Public Employee Press

Members fight back in Albany

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

As state lawmakers wrangled over a $9.2 billion gap in a budget that was overdue since April 1, hundreds of DC 37 members went to Albany May 4 to urge them to use a scalpel and not an axe on state funding for vital New York City services.

“This is where the action is, these are the people whose decisions shape our lives,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. “We are in a fight for our lives.”

The annual Lobby Day, led by Political Action Committee Chair and OTB Employees Local 2021 President Lenny Allen, brought almost 500 activists and leaders from about 20 DC 37 locals to the state capital. As members and retirees fanned out to lobby lawmakers, they put a face on the problems that would explode if the lawmakers adopt Gov. David Paterson’s proposed cuts of over $5 billion to education, healthcare and other vital public services.

Labor leaders and their political allies at the May 4 event voiced a consistent message: Public employees cannot provide services at city hospitals, schools, social service agencies, libraries and cultural institutions without adequate funding and staff.

Layoffs not the answer

“Unions deserve a seat at the table,” said New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes. “In these difficult times our voice isn’t being heard and our solutions are being ignored. Your presence is like the cavalry has arrived.”

Roberts and DC 37 Political Director Wanda Williams proposed several revenue-generating ideas that could help New York recover from steadily mounting debt and generate billions for the state: reinstate the commuter tax, implement a millionaire’s tax, and cut the stock transfer tax rebate to 80 percent from 100 percent.

“If budgets are cut, services will suffer, people and children will suffer,” said Local 372 and DC37 President Veronica Montgomery-Costa.

“Layoffs are not the answer. It costs more to fire public employees than to keep us on the payroll.Laid-off workers would need Food Stamps, unemployment benefits and other safety-net social services. Layoffs would erode the middle- and working-class tax base,” she said.

DC 37 continues to lobby Albany for budget restorations, affordable housing improvements like repealing the Urstadt law and fixing vacancy decontrol, and a long-term fix for OTB that would reconfigure the racing handle distribution formula and provide an early retirement incentive for NYC OTB employees in Local 2021, Williams said.

In the last decade, Conservatives have scapegoated public employees as the cause of fiscal problems that were actually created by the greed of Wall Street. The bankers and brokers got a $700 billion bailout and paid executives millions in bonuses, concocting the schemes that triggered a seismic economic collapse and plunged millions of American homeowners into foreclosure and onto the unemployment lines.

“Difficult times have opened the door for those who are antagonistic to working families,” said Gov. Paterson. Forty-eight out of 50 states face huge deficits and 30 states have furloughed workers. Mayor Bloomberg announced plans to cut 11,000 jobs by June due, in part, to the state’s refusal to issue $650 million in Aid to Municipalities.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and a roster of other union allies in the Legislature also spoke in support of DC 37’s agenda.

“We have to make smarter decisions than in the past,” said DiNapoli, who pointed out that following DC 37’s suggestion to reduce contracting out had resulted in great savings at a number of agencies.

“In tough times families will rely even more on public pools, schools, and libraries,” said Sen. Diane Savino. “Underfunding services tears a hole in a safety net that more people will fall through.”