Newsroom

All Press Clips

DC 37 Rallies to Preserve 'Faceless' School Workers
2,600 Jobs At Risk

By DAVID SIMS

June 26 , 2009

	The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow
	RAISING THEIR VOICES: Members of Local 372 of District Council 37 protest possible layoffs at the Department of Education in September, contending the city could save more money by reducing the amount of work it contracts out.

Department of Education employees represented by District Council 37 Local 372 protested outside City Hall June 17, saying that the possible layoffs of 2,600 school aides, family counselors and hall monitors would devastate the support system for children in schools.

"There is so much waste in the system," said Local 372 President Veronica Montgomery-Costa. "Depriving these vital workers of their jobs is not the solution to our economic troubles. . . our members provide vital services in schools throughout the city, helping children learn by making sure the Teachers are free to teach."

Political Reckoning?
Ms. Montgomery-Costa urged her members to reject Mayor Bloomberg in November's election if they were laid off. "We've got to make sure that we have elected officials in place that will make sure that you have jobs," she said.

	LILLIAN ROBERTS: 'Mayor thinks we're faceless.'

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said, "Somehow the Mayor and others feel that we're faceless; they think that the Teachers are everything. But we're somebody too." She said that the union would continue its effort to rescind the $380 million in cuts to the DOE. "We've got a lot of work to do, and this is only the beginning. . . we'll do everything we've got to do to change this."

"You perform some of the most important work in the public schools," added American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Executive Assistant Lee Saunders. "The Teachers are important, but you're just as important. . . [these layoffs] would destroy the school system." He pledged $150,000 in money from AFSCME so that Local 372 members could "tell your story."

Elected officials also said they would try to fight the cuts, even though the Mayor and the City Council had reached a budget agreement two days earlier incorporating them.

Comptroller: Cut the Waste
"Instead of making cuts that affect you, let them cut some of those no-bid contracts," said City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. "Let them cut some of those sweetheart deals, let us stop all the waste in the consulting contracts. We're not going to take this lying down."

Mr. Thompson, along with DC 37, has criticized the DOE's contracting process as bloated, saying that millions could be saved with reform and by giving out fewer non-competitive contracts.

City Council Members at the rally agreed that this was the best way to prevent the layoffs. "We [rescinded] a lot of the cuts to prevent the layoffs, but the overall picture is really the supervision of the outside contracting budget," said David Weprin, the Council's Finance Committee chair. "Particularly with the DOE, you have no oversight, you have no audit function... we should not be talking about one single layoff until we have major cuts of the outside contracting budget, especially the no-bid contracts."

'Contracts Through Back Door'
"The budget certainly does not look at the huge contract dollars that go out the back door," said Councilman John Liu of Queens. "Those contract dollars have to be streamlined to produce the resources that can be used to save these jobs."

Councilman Bill de Blasio did not rule out further action in the summer, to avert the layoffs. "The Mayor still has time before the budget vote to fix this situation substantially," he said. "If he chooses not to, there obviously is still time before school to fix it through a budget modification."

Mr. de Blasio also called on Mr. Bloomberg "to recognize that layoffs are inconsistent with the stimulus funding that we've gotten from Washington, that we cannot take the stimulus funding with one hand, turn around and lay off with the other."