Public Employee Press

Union saves 500 jobs in parks . . .
By GREGORY N. HEIRES

DC 37 reached a no-layoff agreement with the city and the Parks Dept. Aug. 18 that saves the jobs of about 500 members.

The city agreed not to lay off any Parks employees for the duration of fiscal year 2012, which ends June 30, 2012, in exchange for the union's acceptance of the department's new Voluntary Attrition Program. The program lets volunteers resign or retire and then work for the agency six months a year for the next three years.

"We appreciate the cooperation of the mayor's office and the Parks Dept. in working with the union to avert what would have been calamitous cuts and the loss of hundreds of good middle-class jobs at a time of a grave economic crisis," DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said.

"The agreement will also protect city parks and recreation facilities, which are important to countless New Yorkers," Roberts said.

"We did everything possible to protect members from losing their jobs in this poor economy and to provide union protections for participants in the program," said DC 37 Research and Negotiations Director Evelyn Seinfeld.

This year, the Bloomberg administration cut the Parks and Recreation Dept. budget $47 million, and layoffs loomed as the agreement was negotiated.

As Seinfeld hammered out the agreement with the city, she fought to protect volunteers, who must be full-time or year-round seasonal employees. They will return in their current title, earn their current base pay, including assignment differentials, and do in-title work similar to what they do now.

The volunteers will get a one-time cash payment for their accrued annual leave, comp time and terminal leave, and will continue to accrue annual and sick leave in the program. They will be entitled to union representation if they are fired or receive an unsatisfactory review. Workers who resign but do not retire may purchase health coverage as permitted under the federal COBRA law.

The deadline for employees to resign or retire to join the program is Dec. 31. The number of participants will be capped at 330, and workers in the program cannot earn more than $30,000.

Parks leader praises deal

"I thank God that the union was able to come to an agreement. We really appreciate the work that Lillian Roberts and the negotiating team did to protect members," said DC 37 Parks Committee Chair Dilcy Benn, the president of Local 1505, which represents Park Service Workers, City Park Workers and Debris Removers - among the lowest-paid workers in Parks - who were expected to take the worst hit.

Other titles that likely faced layoffs included Park Enforcement Patrol Officers, Gardeners amd Asst. Gardeners, Climbers and Pruners and Recreation Specialists.

"The union stood strong in its opposition to 'seasonalizing' the Parks workforce," said President Mark Rosenthal of Local 983.

Led by Roberts and Seinfeld, the union team included Associate Research and Negotiations Director David Paskin and Sr. Assistant General Counsel Steven Sykes.

 
. . . as mass layoffs loom in schools

The Dept. of Education has informed DC 37 that it plans to lay off over 700 members on Oct. 7.

DC 37 and DOE Employees Local 372 are working with the department to explore alternatives and gearing up for a campaign to try to avert the layoffs.

DC 37 and DOE discussed the possible layoffs on Aug. 22 after the principals of nearly 1,700 schools prepared their budgets. As PEP went to press, the parties expected to meet again by early September. The union contract requires DOE to give the union a 30-day notice of mass layoffs and to send workers pink slips two weeks in advance.

At the Aug. 22 meeting, a union team led by DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts and Local 372 President Santos Crespo discussed the layoffs with Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott and Deputy Chancellor David Weiner.

The unionists charged that the layoffs were fiscally self-defeating and said the union aims to work closely with DOE to avoid or reduce the layoffs and to place affected workers in other positions in the school system and at city agencies.

"It is outrageous that DOE plans to lay off workers while it spends nearly $1 billion a year on consultants," Roberts said. Since fiscal year 2004, such spending has skyrocketed from $177 million to almost $1 billion.

The firings - which would be Mayor Bloomberg's worst yet in a single agency - would hit mainly members of Local 372, plus small numbers in other locals, including Local 2627. Union leaders said any savings from the layoffs would be insignificant, since DOE is mostly targeting low-wage workers and the city will have to provide many of them with unemployment, Medicaid and welfare benefits.

Roberts said it seems contradictory for the city to lay off low-paid minority workers through cuts that would apparently hit hardest at minority and poor neighborhoods, while the mayor trumpets his plan to spend $130 million on a foundation project to help young black and Latino men.

"If the mayor is really serious about having a legacy as the education mayor, he needs to look very closely at how these layoffs will hurt the education of our children," Crespo said.

The layoffs come on top of 500 layoffs in 2009. Few of those workers have been recalled.