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District Council 37 Endorses Comptroller Thompson for Mayor

By EYAL LEVINTER
Epoch Times Staff

August 13 , 2009

NYC Comptroller William Thompson with leaders of District Council 37 at a press conference on Thursday. The city employee union is endorsing Thompson in his run for the mayor's office, DC37 formerly backed Mayor Bloomberg. (Eyal Levinter/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK- District Council 37, New York City's largest public employee union announced their support of NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson for mayor on Thursday afternoon, giving the Democratic candidate crucial labor support. Thompson is vying for the Democratic nomination against Council Member Tony Avella, the winner of the primary in September will run against incumbent mayor Michael Bloomberg who is running for a third term.

After endorsing Mr. Bloomberg in 2005, District Council 37, which represents 120,000 city government workers announced in a press conference that they are endorsing Bloomberg's competitor Mr. Thompson-a step that give significant support to the Thompson in his run against the current two term mayor.

"We talked about a vision to the future of NYC," said Thompson at the press conference, in relation to the meeting with D C37. "We talked about a city that will have affordable houses, so the members of council 37 and other New Yorkers can live in the neighborhood where they want to stay."

The announcement on Thursday comes after a well-known disagreement between DC 37 and the Bloomberg administration. DC 37 claims that city hall is relying on outside contractors-shifting work away from unionized city workers.

"When he [Bloomberg] decided to end the civil services system, for many of us it's our career", said Lillian Roberts, executive director of DC 37. Roberts continues to repeat her message that the waste in the city's $9 billion of contracting out is responsible for weakening city services and throwing people out of work.

"We did not ask them [Thompson's team] to make promises," she said, adding that, "The only promises we wanted is to use the money that is available to the people in NY".

In the meantime, according to the Bloomberg campaign, nine local unions endorsed Bloomberg on Wednesday for re-election, bringing the mayor's labor support to 20 organizations representing about 370,000 working people in New York City.

Bloomberg responded to the high unemployment rate across the country, by opening new Workforce 1 Centers. Since their creation, Workforce 1 centers have placed over 74,000 New Yorkers in jobs, according to Bloomberg campaign.