District Council 37 and NYC Board of Education employees Local 372 rally at City Hall to stop the layoffs of 2,600 school workers

Their message to the mayor: "Cut Waste, Not Jobs!"

New York, N.Y. - Hundreds of members of District Council 37, the city's largest municipal employee union, and NYC Board of Education Employees Local 372, representing 26,000 NYC school workers, rallied at City Hall today to stop the proposed layoffs of 2,600 school employees, including school aides, family counselors and hall monitors. They called on the Mayor and City Council to "Cut waste, not jobs!" by eliminating costly private contracts and letting city and school employees do the work more efficiently for less.

"The people I represent are really being targeted," said Veronica Montgomery-Costa, president of DC 37 and of Local 372. "Our members provide vital services in schools throughout the city, helping children learn by making sure the teachers are free to teach. Most of our members are also parents and grandparents of students in New York City schools. They live, spend money, pay taxes and vote in the communities where they work. There is so much waste in the system. Depriving these vital workers of their jobs is not the solution to our economic troubles."

"We should never overlook the support staff in our city's public schools," said DC Executive Director Lillian Roberts. "In many cases they are the ones who watch over our children when they're getting on and off the school bus, monitoring them when they're in the schoolyard, preparing a nutritious breakfast and lunch and ensuring that they arrive in the classroom prepared to learn, tracking absenteeism, or helping parents get the services they need to ensure their children get a proper education. Their jobs are very important and they should not be pushed aside or laid off as a result of budget cuts, particularly at a time when the city continues to pay millions of dollars to private contractors to do the work our members do better and more cost-effectively."

In a white paper "Massive Waste at a Time of Need" and a subway ad campaign launched in May, DC 37 estimated that the city currently spends more than $9 billion on 18,000 contracts to private contractors - a shadow government that employs a parallel work force of more than 100,000 who are not held to the same standard as public employees. The union found that the Department of Education could save $4 million in just one program alone, by cancelling school food delivery contracts and assigning that work to DOE employees.

"These layoffs are not necessary," said Roberts. The money is there. We've proven that with our white paper, which examined 10 contracts in eight city agencies and identifies about $130 million in savings the city can realize by cutting down on outside contracts with over-paid consultants and over-priced contractors. And, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

District Council 37 is New York City's largest public employee union, with 125,000 members and 50,000 retirees.
NYC Board of Education Employees Local 372 of DC 37 represents 26,000 workers at the NYC Dept. of Education.