By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME, AFL-CIO

I want to thank all the members who voted on our new economic agreement, as well as the nearly 15,000 former agency-fee payers who have become full members in recent months, because active participation and democracy are essential to the strength of our union and our ability to negotiate as equals with City Hall.

Your overwhelming 96 percent YES vote to ratify the contract is a tremendous vote of confidence in District Council 37. Yes, we weathered the 20-year storm of basically anti-union mayors and yes, we are now beginning a new era in labor relations.

We all owe a vote of appreciation to the local presidents who make up our Negotiating Committee and the union staff who worked closely with them to achieve a contract that starts with retroactive raises for all the years the city tried to give us zeroes, protects our health benefits without taking money out of our pockets and includes important breakthroughs in non-economic areas, such as promotions.

And we owe a huge vote of gratitude to the patience and fortitude of the members of DC 37, the men and women whose brains and hard work provide the public services that keep New York City running for its 8 million people. Your faith in this great union gave your negotiators the strength that made this contract possible.

Even while we were battling over the size of the raises, I began pressing the new city administration to pay the money quickly. I am gratified that after too long without pay increases almost all our members will see the $1,000 bonus plus substantial retroactive payments in their two October paychecks. Including this year's increase, most members' regular pay will be almost 5 percent higher, with larger increases to come in 2015 and 2016.

But our job will not be done until we have provided for the needs of every member. We now have to move hard and fast to negotiate pay increases for the employees at the City University of New York and for the prevailing-rate blue collar workers a vindictive mayor tried to punish for the dramatic progress in pay they made with former Comptroller John Liu under state Labor Law Section 220. (See Mayor de Blasio ends city attack on blue-collar pay.)

New provisions on gainsharing and promotions

We also need to move ahead quickly to implement two important new contract provisions. Gainsharing will let our bargaining units make agreements on workplace initiatives that could generate savings for the city and provide members with additional pay increases. I believe that in some agencies we can do this by replacing wasteful contracting out with in-house work.

And the new high-level committee on recruitment and promotion policy has the power to recommend ways to knock down roadblocks to promotions - such as the one-in-three rule and the lack of civil service exams - and push for needed training and upgrading programs. I am particularly proud to have negotiated this provision, which is the first time the city has ever agreed to work with a union to remove unfair barriers to career advancement.

This contract shows what is possible, even in a difficult economic climate, when you have a strong union that does its research and finds real savings for the city and an administration willing to listen and treat employees with respect.

This agreement also proves the importance of political action to public service workers. Last fall we went all out to elect Bill de Blasio as mayor, and we got a leader who cares about the well-being of those who had been ignored and left out in the past and was ready to negotiate a fair and decent contract for our members.

This month we can make important progress in the state Legislature by supporting the union-endorsed candidates listed on Election 2014: Primary elections, Tuesday, Sept. 9. You can help by calling 212-815-1550 to volunteer for our Get-Out-The-Vote drive on Primary Day, Sept. 9.