Local 371 Head Protests Plan for ACS, DHS Layoffs

FAYE MOORE: Layoff threat spurs alarm, anger.

While the 15,000 education layoffs proposed in Mayor Bloomberg's budget seem a tactical gambit meant primarily to pressure the state for school aid, the union representing social service employees fears that 500 potential layoffs of its members may actually become reality.

The Mayor's proposal for Fiscal Year 2010 outlines 608 cuts to the Administration for Children's Services and 222 cuts to the Department of Homeless Services, both of which have many workers represented by Social Service Employees Union Local 371, which is part of District Council 37.

Would Wipe Out DHS Title

Local 371 President Faye Moore said that she was unsure where the cuts in ACS were being made, but that the threatened DHS layoffs included the elimination of all 174 workers in the Community Assistant title. Community Assistants help clean and maintain homeless shelters across the city.

"I don't know how they plan to maintain these shelters without these workers," Ms. Moore said in an interview. "These people, a lot of them have about 20 years of service, they make sure the shelters are stocked and supplied. [The Mayor] doesn't mention how does this work get done, going forward.

"It's a devastating cut, because it's going to deteriorate the conditions of the shelters, and it's going to put longterm city workers out, with no mention of the fallback plan," she continued. "We've had no official contact with anybody in either ACS or DHS, no explanation of why these cuts would be a good idea."

Ms. Moore said that she was waiting to sit down with ACS officials, but estimated that of the 608 layoffs mentioned, more than 500 would be from her union, although some jobs might be cut through attrition. "It's early, and the members are scared, and rightfully so. They have been calling in and we tell them what we know," she said. "We don't have the official breakdown of how it's going to happen yet."

Protecting 'Core' Areas

ACS spokeswoman Sharman Stein said that the agency could not comment on where the layoffs would be until it met with the unions but noted that "we scaled back programs and staff across the agency, looking for administrative and programmatic savings that would allow us to minimize cuts to our core, frontline functions of child protection, foster care, prevention and child care."

Most of the headcount reduction accounted for in the Mayor's budget is being done through attrition, for 7,686 jobs total, mainly in the uniformed forces. And although close to 15,000 DOE employees, mostly Teachers, would also lose their jobs under the budget proposal, Mr. Bloomberg has been frank about his hope that those jobs will be rescued with Federal stimulus money and state aid. But the 887 layoffs in health and welfare have so far not been addressed.

Ms. Moore said that she agreed with the Mayor's tone in his budget address, but that the numbers didn't match his rhetoric. "Because of the difficult economic times, he correctly and candidly pointed out that people are going to need city services," she said. "It was completely baffling to me how he can make the correct observation about what people will need and then make cuts to social services. I could not wrap my head around it."

She said that she was particularly perplexed by the targeting of Community Assistants in DHS, a title from which many were laid off during a previous budget crunch in 2003. "[They] are among the lowest salaries in our bargaining unit. It can't be that they make too much money. I don't understand the thinking behind that cut," she said. "You're not talking about bloat, because they're already down from the 2003 cuts. By and large, those workers were not replaced… we get complaints of understaffing. People have to work double shifts because they can't leave."