May Day Call For Working Class Unity In NYC: Unions-Immigrants To Combatby PeoplesVideo - YouTube

April 26, 2011 joint press conference on the steps of NYC City Hall joined the May 1st Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights with the Labor & Immigrant Rights & Jobs for All Coalition. The two coalitions announced plans to conduct a joint rally in Foley Square after the May 1st Coalition led march to the downtown site from Union Square. They announced intentions to combine forces in a post May Day battle against the forces of austerity and repression that have declared war on the whole working class.

N.Y. Deputy Mayor Goldsmith Learns City Operations the Hard Way by David W. Chen - NYTimes.com

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Stephen Goldsmith, a deputy mayor, is a novice New Yorker.

When Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith announced the demotion of about 100 senior city officials last fall, he emphasized that he would not involve himself in the fine details of how the personnel changes were carried out.

A reporter, incredulous, asked him, “They report to you, don’t they?”

Mr. Goldsmith described his role differently: “I’m their liaison.”

Mr. Goldsmith, 64, occupies perhaps the most hands-on job at City Hall: deputy mayor for operations, with responsibility for police, fire, sanitation and nearly a dozen other agencies that provide the services most visible to ordinary New Yorkers. But he has often seemed quite distant.

During the Christmastime blizzard, he was at his Washington town house, uninvolved in the critical conversations about whether to declare a snow emergency, and writing “Good snow work by sanitation” on Twitter the evening of Dec. 26.

On Monday, most New Yorkers will get their first look at the still obscure deputy mayor, when he is called before the City Council to explain what went wrong during the blizzard. But some current and former city officials are already suggesting that Mr. Goldsmith, who was the mayor of Indianapolis in the 1990s and until last year had never lived or worked in New York, is the wrong man for his high-pressure position. His immediate predecessor, Edward Skyler, was so maniacal about making the city work he was called “Batman” and once tackled a would-be mugger in Midtown Manhattan.

Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, said Mr. Goldsmith reminded him of an outside management consultant.

“I think he’s very intelligent and very steeped in the work of government,” Mr. de Blasio said. “But this seems to be an abstract enterprise for him: it’s not his city, and he’ll be here as long as he wants to be here. There’s something about City Hall that’s supposed to be more than a job. It’s supposed to be a lifestyle and a total commitment.”

Mr. Goldsmith arrived at City Hall with much fanfare in June, the highest-profile appointment of Mr. Bloomberg’s third term. Beyond his eight years as mayor, Mr. Goldsmith had been a fixture in national Republican politics, serving as a top adviser to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush in 2000 and Rudolph W. Giuliani in 2008, and had become a prolific author and faculty member at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

It was at Harvard that he connected with Mr. Bloomberg last March, when Mr. Bloomberg participated in a class with two other big-city mayors, Manny Diaz of Miami and Richard M. Daley of Chicago. Mr. Bloomberg later offered what Mr. Goldsmith said, at his debut news conference in April, was an “irresistible opportunity” to “put into practice many of the things I believe in.”

In an interview this week, Mr. Goldsmith said he still viewed his job as much more strategic and long-term in nature.

“I view my assignment as trying to help the mayor transform the foundation of New York City government so as to prepare it for the future, and to use his remaining time to make big changes,” he said. “I’ve also assumed that you don’t want the new guy to be coming in and telling the transportation, sanitation, police or fire commissioner how to run their departments; it’s not the model the mayor wants.”

But he also said that in the wake of the blizzard, and the nonstop bad press he received, he had become “totally more intense” and would log even longer hours than his usual 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. schedule in City Hall.

Mr. Goldsmith’s supporters say that it is unfair to view his brief tenure here through the prism of snow alone. Mr. Giuliani predicted that Mr. Goldsmith, with his background in municipal finance and governance, would ultimately be remembered for reinventing city government.

“It was a screw-up, there’s no doubt about it,” Mr. Giuliani said, referring to the blizzard. “But up until this snowstorm I’d bet that everyone thought he was doing a terrific job. It just shows you that enormously capable people can make mistakes. I would urge patience.”

Already, city officials say, Mr. Goldsmith has helped to pare the city’s projected multibillion-dollar deficit next year by more than $1 billion. An ardent believer in technology (he always carries an iPad and two BlackBerrys), he has produced a report identifying $500 million in potential savings over the next four years by consolidating the real estate, information technology and human resources operations. He also sets aside Friday mornings to meet with community groups.

Caswell F. Holloway IV, the city’s commissioner of environmental protection, credited Mr. Goldsmith for accelerating his agency’s plan to introduce paperless billing for water bills and advocating public-private partnerships for wastewater treatment plants that could ultimately save the city millions of dollars.

Yet there is no shortage of detractors, as well — especially among union leaders who worry that Mr. Goldsmith will push privatization efforts that dominated his tenure in Indianapolis.

Lillian Roberts, executive director of District Council 37, the city’s largest municipal workers union, said Mr. Goldsmith did not appear to have a good grasp of the complexities of New York City government.

“When you meet with him he will listen,” she said. “He’s very polite. He may raise a question or two. But you get absolutely no feedback.”

In an administration known for being obsessed with public health, Mr. Goldsmith would make an excellent case study. He gets up at 5 a.m. to work out, and always eats the carrots that are plentiful in the City Hall bullpen. He also likes his coffee black — really black. When he arrived in City Hall, he thought the coffee was so weak that a second pot was brewed for him, labeled “Bold.”

“We joke that that’s his kind of brew,” Deputy Mayor Robert K. Steel said.

Mr. Goldsmith still has a toehold in academia and a life outside the city. He remains on leave from Harvard, and teaches a course at Columbia in government innovation. But his wife, Margaret, an heir to the Pulliam family newspaper fortune, which had published The Indianapolis Star, still lives in Washington. So until the Goldsmiths sell their Georgetown town house (five bedroom, seven bathroom, asking price $7 million), he is biding his time in a sparse one-bedroom apartment for Columbia faculty in Morningside Heights.

Some of Mr. Goldsmith’s friends say he has been dumbfounded by the city’s maze of regulations and its savage politics. They say he would be better suited, perhaps, to a different job — like senior policy adviser — that would allow him to think big thoughts.

But Mr. Goldsmith insisted that he was not frustrated, not in the least. Indeed, he likened himself to Rambo trying to hack through a jungle of red tape. He did say, though, that he loved social policy, and he expressed admiration for Linda I. Gibbs, deputy mayor for health and human services.

“I think what Linda Gibbs does is much more fun than what I do now,” he said. “I’d love to do a job swap.

Rally Against Proposed Cuts Draws Thousands in New York by Jack Phillips- Epoch Times

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Several thousand union members rallied in front of the City Hall Wednesday, protesting Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposition to cut city workers.

Members from 99 unions around New York City showed up at the rally, which was organized by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Mayor Bloomberg's proposed budget makes cuts to firehouses, swimming pools, senior centers, schools, and day care centers. Approximately 1,500 jobs would be terminated under the proposal.

“We will not be victims, and we will not ever give back things that we worked so hard to get,” said Dennis Hughes, president of AFL-CIO New York.

Many of the unions' spokespersons claimed that the city and state officials have taken shots at union workers in an attempt to legitimize the cuts.

“Our elected officials have a moral obligation to do what it takes to ensure that the most damaging effects of this recession don't hurt our families, or play out in the classrooms, the firehouses, and the day care centers across our city,” said Jack Ahern, president of the New York City Central Labor Council.

“All we're asking for is our share—if they give us our share, we'll take care of the rest,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers.

Bloomberg has asserted that the cuts have to be made in order to close a $4.9 billion budget gap. Several weeks ago, he also said that he would not lay off approximately 4,500 teachers.

Many of Bloomberg's cuts are contingent upon state aid that may or may not be given to the city, pending the passage of the state budget.

Gov. David Paterson said that the state budget would get passed on June 28, more than 11 weeks after its original due date.

According to last month's report from the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, the city's economy is poised to bounce back more slowly compared with previous recessions.

Mayor Bloomberg "Screws" Up On Radio by Frank Lombardi - The Daily Politics - NY Daily News

Bloomberg once again shows how out of touch he is with average middle class voters....He defends the rich corrupt Wall Street gang who nearly bankrupted our country and shattered the economy while he trashes municipal workers who he plans to lay off despite a $3 Billion dollar surplus...There's not a rich person alive that he won't doesn't like or defend...Nor is there a union man that he likes and wouldn't slander...I think only him and his privileged class really think that anyone would leave Wall Street or NYC if derivatives were highly regulated, as they should be...

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Mayor Bloomberg is normally guarded about using profanity in public, so his use of the salty phrase “screw them” on his radio appearance this morning

should be forgiven as an innocent slip of the tongue.

Here’s the context: While discussing the proposed tightening of regulation of Wall Street, the mayor noted that some of the union protesters who staged a rally against budget cuts this week outside City Hall had railed about “getting even with bankers.”

The mayor suggested that since taxes from Wall Street earnings and bonuses pay for their salaries, “our cops and firefighters and teachers they should be out there defending the bankers.”

Bloomberg noted one of the protesters had said, “Oh, you know, a lot of these [bankers] were in favor of charter schools… so we’re going to go screw them.”

He quickly corrected himself: “Hurt them -- pardon my language.”

Going on, the mayor said it’s a popular sentiment among the “political chatter class” to be down on bankers and Wall Street financiers and to push for over-stringent regulations, such as banning derivatives.

Such overzealous regulations would merely drive business out of the city or out of the country, damaging the city’s ability to pay its workforce, argued Bloomberg, who nonetheless asserted, “I’m not here to defend bankers, I’m here to defend New York City business.”

City Says Strapped Schools Can Go Without Parent Coordinators by Philissa Cramer - GothamSchools

Joining 6,400 teachers on the chopping block are 350 parent coordinators whose schools will no longer be required to employ them, Chancellor Joel Klein announced today.

For the first time since the position was created in 2003, high schools will be allowed to go without a parent coordinator, Klein told principals today, saving up to 350 schools just over $40,000 a year each. Parent coordinators whose jobs are eliminated will be at high risk of layoff, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Ann Forte. Elementary and middle schools are still required to keep a parent coordinator on staff.

The instruction is a stark example of how budget cuts could undo some of Mayor Bloomberg’s most ambitious education initiatives. The creation of the parent coordinator position in January 2003 was a central element of Bloomberg and Klein’s early reforms.

Klein also announced today that the Fair Student Funding formula the city devised to fund schools according to their students’ needs no longer covers some schools’ essential costs. To compensate for the outsized cuts at those schools, the department will redistribute money from schools with less lean budgets. While the shift technically does not deconstruct Fair Student Funding, it effectively makes it moot for the time being.

“No school’s FSF budget will be reduced as a result of the shift, and we are, of course, working to ensure it will have only a minimal impact on your schools,” Klein told principals in an email this afternoon.

Klein said the changes don’t mean the city is backing down from its commitments to parent engagement or to funding schools equitably.

But a spokeswoman for DC 37, the union that represents parent coordinators and other non-teaching school staff, said that’s exactly what allowing parent coordinators to be laid off will mean.

“Just a few months ago, the Mayor was heralding the importance of parent coordinators as a response to critics who were agitating for more parental input into the schools,” said D.C. 37 spokeswoman Zita Allen. “Parent coordinators were then intended to serve this critical function. Now, the Mayor has moved on disregarding the importance of parent coordinators as he indiscriminately slashes budgets.”

Here’s the email that Klein sent to principals today:

Dear Colleagues,

This morning, I testified before the City Council’s Education and Finance Committees about our budget for the coming school year. As I told the Council, our budget situation remains uncertain due to Albany’s failure to pass a budget. In fact, it’s not much clearer than the last time we spoke two weeks ago.

I encourage you to read my full testimony, available here, carefully. In it, I explain a funding change that will affect some of your schools. With the large cuts to Fair Student Funding over the last two years, the FSF budgets for a number of schools-particularly middle schools-are now well below what is needed to cover basic operations with these dollars. While funds from sources other than FSF have helped to sustain schools’ operations during these declining budget times, we must bring all schools’ unrestricted budgets to a basic operating level before we implement another large cut to 2010-2011 budgets. To do this, we plan to shift unrestricted, non-FSF dollars from schools where FSF allocations combined with other unrestricted funds are above a minimum operating threshold, and redirect them to the severely under-funded schools. No school’s FSF budget will be reduced as a result of the shift, and we are, of course, working to ensure it will have only a minimal impact on your schools.

In my testimony, I also describe our enrollment projections for next year. Our most recent estimates predict increases of about 5,000 general education and 7,300 special education students. However, actual enrollment figures could be higher. I understand a potential increase of this magnitude will have a significant impact on your schools, and we are currently determining the best way to factor it into your budgets.

Finally, I want to note that while we believe parent coordinators are critical to our schools’ success, we have decided that at the high school level, principals should be able to consider parent coordinators as they review their overall budgets. As such, a high school principal may decide to excess a parent coordinator to retain a teacher or an after-school program. Parent coordinators, however, remain mandated for all elementary and middle schools.

I know many of you will have questions about what all this will mean for your schools. We still hope to release your budgets by June 1, but our situation is very fluid and some issues remain unresolved. I will schedule another Webcast soon after your budgets are released.

I look forward to talking with you soon. And, as always, thank you for your hard work.

Sincerely,

Joel I. Klein

DC 37 and Tenants PAC Endorse Frank Gulluscio for City Council

Labor Union and Tenants Organization Show Their Support for Frank Gulluscio’s candidacy for New York City Council

Last week DC 37 the largest municipal employee union endorsed Frank Gulluscio for City Council. DC 37 has a membership of 125,000 members and 50,000 retirees throughout the city. Their employees make up a broad spectrum of workers from nursing and sanitation to education workers. “DC 37 truly represents a cross section of real middle class New Yorker’s that we need to protect in these rough economic times.” Said Frank Gulluscio “They are leaders in the fight to protect the hard working residents of New York City.”

“DC 37 is proud to support Frank Gulluscio because of his proven record in support of the issues important to the men and women we represent who work so hard to serve New York," said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. "We firmly believe that Mr. Gulluscio will best represent the interests of the labor community of our city and our state. Our endorsement brings with it a pledge to work diligently on his behalf with our powerful, sophisticated field operations to get out the vote. We have a proven record of successfully supporting our endorsed candidates".

“I am very proud and excited to receive their endorsement. DC 37 is one of the largest unions and understands the growing problems facing our city and knows that we need strong experienced leadership going forward. I am looking forward to working with them to protect the hard working middle class residents of our community. In these trying times it is more important than ever to look at unique solutions to protect our middle class. We cannot rely on the same tired formula of regressive taxes, arduous fines and increased tolls. We need new ideas and new plans to protect the hard working residents of New York City; and I look forward to working with DC 37 to make those ideas a reality.”, announced Frank Gulluscio.

Additionally, the Gulluscio Campaign is proud to announce the endorsement of Tenants PAC, one of the leaders in the fight for affordable housing in New York City.

“Too often Middle Class residents are forced out of New York City because of sky-rocketing rents they can no longer afford. I look forward to working with Tenants PAC to make sure that affordable housing remains something available to all New York City residents.” Said Frank Gulluscio

Michael McKee from Tenants PAC agreed and issued the following statement “Tenants PAC is pleased to support Frank Gulluscio, a strong pro-tenant candidate. We look forward to working with him on the City Council to win stronger rent laws.”

DC 37 Announces Endorsements in ‘09 Races - Queens Campaigner

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The city’s largest municipal employee union announced its picks last Thursday for this year’s City Council races.

DC 37, which has more than 125,000 members in various fields including nursing, sanitation and education workers, predominantly selected the Council’s Queens incumbents for their election choices.

The union went against the status quo in the race for Democrat James Sanders’ 31st Council District seat and the race Republican Eric Ulrich’s seat in the 32nd Council District.

Marq Claxton, who will be challenging Sanders in the Democratic primary in September, got the nod by the union. Frank Gulluscio, a Democrat who ran against Ulrich in the February special election for the seat but was removed from the ballot by a petition challenge, was also endorsed by DC 37.

For the elections for the seats left vacated by current Council members, the union endorsed Democrat Jerry Iannece for Democratic Councilman Tony Avella’s seat in the 19th District, Democrat S.J. Jung for Democratic Councilman John Liu’s seat in the 20th District, state Assemblyman Mark Weprin (D-Little Neck) for the 23rd District seat vacated by his brother David Weprin, Democrat Jimmy van Bramer for the District 26 seat vacated by Councilman Eric Gioia and former Queens Deputy Borough President Karen Koslowitz (D) for her run for the 29th Council District seat that will be vacated by Melinda Katz (D).

Residency Bill for DC 37 Workers Rescue on Hold - NY Daily News

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An opportunity to rescue the residency bill from its legislative quagmire in the City Council has failed.

At least for now.

District Council 37 was slated to hold a press conference Tuesday on the steps of City Hall to announce it had a veto-proof majority in the City Council for the bill, which would allow members of the union to live outside the five boroughs.

That press conference was abruptly canceled late Monday. DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts (photo left) and union officials declined to explain why.

The bill, sponsored by Councilman Robert Jackson, is considered the "compromise" legislation. It would allow new DC 37 workers to live outside the city limits after two years of city residency.

It was designed to appease some Council members, including Jackson, who worried that lifting residency requirements would open up vital city jobs to virtually anyone.

"This will not dry up employment opportunities in New York City," said Jackson (D-Manhattan).

The Bloomberg administration has said - repeatedly - it will only support legislation that mirrors the agreement it reached with DC 37 in 2006.

That contract said legislation should lift residency requirements. Period. End of sentence.

The veto-proof majority apparently wasn't enough for Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who reportedly asked all parties to give her more time.

It's not clear whether there is a possible deal in the works with the Bloomberg administration.

Then again, Quinn doesn't need the mayor's approval.

And while she may not want to cross swords with Bloomberg on this issue, many Council members aren't prepared to take her to task either.

The clock is ticking. The next stated City Council meeting is Dec. 18. That's the last chance for the Council to vote in 2008.

Councilman and State Senator-elect Joseph Addabbo said he would like to see the matter settled before takes his new job on Jan.1.

"We're running out of time," said Addabbo, who is chairman of the Council's Civil Service and Labor Committee.

Bringing Christmas cheer to sick kids

Cops from the 102nd Precinct in Queens are determined to brighten the holidays for children with cancer who are stuck in the hospital.

Lt. John McGrorty's 4-year-old son, Matthew, died of the disease this year, but he had nothing but praise for the treatment Matthew received at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center.

So he and his colleagues at the precinct raised $10,500 in a charity golf outing for Hope and Heroes, a children's cancer fund that supports the center's Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital in Manhattan. The money is earmarked to develop better treatment for children with cancer.

McGrorty knew how long the days can be for a child going through cancer treatment. So in addition to the contribution, the officers donated 85 DVD players along with 200 DVDs and games to children at the hospital.

lcolangelo@nydailynews.com

DC 37 Contract Stalled Over Residency by Lisa Colangelo - NY Daily News

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Wednesday, April 9th 2008, 4:00 AM

Should city workers who are members of District Council 37 have to live in the five boroughs?

It's an issue that won't go away. But it also doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

In July 2006, Mayor Bloomberg and DC 37 officials announced a contract decision with a bonus - members of the city's largest municipal union would no longer have to live in the city.

But City Council members, who need to sign off on that provision, weren't quick to embrace it. Many worried that by eliminating a residency requirement, more and more nonresidents would apply for city jobs.

In the end, they reasoned, that would mean fewer Civil Service jobs for people who live in the city.

City Councilman Joseph Addabbo Jr. (D-Queens), who heads the Civil Service and Labor Committee, said he is anxious to hash all of this out at a hearing. But he can't move ahead with a hearing until all sides agree on some version of a bill.

DC 37 members have said they can no longer afford to live in the five boroughs. It's a complaint often heard from all New Yorkers.

Uniformed city workers - police, fire, sanitation and correction officers - are allowed to live in suburban counties outside the city.

Talks have been ongoing with members of the Bloomberg administration, the City Council and DC 37.

Didn't I write this exact same column seven months ago? Yup. And not much has changed.

No hearing has been scheduled. The mayor's office said it is waiting to get a copy of legislation to review it.

Meanwhile, the City Council is busy with budget negotiations. And then the summer break will come. And then it will be two years since the agreement was reached.

Sources say members of DC 37 and the Council have come to an unofficial agreement that would require new city workers to live in the five boroughs for at least two years.

But the Bloomberg administration doesn't seem happy with that compromise.

Here is the real question: Why can't anyone afford to live in the city anymore?

Everywhere I look, new buildings are going up in areas where working New Yorkers thrived - Long Island City, Astoria, Greenpoint and Williamsburg, just to name a few.

Almost all are being touted as luxury (read expensive) units. The few affordable units are usually set aside for people who make very low wages with limits below the salaries of city workers.

Meanwhile, rent-stabilized apartments are disappearing. Mitchell-Lama and other housing built for middle-class New Yorkers are going market rate. You can't just blame owners for this one. In many cases, tenants are willing participants.

Mayor Bloomberg's plan to create and maintain affordable housing has been lauded by many. But it doesn't seem to be enough to help his city workers find or keep housing in the current market.

DC 37, once furious with Council members for refusing to move on the legislation needed to lift the residency requirement, has softened its tone.

BACK in October, The Daily News' Frank Lombardi reported that DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts promised, "We will do whatever is required" to get the legislation through.

"We will support our friends and [be] damn sure to defeat our enemies," she said at City Hall.

In a statement issued this week, Roberts said discussions are continuing.

"We are hopeful that the goodwill of all will soon carry us to a satisfactory conclusion of an issue that affects so many hardworking city employees," she said.

lcolangelo@nydailynews.com