FOR THE RECORD

FOR THE RECORD

A series of independent financial advice seminars for New York City Transit workers has raised the eyebrows of Transport Workers Union Local 100's leadership.

Concerned Transit Workers along with Homestation Newsletter will co-host three sessions Dec. 6 providing workers with information on credit preparation, investment planning, pension options, Workers' Compensation laws and other issues. They will take place at 520 8th Ave. on the 22nd floor, with two-hour sessions at 10 a.m., 12 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Speakers include Sami Aslam, a representative of Chase Investment Services; Joel Fredericson, a Workers' Comp expert and retired transit worker; and Norman Rosenfeld, a retired Deputy Director of the New York City Employees' Retirement System who at one point was a pension adviser for Local 100.

Interested workers should RSVP by calling 347-804-6982 or e-mailing financeseminars@homestationonline.com. Such seminars also took place in October and November.

Local 100 circulated a flyer warning members to be wary of bankers and consultants looking to "con" them out of their 25/55 pension refunds. It features a photo of a sneering old man, bearing a distinct resemblance to W.C. Fields, in a top hat and tuxedo who is holding a cigar and five playing cards.

"The 25/55 pension refund is bringing con artists out of the woodwork," it said. "If only you invest your money with them you will get rich - rich in the experience of getting taken for a ride. And it won't be any less of a ride if that scam artist happens to have a transit worker or even a former union officer working as a shill. They are still just vultures looking to line their pockets with your hard-earned money."

The union letter encouraged members to keep their pension questions in-house.

But a Concerned Transit Workers' flyer explained, "These workshops are for informational purposes only. There is no charge to attend and you are under no obligation to utilize any of these services."

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A couple hundred members and officials from the hotel workers' union and the building trades packed a City Council hearing Nov. 29 to press their case for prevailing wages and better labor standards in the city's redevelopment projects. One official said that the issue of "sustainable development" was one of the few on which there was no dissension within labor's ranks.

The coalition, which includes United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and District Council 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, has been pressing its case quietly and used the hearing last week on the Willets Point redevelopment plan as a sort of coming-out party.

"If we do not change the way we approach development in this city," AFL-CIO Central Labor Council Executive Director Ed Ott told the Council, "we are in danger of creating a permanent underclass of working poor under the guise of new prosperity."

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Students at the City University of New York Law School posted the highest bar pass rate in the school's history, with about 83 percent of students passing the exam in July on their first try. The graduates' performance topped the statewide average of 79 percent, also a first for the city's law school.

This year 87 graduates sat for the two-day exam and 72 passed.

The school increasingly has been recognized nationally, landing again this year on U.S. News and World Report's 10 highest-ranked law schools for its clinical practice program. CUNY Law was also selected, alongside its tony brethren Harvard, Georgetown and NYU, to participate in a three-year study to analyze and shape the future of law school education.

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The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association last week slammed Medical Examiner Dr. Charles S. Hirsch's decision to not reclassify the death of a Police Officer who toiled at Ground Zero because he didn't start working there until Sept. 13, 2001.

"This Medical Examiner has been politicized," PBA President Patrick J. Lynch said. "Police Officer Godbee's death was a result of a criminal act and should be classified as a homicide. It is no different from dying from a bullet wound days or years later."