Reid's Skewed View

To the Editor:

Once again Fitz Reid has used The Chief (March 7 Letter) to distort the numerous achievements District Council 37's leadership has made on behalf of the 125,000 members and 50,000 retirees the council represents. It is a shame that as a member of the Local 768 executive board and one of our local's delegates to DC 37, Mr. Reid seems so unaware of the union's collective-bargaining process, the innovative union benefits we have negotiated for our members and our history of organizing the unorganized.

Based on Mr. Reid's claim that we should have begun the bargaining prior to the expiration of our most recent contract, he again fails to disclose in his letter that this was in fact one of DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts's goals as she commenced bargaining for a successor contract in the fall of 2007. That is when DC 37 began to meet with the bargaining team of local presidents to formulate our bargaining proposals and to commence bargaining with the city as soon as possible.

We have had a number of sessions with the city. While we have not been able to settle this contract prior to its expiration date, we are working very hard with our local presidents on the bargaining team and with the city to reach a fair and equitable settlement that meets the needs of our members and keeps pace with the rising cost of living.

DC 37 prides itself in "thinking outside of the box," as Fitz Reid believes only he can do. We have established a number of innovative programs for our members, ranging from the DC 37 Municipal Employees Housing Program to our Earned Income Tax Preparation Program for our members who meet the income and other requirements. We also have built on our childcare advocacy and access program by providing slots and other financial assistance to members in need of child-care for their young children.

Fitz Reid also criticizes DC 37 leadership for failure to organize new members. Obviously Mr. Reid has not read his union paper or attended delegate meetings to hear reports that one of the critical mandates passed by the delegates to the July 2006 AFSCME Convention in Chicago was in fact to organize new workers into our union.

Finally, I would like to remind Mr. Reid that our union negotiated a model agreement which set forth decent wage increases and increases in the Health and Welfare Fund contributions to keep it stabilized, which served as a model for most other city municipal unions' contracts in the last round of bargaining. Mr. Reid fails to mention in his letter that there were no concessions in this agreement and that it was overwhelmingly ratified by a 97-percent "yes" vote by DC 37 members, including Local 768 members.

We hope that one day Mr. Reid will make the effort to become more knowledgeable of the gains our union has made on behalf of Local 768 members and all members of DC 37, whom we are committed to fighting for.

DARRYL RAMSEY, President of Local 768 and DC 37 Executive Board Member