reimbursement benefit and the guaranteed income of a traditional pension.

Job security and a traditional pension

“The bottom line is better benefits. Our salary was cut, but within a year, the pay will go up to about what we were making,” said Custodian Michael Drewery. “Here I am at 52 and I finally have a pension.”

Drewery feels fortunate to have his job, since without the intervention of the union, ABM’s loss of the contract would have left him struggling to find work during the severe recession.

“It’s a tough economy. I have a family and bills to pay, so I can’t afford to be unemployed,” said new Local 374 member Victor Cabrera.

— Gregory N. Heires

“Temps live in fear”

We are afraid of getting laid off.

A lot of temps feel very intimidated. Supervisors say you can be replaced. A person makes a phone call and you lose your job.

The temp agency is very nasty. We don’t have any benefits. None. No holidays, not even sick days. You’re sick as a dog and you come to work — or you don’t get paid.

The pay is too high to get assistance, but too low to live on. They just cut us from $14.73 an hour to $12.98.

Some city workers feel threatened by us, and sometimes you feel foreign in your own workplace, like you don’t belong. But we don’t want to take their jobs. We are all here together. But some city workers are cool.

I have worked as a temp for 14 years.

Several times I have taken the civil service test and passed. But I got caught in the freeze. And some directors didn’t like me, so I didn’t get hired.

Anonymous
Temporary Worker
Adil Business Systems, Inc.
HRA Office of Central Processing
98 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn

“They can be fired tomorrow”

As a shop steward, I am not supposed to represent temp workers.

I have even had a supervisor tell me that.

But I will bring their problems to the attention of supervisors because I feel for them. I worked eight years as a temp for the city before getting a civil service job.

There is some animosity between temps and city workers. The temp workers are forced to do work that we can refuse because we have job security.

They are told, “You can be replaced if you can’t do the job.” They know they can be fired tomorrow.

They are not treated fairly at all. Many of them quit because they don’t get recognition and don’t have anyone fighting for them. They don’t have a union behind them.

The pay of the temps is lower than city workers. In June, they got a 10 percent cut. But they are just as productive.

The city should hire the temp workers as permanent employees. They know them and wouldn’t have to train them.

Malaciah Tilman
Clerical Associate 2
Local 1549 Shop Steward
HRA Office of Central Processing
98 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn

Temp agencies: unregulated profiteers

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

An estimated 3,000 clerical workers employed by temp agencies work side-by-side with civil service employees throughout New York City.

They toil in an unregulated nationwide workforce of low-wage workers without the benefits and job security of union members.

Temp workers are part of the “shadow government” of up to 100,000 contract workers and consultants who are doing the jobs of city employees.

As DC 37 presses the city to stop contracting out municipal jobs, the union is also fighting the exploitation of temp workers, who are among the millions of working poor in the United States.

The union documented 400 instances where temps are not given the pay and benefits required under the local living-wage law. City Comptroller Bill Thompson is investigating, and the union has filed human rights complaints on behalf of the workers with the state attorney general.

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts has written the city Office of Labor Relations to initiate discussion on contract workers who could be moved into civil service positions. She estimates that tens of thousands of temps and consultants are doing the work of union job titles.

“If we don’t do anything about this situation now, it’s only going to get worse,” said Henry Garrido, assistant associate director at DC 37.

Employment sharks and bloodsuckers

On June 30, Garrido and Roberts spoke at a forum on temp agencies, “Taming the Employment Sharks,” which DC 37 sponsored with CUNY’s Murphy Institute. Other participants on the panel at DC 37 included Oliver Gray, the union’s associate director, George Gonos, professor of sociology and employment relations at State University of New York at Potsdam, and Harris Freeman, professor of legal research and writing at Western New England College School of Law in Springfield, Mass.

Gonos contrasted traditional employment agencies, which receive one-time fees to help workers find jobs, with temporary staffing agencies, which have contracts to provide their employees to public agencies and private firms. Temp agencies are largely unregulated, making it easy for them to get around labor laws and avoid paying benefits. They employ 9 million workers and earn more than $90 billion a year.

The temp agencies typically pay paltry wages and keep 30 percent of what they charge for their workers. That huge gain, Gonos said, is what led the Industrial Workers of the World union to call employment agencies “bloodsuckers” a century ago in its campaigns against the exploitative businesses.