By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME

As our city and our nation grapple with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the mayor is sabotaging President Barack Obama’s recovery plan by laying off thousands of city workers and school support staff.

This Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent kicked off election year 2009 with an insult to our democratic traditions as he kicked aside the term limits law that the voters passed twice. Now he is sitting smug, confident his billions can buy enough TV ads to get him a third term.

But Bloomberg is wrong. He is out of touch with real people. Every day more working-class and middle-class voters are seeing through him. In a recent poll by the New York Times, Cornell University and NY 1 News, a majority of New Yorkers said he does not deserve another term. While he touts his financial skills, few trust him to lead the city out of the recession.

These people are seeing the arrogant, elitist Bloomberg that municipal employees have to deal with, scorning the suffering of the “little people” and running City Hall for the good of business and his wealthy friends. This is the mayor who blocked “fair share” city tax increases on millionaires but raised the sales tax on the rest of us.

This mayor hands $9 billion a year of our tax money to private business contractors while he wipes out vital services, lays off union members and destroys the civil service system that has opened the door to upward mobility for generations of minorities, women and immigrants.

Schools crumble, support workers face layoffs and children’s education suffers, but his Department of Education pays computer consultants $348,000 a year — even more than the Schools Chancellor.

Thompson would create jobs, not lay off workers

Instead of using successful Job Training Participants to clean city buildings at $21 an hour, the administration dumps them on welfare and pays private firms $30 an hour.

Computer jobs go to out-of-state and foreign companies and workers are recruited from abroad, eroding the city’s tax base and killing the future for many children, who graduate from school directly to the unemployment lines.

Four more years of Bloomberg would be a disaster for the taxpayers and working families of New York City. But we have a choice: We don’t have to give him a third term.

Our Political Action Screening Committee and Executive Board interviewed all the candidates in an open and democratic process. Overwhelmingly, they said that Comptroller Bill Thompson — the hard-working son of a public school teacher and a judge — would make the best mayor for our members and for the people of our city.

DC 37 endorsed Bill Thompson because he shares our vision for a more compassionate, less wasteful city, where we answer fiscal problems by creating jobs, not by laying off school support staff and dismantling city services that prevent child abuse. He understands that putting police officers at desks to do the jobs of clerical-administrative workers at a much higher cost is criminal waste.

Bloomberg thinks he can buy this election, but with DC 37’s “people power,” Bill Thompson can win. We need to volunteer our time to hand out the fliers and make the phone calls like never before. I am counting on my brothers and sisters in DC 37 to help get our message out by calling 212-815-1550.

We need a leader who will use his position to improve the lives of millions, not just the profits of Wall Street and the wealthy. This election is a battle between business profits and human needs, between Bloomberg’s money and Bill Thompson’s people — and we can win it!