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DC 37 Launches Anti-Consultant Campaign

By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN

May 18, 2009

Here's one of a series of ads from DC 37 that will start appearing today on all NYC subway lines in which the municipal labor union decries the so-called "shadow government" of private contractors and outside consultants that cost the city $9 billion at a time when the city's workforce is being slashed.

The campaign also features horizontal ads (the sort that run along the top of the subway car) that star a range of public employees who are DC 37 members - from librarians and museum conservators to school crossing guards and hospital social workers - who urge New Yorkers to go to the union's revamped Website where they can send an e-mail to City Hall to "Cut Private Contractors, Not Public Services."

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts noted the city awards some 18,000 outside contracts for the employment of roughly 10,000 people who aren't beholden to the civil service system (and, of course, don't benefit from the protections that system affords, either).

Outside contracts are cheaper for the city because it doesn't have to worry about healthcare or benefits - two areas that are getting increasingly expensive.

The mayor has sought concessions on those fronts from the unions, saying that will help stave off job cuts, but so far they have been uncooperative.

"These proposed cuts, Roberts said in a prepared statement, will "inevitably lead to larger long-term human and economic costs" and "go against everything President Barack Obama is trying to do to pull our country out of this economic crisis. While the president is creating jobs, the city will destroy jobs and undermine his recession recovery plan."

(Interesting that she's playing the Obama card at a time when the mayor is tying himself to the president at every turn - including, most recently, in Newsweek, where he praised the president for following a Bloomberg-like approach to government.

DC 37 endorsed Bloomberg for re-election in 2005 and, unlike a number of other unions, stayed out of the term limits extension battle. There was once some speculation that DC37 might not be so kindly disposed to the mayor this time around. But given how things are shaping up, I'm not sure how much stock to put in that now.

Unlike, say, the UFT, DC37 doesn't have to worry about negotiating a contract in an election year. The union reached a lucrative two-year contract with the city last fall that provided for a total of 8.26 percent in wage hikes through March 2010.