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Unions Bear Unfair Burden

To The Editor:

The layoffs now taking a serious toll on my members—men and women earning $30,000 a year and less—are painful, and immediately call to mind how little money can suffice to raise a family or earn a decent living, even today. And how much the obscene wealth of Wall Street's financiers, and New York's monied class, represents by comparison.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the $11-million property tax break that James Dolan receives each year for Madison Square Garden could save the jobs of 330 people. How can the city, in good conscience, continue to grant these tax breaks?

But we are told that there is insufficient tax money to support city jobs, now even in the Health and Hospital Corporation, and that city workers have to make concessions. Not only does Mayor Bloomberg want a reduced pension tier, he also wants $500 million in concessions on health benefits. Added to this, Governor Paterson wants a $1 surcharge on all healthcare transactions, from prescription drug co-pays to medical claims.

My members have sacrificed in good times and bad, most recently bearing a 15-percent cut in pay for new hires which has been a feature of our last three negotiated contracts— something which other city employees, such as the Police Officers, have been able to correct. If we had any investments, we see their value falling with Wall Street's decline. And there is no golden parachute for us or hedge against these losses, or when we are laid off.

A tense situation is getting worse, as the rich find ways to leverage their assets and the unwarranted tax breaks to the rich continue. Just as California wildfires start easily because the surrounding land is so dry, conditions in New York City are becoming unstable—and it is entirely possible that social unrest will be the result. The Mayor and the rich who run New York do not want to take their obligation to labor seriously. They continue to believe that a day of reckoning will never come. Based on Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair's threat assessment report to Congress earlier this year, this may well prove to be a dangerous illusion. Blair said that the greatest threat to or country now comes from the economy, not terrorism. I think most municipal and HHC employees would agree.

The beneficiaries of tax breaks— people like James Dolan at Madison Square Garden—should also share some of the pain. And the Mayor must treat the unions as a major stakeholder in the city's economic crisis. Just as we did in the fiscal crisis of the '70s, the unions will undoubtedly help to develop solutions to the current economic crisis.

FITZ REID President, Local 768, DC 37