Transcription of LOCAL 372
1 OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF LOCAL 372 Board Of Education Employees DISTRICT COUNCIL 37 AFSCME AFL-CIOP resident s Message, p. 2 Political Action Committee, p. 3 Grievance Wins, p. 4 Legal News & More, p. 5 Your Question, Answered, p. 5 Title Profi les, p. 6 & 7Th e Scoop! p. 8Th e U in Union, p. 9 Veronica Montgomery-Costa, p. 11 President Santos Crespo, Board MembersGlen Blacks, Executive Vice PresidentCynthia Grabsky, 2nd Vice PresidentCynthia Dowdy, Secretary-TreasurerMilagros Rodriguez, Recording SecretarySandra Fowler, Sergeant at ArmsMack A. Cohen, Sergeant at ArmsVacant, M/A ChairpersonShaun D. Francois I, M/A SecretaryWalter Oliver, Hourly ChairpersonWilma Washington, Hrly. SecretaryLillie Taylor, ChairpersonDebbie Nunez, SecretaryBelinda Banks, Paras ChairpersonNanette Sepulveda, Paras SecretaryVacant, ChairpersonDavid Keye, SecretaryVacant, SAPIS ChairpersonTrina Prior, SAPIS SecretaryShirley Miller, ChairpersonImelda Jeff rey, SecretaryGenitha Isaac, 2 Year TrusteeJewel Rankin, 2 Year TrusteeShila Killebrew, 3 Year TrusteeHIGHLIGHTSL ocal 372 125 Barclay Street, Room 650 New York, NY 2011 STRIPPED!
2 CIVIL SERVICER ight now, a big fi ght is going on about civil service. Bloomberg is trying to tear down New York State s 127-year-old civil service system. Th is system ensures that jobs are received based upon merit and it also safeguards workers rights. One of his goals is to make the recall list in NYC valid for only two years. Right now, the recall list is good for four years. He s also determined to end seniority rights and is starting this battle with the teach-ers. Bloomberg wants no regard placed on seniority when laying off teachers. Senior-ity rights are a cornerstone of union and workers rights. Ending seniority rights would be a huge blow to unions and work-ers rights. We will stand with our brothers and sisters to defend these rights. In March, DOE assigned LOCAL 372 parent coordinators to get people to sign petitions asking that NYS legislators end seniority for teachers.
3 Th is was a violation of state and DOE rules that prohibit using public employees for political purposes. Let s fi ght this! Let s not go TO DESTROY LISTS CIVIL SERVICE LIST GOES ON! LOCAL 372 spoke up against the use of our members to do Bloomberg s dirty work to end seniority rights and attempt to pit union against union. Th is is part of a sustained attack on the rights of all civil servants. It s a huge battle. Bloomberg has proposed 23 changes that will reduce city employee protections un-der the civil service system. He is calling this his reform plan. We must do all that we can to prevent this from happening be-cause this would be going backwards. Civil Service is Under AttackCivil service rules, like seniority and disciplinary rules, restrict management. Th e administration wants to hire and fi re workers at will, like private is mayor is determined to make city government run like the private sector before he leaves offi ce.
4 He wants to contract out as many public services to private companies as possible, essentially making government privately run. Instead of the taxpayers money going to provide services and fully hire city workers, money will go into the hands of corporations. Remember, business owners see public government as a cash cow with pools of available money. Th at s why business wants more government privatized. But, in order to do this and put their workers in, your job protections have to be taken away. Th en, they can privatize your jobs. Th at s why civil service is being Editor: Gay BrisbonEditor: Josefa Febrillet-BarrDesign & Writer: Kamina Jolivettecontinued to the last pageLOCAL 372 PRESIDENT S MESSAGE2 Cuomo s Budget On Time But Off TrackSANTOS CRESPO, the extension of the millionaire s tax.
5 Currently on the books and generating nearly $ billion a year, the tax is sched-uled to expire at the end of 2012. Rather than keeping that money fl owing into the treasury, the tax will disappear. Th e state didn t stop there. Some $16 bil-lion generated through a stock transfer tax, was rebated back to corporate bank-ers. And rather than close corporate tax loopholes, corporations are fi nding new and more eff ective ways to keep from pay-ing their fair share. Just recently, two New York City energy companies had their fa-cilities re-classifi ed to factories to lower their tax rate. Leona Helmsley s most memorable line, Only the little people pay taxes, still rings true , the rich get their free pass while certain politicians double talk people about shared sacrifi ce. Meanwhile, more families live on the fringe and services are cut due to lack of funding.
6 Where is the shared sacrifi ce? At 128 in Washington Heights, nearly one out of every fi ve students is homeless. Th e staff collected food during the holidays and raffl ed 10 coats to give to kids. At 18 in Staten Island kitchen staff Terri Hoff -man, Fred Betzold, Karen DiAngelo with students Rhonda, Adriana and Nelson fed needy families at Th anksgiving and Christ-mas last year where one or both parents had lost their jobs. We scraped together our pennies and cleaned out our cabinets at home, one of the students reductions are forcing after school programs and libraries to shorten their hours or close completely. Th e pundits have been lavish in their praise of Governor Cuomo and the legislature for passing a budget on time. Headline and editorial writers have been beside them-selves in singing the praises of the new functioning Albany.
7 Yes, it s great everyone worked so hard to get the job done on time. And, they kept their promise to get spending under con-trol with a call for shared sacrifi ce. Un-fortunately, it will be children, senior citi-zens, the poor, the disabled, and working class men, women and families doing most of the sharing and sacrifi cing. Th e $ billion budget that passed in Albany will cut state spending by $55 bil-lion over the next four s look at where some of those cuts will be made: more than $1 billion in schools across the state, including a whopping $600 million in NYC school cuts; over $5 billion of cuts in Medicaid; plus $450 mil-lion in negotiated labor givebacks which means almost 10,000 state workers laid off !Th ese are the state-wide impacts. But, with fewer dollars coming from Albany, cities and towns throughout New York will be quick to announce further budget cuts to health and education programs.
8 Th ey will also demand additional union give-backs and threaten even more layoff s. In fact, less than 24-hours after Cuomo an-nounced his budget Mayor Bloomberg threatened to lay off 4,800 teachers if the state didn t come up with more yet, while the governor and the legisla-ture chopped away at the quality of life for working class New Yorkers, they somehow forgot to include New York s rich in the sharing of the sacrifi ce. Among the early proposals in the shared sacrifi ce budget Families are in crisis due to unemploy-ment. According to a recent Depart-ment of Labor report unemployment is down to , but don t let these numbers fool you. Th ose fi gures don t include peo-ple who work in temporary jobs because they can t fi nd permanent jobs and those who work part-time, who can t fi nd full-time employment.
9 It also doesn t include the long-term unemployed who have basi-cally stopped looking for jobs. Th erefore, the true unemployment rate is much high-er, around 18%. Now is not the time to give tax breaks to the wealthiest New Yorkers while cutting critical services. We see the results of these cuts in our schools every day. We have also seen and felt those cuts within our own union. Yet, even faced with scandal after scandal from outside contractors the DOE plans to increase its technology spending to over one-half billion dollars just for next year. And, DOE will continue to provide millions of dollars for private contractors and consultants. You see, there is money. But it must be spent wisely. Th at s why I m calling upon our members to get involved and be politically active. We must speak out!
10 Your voice must be heard! Th is is the time. Write, call, or email your elected offi cials and let them know how you feel about this budget. Let them know what the term shared sacrifi ce means. Our future depends on Solidarity,Santos Crespo, Political Action Committee LOCAL 372 s last Political Action Committee meeting, in March, was packed. President Crespo congratulated the committee on being very eff ective. He discussed the growing importance of being politically active because unions are under attack across the country and public jobs are in danger of being privatized. NYC Council Member Darlene Mealy was the guest speaker. Political action is vital to your lifestyle and livelihood, says Pamela J. Armstrong, the chairperson of LOCAL 372 s Political Action Committee. Your job depends on it. Our elected offi cials introduce legislation that infl uences our jobs and communities.
