Layoffs: School Aides and Parent Coordinators Axed
by Yuridia Peña
Nearly 700 of the lowest paid school support staffers received pink slips from the Department of Education last month after negotiations with the city and Local 372 (District Council 37) collapsed.
“In the current situation, districts are being pitted against districts, schools against schools, and unions against unions,” said CSA President Ernest Logan. Mr. Logan said that Principals were mandated to comply with the DOE’s demand to reduce staff, and had little choice but to lay off non-mandated staff members including school aides, family workers and parent coordinators. The DOE still hasn’t explained why schools with the most vulnerable populations were hit hardest.
Lillian Roberts, the head of DC 37, blamed the city for refusing to continue discussions. “In recent negotiations with the administration, the union offered a proposal generating significant savings so we could save these jobs. However, the city refused to continue discussions and directed Principals to go forward with the layoffs,” said Ms. Roberts.
The city, naturally, continues to blame DC 37 for refusing to make real concessions to salvage the positions of school aides, parent coordinators and others. "I am sympathetic to these workers, but, in part, because other unions would not work with us to find more savings, schools have to absorb cuts to their budgets, and from there our Principals made the best staffing decisions for their students," said Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott.
The Municipal Labor Committee, of which DC 37 is a member, rejected a proposal last spring to give the city $200 million from the Health Benefits Stabilization Fund to help close a budget gap. Other MLC member unions, including the UFT, developed alternative ways to avoid layoffs.
DC 37 offered the city three proposals that included reduced hours and imposed furloughs but was turned down. The DOE never asked school Principals for feedback about these options; the city claims it was honoring the Principals’ earlier staffing decisions, and that Principals told them that DC 37’s proposals were not feasible to run schools. But Santos Crespo, Local 372 President disputes that.
“Our first proposal, they claim was too much money … Principals told them that they could not do a day-to-day operation with [what] we were proposing [but] when the President of the principals union and I communicated, [he said he was] never part … of that discussion,” said Mr. Crespo. Mr. Logan confirmed that he was never a party to DC 37’s proposals, and was stunned that the decision to lay off these employees was the only option offered.
Soon after workers were discharged, the city posted non-union vacancies for the same jobs performed by the discharged unionized public employees. “We have been told that this has nothing to do with a political vendetta that this mayor has against this union. … That is not the truth,” said Henry Garrido, DC 37 Assistant Director.
Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott was lambasted by the City Council at a public hearing the week after the layoffs on Oct. 7. Mr. Walcott justified the layoffs saying they’ll save the DOE $28 million. City Council members, and others including Mr. Logan, rebutted this assertion saying the layoffs will cost taxpayers about $11 million in public assistance programs.
“Layoffs in the public sector simply shift one line item from one budget to the next and no one wins – our tax dollars either keep a worker employed and our schools running smoothly, or our tax dollars go to pay for unemployment and other social services needed as a result of job loss,” said Mr. Logan, who was one of the speakers at the hearing.
“There is a disproportionate impact in the struggling schools and the communities of color. This will have a devastating impact on our communities,”said Assemblyman Karim Camara during an Oct. 4 press conference at City Hall. Most of the fired employees are minority women.
School aides make about $14 an hour; parent coordinators about $35,000 a year, according to printed reports. In the last three years, DC 37 has lost more than 2,200 school support positions in neighborhoods including Brownsville, Washington Heights, East New York, Williamsburg and the South Bronx.
