500 Posts At Stake
Unions Protest HA Job, Service Cuts

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

A coalition of labor leaders, elected officials and thousands of Teamsters Local 237 members massed outside City Hall last week to protest 500 job cuts and service reductions at the city's public-housing complexes.

BOOM FOR WHOM?: Efrain Rodriguez (right) and Verolyn Brown, Caretakers at Reid Houses in Brooklyn, said that the city's building boom is leaving behind people living and working in public housing. 'It's obvious the city has the money,' said Ms. Brown, 'and we're living paycheck to paycheck.'

The New York City Housing Authority is planning to use the $8 million saved through layoffs to help plug a projected $225-million deficit caused by cuts in Federal and state funding.

Eye Albany for Help

Union officials have not been told who among the members of Local 237, District Council 37, the Organization of Staff Analysts and Local 1180 of the Communication Workers of America will get the axe. They are pinning their hopes on Albany, after the city failed to produce extra funds in the budget agreement announced as the June 12 rally was winding down. About 1,500 members of Local 237 who are HA workers and 15,000 DC 37 members are also public-housing residents.

GREGORY FLOYD: Mobilized against cutbacks.

"We're not sure if our members will be laid off," said Local 237 President Gregory Floyd, who had been in Albany earlier that day to lobby for more funding, "but we're going to fight these cuts even if we find out there are no job cuts for our members."

Dozens of labor officials from the United Federation of Teachers, five DC 37 locals, the State AFL-CIO and the city's AFL-CIO Central Labor Council waited their turn to speak at the podium.

"It's heartless," said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. "We can't afford this. If we stick together we can win, regardless of which union is affected."

Workers' Laments

Many of the members who came to the rally were angered by the discrepancy between the city's booming real-estate market and the state of public housing.

Efrain Rodriguez, a Caretaker at Reid Houses in Flatbush, pointed to a construction site across the street from City Hall Park: "They're building condos for $400,000 and we're struggling with $400 a month?" he said, exasperated. "I think it's time for the guys up there to start losing their jobs."

Several workers said they often don't have enough soap to clean the floors properly or the tools to make repairs to broken locks. "It's bad enough I can barely put food on my plate; now I have to pay for repairs?" said Mr. Rodriguez, who lives in Red Hook West.

HA Chairman Tino Hernandez testified at a May 31 City Council hearing that most of the layoffs would hit people who provide support services and those holding administrative and management positions.

Secretaries at risk

HA's headcount has shrunk by 2,000 since 2003, and Local 957 of DC 37 lost 180 members who were Secretaries in the last round of layoffs. "One more is too many," said President Walthene Primus of Local 957, which has 1,500 members at HA. "We want to help NYCHA to get the money so they won't put this on the backs of the working people."

Local 375 Civil Service Technical Guild President Claude Fort argued that the HA shared some of the blame for the crisis. "NYCHA should not be privatizing the work," said Mr. Fort, whose local has 450 members at the HA. "They are hiring consultants that cost millions of dollars more. This is nonsense when we are in such a crisis."

HA officials have also stated that they are considering closing some complexes' community centers, where about 1,000 members of Local 371 provide support services, such as music and art classes and drop-out prevention programs. "In the 1980s and '90s in the midst of the drug epidemic," said Local 371 Vice President Faye Moore, "our members did a lot of work to make public housing a more-habitable place, and now public housing has a different image." She argued that elected officials' acknowledgement of the crisis in affordable housing should motivate them to put more money into the HA.

Point Fingers at Bush

Union and HA officials agreed that most of the blame lay with the Bush Administration for its "ongoing disinvestment in public housing." But union leaders said they hoped the state could make up enough of the deficit to stave off the layoffs.

Albany has not provided money since 1997 for the 15 city developments built by the state. That year, the State Legislature allocated $12 million. This year, HA officials asked the newly elected Governor Spitzer for $62 million, but only $3.4 million appeared in the final budget.

Housing advocates, union officials and local elected officials said they were pushing hard for a bill with significant support in the State Legislature that would add $46 million in shelter subsidies to HA, similar to what private city landlords already receive.

Jermaine Kemp has worked at the Smith Houses in Manhattan for 10 years and grew up in the Whitman Houses in Brooklyn, where his mother still lives. He said he believes his job is probably safe, but decided to attend the rally anyway. "It might not be me personally," he said, "but we're fighting for the young people who have families to take care of. You're talking about people's lives here."