With union members flooding City Hall, the City Council passed five labor items in one session on April 25.

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

The success of the union campaign that convinced the City Council to pass five labor-backed items in one dramatic session April 25 points to the value of political action by public employees.

Hundreds of members of DC 37’s two Emergency Medical Service union locals wrote and visited their council members, urging them to reclassify EMS workers to the same bargaining status as uniformed personnel like police officers and firefighters.

With the backing of DC 37 and the New York City Central Labor Council, the textile workers union Unite! fought to prohibit the city from using sweatshop contractors to produce uniforms for its police officers and EMS, Parks and Sanitation employees. On April 25, DC 37 Administrator Lee Saunders spoke at a City Hall rally for the anti-sweatshop bill. The CLC also asked legislators to rename a Bronx street after Orazio (“Ray”) Cilento, a popular union activist who passed away a year ago.

And for months, DC 37 members and retirees deluged City Hall with phone calls and post cards backing the plan to require the city to fully reimburse retirees for their Medicare Part B premiums.

The result?
Overwhelming votes for every bill. The City Council voted 48-0 for the Medicare Part B and street-naming bills. It voted unanimously to override Mayor Giuliani’s veto of the two uniformed status bills supported by Emergency Medical Service Employees Local 2507 and EMS Lieutenants and Captains Local 3621. The override vote on the sweatshop bill was 44-4.

Mr. Giuliani vetoed the Medicare Part B legislation. But the April 25 votes indicate that the City Council could again override the mayor.

A throng of union activists filled the balcony in the main City Hall hearing room, and when they heard the vote results, they jumped up and cheered.

Both DC 37 Deputy Administrator Eliot Seide and DC 37 City Hall lobbyist Lillie Carino-Higgins attributed the success of the legislative campaign to grassroots action. “Nobody delivers your message louder than a rank-and-file activist member,” said Local 2507 President Patrick J. Bahnken.

After commenting on the city’s moral responsibility to cover the health care of its retired employees, City Council member Walter L. McCaffrey spoke poignantly of his personal commitment to Medicare Part B coverage. “If I voted against this, there are two people I couldn’t face,” McCaffrey said.