Public Employee Press

DC 37’s summer organizing
Campaign expands to Prospect Park

DC 37 ratcheted up its organizing drive over the summer, keeping the heat on the non-profit employer Central Park Conservancy and laying the groundwork for a second campaign to sign up new members in Prospect Park.

Aug. 20 was “DC 37 Day” at Central Park. Organizers and activists informed Conservancy workers about the many benefits offered by the union and urged them to sign cards designating DC 37 as their union.

Two days later, the union sponsored a similar event at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, where the non-profit Prospect Park Alliance employs a non-union workforce of 60 employees, who work alongsideDC 37 members.

As PEP went to press, the DC 37 Organizing Dept. was busy planning for a Sept. 27 through 28 “blitz” by an army of organizers, who were scheduled to visit Prospect Park workers in their homes to “talk union” and ask them to sign union cards.

At the “DC 37 Days” in Central Park and Prospect Park, the Organizing Dept. provided lunch for DC 37 members and non-unionized workers employed in the Parks. The union set up information booths with staffers, who informed the workers about DC 37 services and activities.

Earlier in the summer, union activists leafleted a Central Park Conservancy fund-raiser to encourage donors to support the organizing drive. On June 25, about 20 activists gathered at Central Park’s Fifth Avenue and 110th Street entrance to pass out leaflets and strike up conversations with people who attended the gala.

“We are entering a new phase as we focus more public attention on the unjust working conditions in Central Park,” said Edgar deJesus, interim organizing director.

As the number of municipal workers in the city parks plummeted from 7,500 years ago to 2,200 today, the Central Park Conservancy developed a parallel, non-unionized workforce of 300 employees, who don’t enjoy the same workplace rights as DC 37 members.

Rabbi Michael Feinberg, who joined the leafleting, heads the city chapter of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition. “These people should enjoy a decent standard of living and the right to join the union,” he said outside the park.