The Militant (logo) 
   Vol.66/No.19            May 13, 2002 
 
 
Workers in New York respond to first steps
by mayor toward imposing massive cuts
(front page)
 
BY JACK WILLEY
AND LAURA ANDERSON
 
NEW YORK--A number of struggles by union members and workers are breaking out here as Mayor Michael Bloomberg is preparing massive cuts to the city’s budget that will have a devastating impact on working people.

More than 5,000 transit workers rallied in midtown Manhattan April 24 to defend health-care benefits that the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has threatened to take away. The rally was organized outside MTA headquarters by Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents 34,000 workers who operate and maintain the city subways and bus lines. Under the last union contract, the transit authority promised improvements in health care. It has since underfunded the health plan and the debt-ridden plan is near bankruptcy.

Roger Toussaint, president of TWU Local 100, told the crowd that the MTA should "cut from the bosses, not the folks who move several million people every day."

Workers in blue union jackets and hats took up half of Third Avenue for a number of blocks as union officials and supporters of their fight addressed the crowd. The city government mobilized hundreds of cops for the action, surrounding the protest with a wall of blue uniforms.

A week later thousands of public school teachers demonstrated May 1 to demand a contract with a pay increase and the hiring of more teachers. They were joined by students and parents who support the teachers’ fight. United Federation of Teachers (UFT) members have worked without a contract since November 2000. They are demanding a pay increase that brings their salary closer to teachers in the suburban schools. Several rally participants also pointed out that thousands of teachers are retiring and class sizes are growing. UFT members will take a strike vote on May 7.

The protests by transit workers and teachers are part of a series of actions by public employees against layoffs and attacks on their social wage.

The up-tick in workers’ resistance comes as New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to slash jobs, squeeze concessions from the trade unions, and cut social services in the city. Bloomberg presented a proposed budget in February, which projected receiving funds from the state and federal governments and winning deep concessions from the city’s public employees’ unions. On April 17, he announced a "contingency plan" with further proposed measures.

Bloomberg’s "contingency plan" calls for eliminating the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which distributes food through homeless shelters and food banks, closing 15 senior citizen centers, eliminating medical services in homeless shelters, scaling back garbage pickups, eliminating some youth programs, and cutting a further $115 million in education. The mayor also plans to raise the cigarette tax by an additional $1.42 per pack.

Bloomberg’s original budget proposal called for a total of $500 million in cuts to pensions and other benefits from the public employees unions.

The mayor has warned union members to accept the cuts, saying, "The alternatives are contingency cuts, and the contingency cuts include layoffs." His "contingency" calls for putting 2,600 positions on the chopping block and making an additional $64.9 million in unspecified "head count cuts."

Bloomberg, who was a Democrat but ran as a Republican, is making his anti-worker proposals with a lack of vindictiveness or a partisan edge, and with the cool efficiency of a chief financial officer of a corporation. And the proposals have run into little resistance so far from Democrats on the city council.  
 
Clerical workers, immigrants fight back
As public workers stand up to oppose the mayor’s proposed budget cuts, other working people have also turned to the streets.

On April 30, hundreds marched to the mayor’s office demanding approval of INTRO 38, city legislation that would require social service agencies to provide translators for immigrant workers applying for unemployment benefits or financial aid. The marchers also called for access to health services, housing, education, and employment.

One marcher carried a sign that read: "Bloomberg, we demand equality."

Another, Nilda Morales, from Se Hace Camino al Andar, said that immigrants’ "rights are not being respected--they are being abused, deported, and even blamed for what happened on September 11."

Since mid-April, 1,172 clerical workers across the city have been on strike against Group Health Incorporated (GHI).

"We are clerical workers, our job is to provide benefits for unionized workers, and here we are fighting to keep our own," said Willie Fiallo, a member of the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153, on strike at the company.

The company wants to roll back health-care and pension benefits--the same benefits that workers at GHI dispense to union members and those receiving Medicare. Fiallo, with 33 years at GHI, said that one of the benefits the bosses want to cut is the week’s leave of absence that employees receive when a family member dies.

Annie Randall said many picketers fought a company lockout in 1976 and are once again determined to beat back the company demands.

Sanitation workers, Con Edison workers, teachers, and Teamsters Local 100 have offered support to the strikers.

Arrin Hawkins, Sarah Katz, and Ron Richards contributed to this article.
 
 
Related articles:
The fight against New York cutbacks
 
 
 
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