March 1, 2024

Association under “emergency administratorship” and that she would serve as the association’s administrator. Terri Brady, AFSCME’s retirees field coordinator, will serve as deputy administrator.

“The International Union recently became aware that the DC 37 Retirees Association was not following AFSCME’s Financial Standards Code or Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requirements, which jeopardized the Retirees Association’s funds and assets,” Widger’s message notes. “Unfortunately, the

IRS has revoked the Association’s tax-exempt status for failure to file its annual tax return for the past six years.”

The association has reportedly also not conducted an outside audit “since at least 2017,” according to the international.

“These are serious failings. In pursuing these matters with the Association, it became clear that there was no significant effort or progress being made to correct them,” Widger wrote. “While there is no evidence of any individual financial

‘While there is no evidence of any individual financial wrongdoing, these matters cannot go unaddressed.’

— Ann Widger, AFSCME’S INTERNATIONAL RETIREES DIRECTOR

wrongdoing, these matters cannot go unaddressed.” In a letter to the Retirees Association’s executive board obtained by The Chief, Saunders stated that the association’s officers were suspended and must turn over all records, funds, books and property belonging to the group, citing “an emergency situation … in that dissipation or loss of funds or assets is threatened.”

DC 37 represents approximately 80,000 retired city workers. The Retirees Association counts more than 25,000 members who typically pay $36 in annual dues that are deducted from their monthly pensions.

A spokesperson for DC 37 declined to comment on the announcement. AFSCME did not immediately return a request for comment inquiring why the international was unaware the association allegedly had not filed its taxes or been audited for several years.

Several officers of the Retirees Association, including the recording secretary, Bruce Heigh, and a former president, Edward Hysyk, who served in the position from 2018 until 2022, did not immediately return requests for comment.

‘Nobody did anything wrong’

A source who wished to remain anonymous believed there was another reason for the administratorship — notably the Retirees Association’s $2,000 monthly payments to the NYC Organization of Retired Public Servants, which is leading the fight against the plan devised by the city and the Municipal Labor Committee (including DC 37) to switch retired city workers’ healthcare coverage to a Medicare Advantage plan.

Insurgent wave of lifeguards seeks union seats

BY DUNCAN FREEMAN dfreeman@thechiefleader.com

A group of lifeguards who work in the city’s pools year-round are organizing a slate to run in this week’s leadership elections for Local 461 of District Council 37, the union representing nearly 1,200 seasonal and year-round lifesavers who supervise the city’s pools and beaches.

At the helm of the insurgent group is Kristoff Borrel, a lifeguard and union member since 2010, who is running for president of the local.

“I’m running to put the power back into the hands of the rank and file,” Borrel, who’s worked at several pools in Queens, told The Chief last week. “The current environment

seems adversarial and lacks transparency. We haven’t been able to articulate issues and those that we have done have fallen on deaf ears.”

The union’s current president, Alma Diamond, was elected in Feb 2021 after a group of seasonal lifeguards were barred from running because they hadn’t paid dues for several months. The president before Diamond, Franklyn “Bubba” Paige, was in power for decades before he was ousted by the judicial board of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 461’s parent union, in 2020 for failing to hold meetings or allow seasonal lifeguards to participate in elections.

Despite that decision, seasonal

lifeguards weren’t allowed to vote or run in the 2021 election and Paige, who was present in the nominations meeting the day before the election, handpicked Diamond to run for president.  A year-round lifeguard, Edwin Agramonte, was given the green light and opposed Diamond in 2021 but received no votes and later sued the union, alleging that it breached its constitution by preventing seasonal lifeguards, with whom he had formed a slate, from running.   Agramonte is running for a delegate position as part of Borrel’s slate this time around, determined, he said, to oust the union’s longtime leadership he says has retaliated against him since he started speaking out.

“Our main objective is to take over our local because the local has been run and controlled by Peter Stein for nearly 50 years,” Agramonte said, referring to the president of DC 37 Local 508, which represents lifeguard supervisors. Stein has been president of that local for decades and has allies in Local 461 in Paige and Diamond, lifeguards said.   Representatives with Local 461 could not be reached for comment.

Agramonte and Borrel told The Chief they’re supported by most yearround lifeguards and are confident they can corral enough votes to oust 461’s incumbents even if seasonal

Rahim’s long tenure at 1182 concludes, undone by claims of impropriety

BY RICHARD KHAVKINE richardk@thechiefleader.com

Just a few months after securing a contract ratified by 95 percent of voting members, the longtime head of the local representing traffic enforcement agents has been ousted by his vice president.  In a runoff election for CWA Local 1182 officers conducted by mailin ballot from late January through mid-February, Alexander Sadik bested Syed Rahim 729 to 525, or

roughly 58 percent to 42 percent, with the margin of defeat for the incumbent a likely reflection of member discontent following findings of financial improprieties within the local and a sexual harassment claim levied against Rahim.  Sadik, an 18-year TEA, said that his priority is to obtain uniform status from the city for the roughly 2,100 traffic enforcement agents, which was also among his predecessor’s objectives. “I wear an NYPD uniform, I want to be treated like I belong to the NYPD,” Sadik, a captain with the NYPD Auxiliary Police, said in an interview last week.

Courtesy of Edwin Agramonte

Edwin Agramonte is running for delegate in elections for Local 461 of District Council 37.

Courtesy Alexander Sadik Alexander Sadik, pictured, bested Local 1182 incumbent president Syed Rahim to take the helm of the union representing about 2,100 traffic enforcement agents.

See LIFEGUARDS, page 3

See RETIREES, page 6

City cancels next round of budget cuts

BY CRYSTAL LEWIS clewis@thechiefleader.com

The next round of planned municipal budget cuts are being canceled and the hiring freeze imposed on city agencies will be relaxed, Mayor Eric Adams announced Feb.

21. Last fall, the administration announced three rounds of 5-percent across-the-board cuts as part of its “Program to Eliminate the Gap” to address budget shortfalls it mostly attributed to spending on the asylum-seeker crisis.

Initial cuts took place in November and others followed in January. But the next round, scheduled for April, will be canceled thanks to “better-than-expected tax revenue growth” and a 20-percent reduction in spending on the migrant crisis, Adams said in a news release.

So far, the city has achieved $6.6 billion in savings through the PEG cuts for Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025, of which $1.7 billion came from the reduction in asylum-seeker spending, the announcement noted. The city plans to trim another 10 percent in spending to care for migrants, which is projected to save the city an additional $586 million.

“The combination of our tough, but necessary financial management decisions, including cutting asylum seeker spending by billions of dollars, along with better-than-expected economic performance in 2023, is allowing us to cancel the last round of spending cuts, as well as lift the near total freezes on city hiring and other than personal spending,” the mayor said in a statement, cautioning that the city still needed additional state and federal funding.

Additionally, the city will lift the hiring freeze imposed on city agencies last fall. Instead, agencies will adopt a two-for-one model, by which one employee can be hired for every two departures. That rule will take effect in March, and exemptions for positions that support public health, public safety and revenue generation will remain in effect, City Hall confirmed.

But Henry Garrido, the executive director of District Council 37, called on the administration to allow agencies to hire as needed amid citywide staffing shortages.

“We’re pleased with the restoration of funding for city agencies across the board, but our members continue to struggle under the

freeze is an important step that will enable City agencies to fulfill their obligations to New Yorkers,” they continued.

Although the city last month restored some of the cuts announced in the fall, including by reversing plans to remove the fifth firefighter from 20 FDNY engine companies and to eliminate a job training program that serves mostly low-income New Yorkers, the cancellation of the PEG will not rescind previously announced cuts.

Administration officials, though, will evaluate the city’s fiscal position through the presentation of the executive budget in April to determine if the previously announced cuts can be restored, City Hall said.

nounced that it would reverse cuts to 170 community schools, which were set to have their budgets slashed by $10 million this fiscal year. But the city’s early childhood education programs still face budget reductions, while hundreds of city public schools will see their funding reduced.

In December, the United Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit against the administration alleging that the cuts to the city public school system violated state education law because it requires that state education funding be used to “supplement, not supplant” local funding, according to the suit. The union’s president, Michael Mulgrew, has repeatedly called the school budget cuts “unnecessary.”

weight of a near-historic vacancy rate that impacts their service delivery and quality of life,” he said in a statement. “We encourage the mayor to go further in prioritizing full-time jobs for New Yorkers by completely lifting the hiring freeze and relying less on contracted services.”

Full-time city employees numbered 285,000 in January, down from 300,000 prior to the pandemic, the city’s Independent Budget Office reported this week. Although the number of full-time employees has slightly rebounded from 282,000 since 2022, several agencies have high vacancy rates, and key services — such as food stamps applications being processed in a timely manner — have been impacted by the shortages.

In a joint statement, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Council Member Justin Brannan, the chair of the Finance Committee, said they were “relieved that Mayor Adams and his Administration have heeded the calls and advocacy of the Council and New Yorkers who have sought a better approach to our city’s budget that protects essential services our constituents rely on.”

Previous cuts still in effect

“As the Council’s economists forecasted, New York City’s economy has proven durable and resilient, and blunt cuts that had a

disproportionately negative impact on vital programs were never necessary. It remains critical for our municipal workforce to be strengthened, and the end of the full hiring

For now, that means NYPD academy classes scratched as part of the November cuts will not be reinstated, although one of those, a 600-member class, was restored in January. While three other scheduled classes, two of which are underway, will take place as planned, it was expected that with the class cancellations, the NYPD’s uniformed headcount would dip to below 30,000 for the first time since 1993.

Last month, the city also an-

“We are glad our advocacy helped persuade City Hall to abandon its next round of proposed budget cuts,” he said in a statement following the administration’s budget announcement Feb. 21. “Now it is time to get the legislative changes we need so that in the future the city doesn’t reduce its investment in our public schools or use state education funds to replace its own support for our students.”

BY RICHARD KHAVKINE richardk@thechiefleader.com

Dozens of workers who deep cleaned and disinfected subway cars during the early months of the pandemic were shorted hundreds of thousands of dollars by their employers, the city comptroller is alleging in a pair of lawsuits.

The complaints are the latest development in a dispute between the comptroller’s office and the MTA and two companies over whether the workers should have been paid prevailing wages, as the suits contend.

According to Comptroller Brad Lander’s office, Valley Streambased LN Pro Services owes 255 workers a total of about $1.4 million, while Fairfield, New Jersey-based Fleetwash has a debt to 139 workers of just over $701,000. The totals

The Port Authority PBA congratulates and welcomes the recent graduates of the Port Authority Police Academy 122nd Recruit Class. As Port Authority police officers, you joined the ranks of the Port Authority Police Department protecting the people of New York, New Jersey and the millions using Port Authority facilities daily.

You chose a difficult and dangerous profession, one requiring commitment, dedication and courage. Learn from senior officers and watch over your brothers and sisters. The PBA will always support you and be at your side. The PBA’s hope for you is a safe, long, rewarding career.

Stay Safe.

include 16-percent penalties. The comptroller is seeking an additional 25 percent civil penalties on top of those sums.

“Sadly, many of these workers were cheated out of the prevailing wage they earned, all while facing terrifying conditions. This lawsuit brings these workers closer to justice and underscores the urgent need for accountability. While the legal process still has to play out, we are confident that we are on the right side of the law,” Lander said in a statement accompanying the announcement of the complaints filed Feb. 21 by the comptroller’s Bureau of Labor Law with the New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings.

But Jennifer Redmond, an attorney for LN Pro Services, said the company was “caught in the crossfire between two feuding agencies” and adamantly denied that the work for which the company contracted was subject to prevailing wage requirements. She noted that the company had “specifically inquired” whether it would be.

According to an April 26, 2020, email from an MTA procurement official, provided by an LN Pro Services representative, and presumably addressed to company CEO Lily Sierra, prevailing wage “does not apply to this work.”

“For the Comptroller’s office to blame us for not paying prevailing wage as part of their feud with the MTA, and disparage our reputation in the process, is deplorable,” Redmond said. “It is an outrageous attack against a small, minority-and-woman-owned business that worked tirelessly to keep this city running during the pandemic. The MTA and Comptroller should resolve their fight and leave us out of it.”

Several LN Pro workers implicated the company for underpaying them and providing minimal supplies during the early days of the pandemic. A message left with a Fleetwash representative seeking comment on the suit was not returned.

MTA has sued Lander

The comptroller’s suits stem from a 2020 determination by then-Comptroller Scott Stringer that the work being done by the cleaners entitled them to building service prevailing wage rates. “The applicable prevailing wage classification is Building Cleaner and Maintainer (Office) Cleaner/Porter,” Stringer wrote

then-MTA CEO and Chairman Patrick Foye in May 2020. According to the wage schedule at the time, new hires should have been paid $20.38 an hour. It is not clear from the lawsuits what the workers were paid.

Stringer noted in his letter to Foye that he had not heard back from the NYCTA notifying that agency that its contracts with LN Pro and Fleetwash did not include the prevailing wage requirement.

Fleetwash and the New York City Transit Authority jointly sued the comptroller’s office earlier this month arguing that according to state labor law, the cleaning and sanitizing of subway trains was “not ‘construction-like labor’ … nor is it ‘building service work.’ ”

The suit claims, in essence, that subway cars are not buildings, and that therefore the companies were not obliged to pay the cleaners prevailing wages.

Stringer, in a second letter to Foye included in the MTA and Fleetwash suit, insisted that labor law applied to the cleaning of trains. “Subway trains are occupied by the public in the same way as buildings and cleaning the interiors of subway trains involves the same type of work as cleaning building interiors. Indeed, the workers that clean the trains do so while the trains are sitting in subway stations,” he wrote.

The MTA’s general counsel at the time, Thomas Quigly, disagreed, arguing that “the plain meaning” of the prevailing wage requirement in labor law “is that it applies to services pertaining to a building, and there is nothing to suggest that it also applies to similar types of services but which do not pertain to a building.”

NYCT awarded Fleetwash its cleaning and disinfecting contract on May 8, 2020. The comptroller’s suit alleges the prevailing wage violations took place from that date through April 2021.  LN Pro, which had an existing cleaning contract dating to 2019 to detail and deep-clean 12 subway stations, was awarded a cleaning and disinfecting contract May 3, 2020. The comptroller’s suit claims that company’s wage violations happened from May 2020 through February 2021.  Some workers are owed as little as a few dollars, according to the comptroller’s suit. Several others, however, are entitled to amounts from $10,059.49 to $20,907.46 and more. One person is owed $38,294.76, the suit against Fleetwash notes.

FRANK CONTI President, Port Authority PBA

Right to sue union gets court airing

BY DUNCAN FREEMAN dfreeman@thechiefleader.com

During arguments in a potentially precedent-setting matter, State Court of Appeals judges on Feb. 15 appeared open to broadening the right of public-sector union members to sue their unions over violations of the union’s constitution.

The case pits Edwin Agramonte, a city lifeguard, against his union, District Council 37’s Local 461, which he sued after seasonal lifeguards were barred from running in the local’s February 2021 leadership elections.

Agramonte is arguing that the local’s leadership violated the union’s constitution and that of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 461’s parent union, because they allowed just a small portion of the union’s membership to run or even to vote in the election.

Two lower courts declined to hear the case, citing a 1951 precedent, Martin v Curran, which, the lower courts noted, permit union members to sue their unions only if every member is affected by an alleged violation.

But, following last week’s arguments, Agramonte’s lawyer, Arthur Schwartz, told The Chief that he’s hopeful the appeals court judges would find that the Martin precedent doesn’t apply in Agramonte’s case because, he argued, that precedent has in the past been applied only  to cases where a union member is seeking monetary damages.

The judges repeatedly asked Schwartz to confirm that Agramonte was only seeking injunctive relief — the overturning of the 2021 election — and not damages. Chief Judge Rowan Wilson asked the union’s lawyer, Hanan Kolko, why Martin would be “any sort of obstacle” to Agramonte’s suit given that Agramonte isn’t seeking damages.

Kicked back to lower courts?

And Judge Michael Garcia appeared skeptical of Kolko’s arguments, questioning him over the

court’s role in interpreting contracts and constitutions and sparring with Kolko over interpretations of case precedent.

Schwartz said that while he never predicts the outcome of cases he argues, he said the judges seemed sympathetic to his arguments about the potential implications of not allowing union members to sue their unions over constitutional violations.

“I think [the judges] were pretty responsive,” Schwartz told The Chief last week. “They could easily, without getting into the underlying question [of the case], say that Martin was about damages and not injunctive relief and therefore shouldn’t be applied here.”

In that outcome, Schwartz surmised, the case would return to a trial court, which could then litigate the issues and eventually decide whether the union violated its constitution. The arguments at the Court of Appeals last week  were focused mainly on the application of precedents and not on the allegations of constitutional violations Agramonte brought. “The actual questions presented by the facts in this case have yet to be discussed,” said Schwartz.

At one point in the hearing, Kolko pushed back against the possibility of returning the case to a lower court, urging the judges to “reject the attempt by appellants to legislate from the bench but beyond that to send it back to trial courts to have standardless reviews of unions elections.”

That argument led Garcia to insist that each union’s constitution would be the standard in any judicial review such as the one Agramonte is requesting.

Kolko declined to speak on the record with The Chief, citing a lack of authorization from DC37.

A decision in Agramonte’s case could be handed down by New York State Court of Appeals at any time but Schwartz expects it sometime in June. Nominations will be held for Local 461’s leadership positions this week and, just like in 2021, seasonal members are not expected to be allowed to run for office or vote.

Crossing guards to get equipment and training

Following colleague’s onthe-job death in October

BY CRYSTAL LEWIS clewis@thechiefleader.com

The NYPD will increase training and provide additional equipment for school crossing guards across the city following the onthe-job death of Krystyna Naprawa last October, the department announced Feb. 22.

School crossing guards, who currently receive six days of training, will now take a seven-day training course before they start the job. Prior to the changes, school crossing guards received five days of classroom training and one day in the field. NYPD officials said that the department established a working group to assess job safety for school crossing guards after Naprawa’s death, and determined that one day of field training wasn’t sufficient.

The guards will now be required to take an annual refresher course. They will also be equipped with whistles and high visibility reflective vests, and will receive handheld, 18-inch stop signs. The guards began training to use the new stop signs last week during mid-winter break.

NYPD officials announced the changes during a ceremony at 1 Police Plaza, where Naprawa was posthumously promoted to community coordinator. Naprawa’s friends and family, labor officials and other school crossing guards attended the event.

“Krystyna cared so deeply about the children, the parents, the community that she served every school day. She dedicated herself to protecting them,” First Deputy Commissioner Tania Kinsella said during the ceremony. “So today, we are changing our training, policies and procedures for all of our 2,000 plus crossing guards for the better, improving safety for them.”

Naprawa, 63, was in the crosswalk at Woodhaven Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue the morning of Oct. 20 when the driver of a dump truck made a right turn, striking Naprawa and knocking her to the ground, according to the NYPD.

She was found unconscious and unresponsive with trauma to her body when police arrived at the scene. EMS pronounced Naprawa dead at the scene.

The driver of the truck, Hector Yepes, 39, was charged with motor vehicle failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to use care. His case was pending in Queens Criminal Court. Naprawa had worked as a school crossing guard since 2010. NYPD officials announced that the corner of Woodhaven Boulevard. and Atlantic Avenue where the accident occurred will now be staffed with two school crossing guards instead of one.

“Millions of families understand what their local school crossing guards mean to their children’s safety, and to their parents’ peace of mind,” Kinsella said.

The NYPD is also looking to address staffing shortages among school crossing guards. A class of about 100 guards were hired at the beginning of February, but there are still 124 vacancies, according to department officials. Last summer, District Coun-

cil 37’s Local 372 rallied for more school crossing guards, who are among the lowest-paid workers in the city’s workforce. The union’s executive vice president, Donald Nesbit, was glad for the enhanced safety measures, but he believed that there should also be more awareness of the dangers school crossing guards face, as well as the consequences for those who harm them.

“There needs to be money that’s put into just highlighting that it’s a [Class A] felony to assault a school crossing guard, whether it’s with your vehicle, whether you get out and assault them physically with your hands,” Nesbit told NY1.

lifeguards are not allowed to vote. They pledge that this year will be different than three years ago, if only because only year-round lifeguards are running as part of their slate and more of the members with voting power are aware of what he and others alleges is the corruption and anti-democratic leadership that pervades the local’s current leadership.

“The majority of voters work in my pool,” Agramonte said. “And I’m gonna make sure that the people who work with me vote for Kristoff.”

‘Iced out’

Borrel said he had never been to a union meeting before 2020. He was inspired to get involved with the union when Paige was ousted and Diamond, the new president, held membership meetings. Borrel soon found, though, that he wasn’t always invited to meetings — neither he nor Agramonte were invited to the most recent membership meeting in December, he said — and realized that leadership was still unwilling to engage with rank-and-file members or commit to transparent decision-making.

“It seems like I’ve been iced out of the union,” Borrel said.

Omer Ozcan, a former seasonal lifeguard who helped bring the charges against Paige that got him ousted, said that he, and other lifeguards who have spoken out have been retaliated against and barred from union meetings. He was cautiously hopeful about Borrel’s election chances, cautioning that Stein and his supporters have found what he characterized as crafty and underhanded ways to stay in power before.

“They might win,” Ozcan said. “But nothing Peter Stein does is fair, so I’m sure he’ll find some way to cheat them out of it.”

Janet Fash, a longtime chief lifeguard who has advocated for greater union democracy as a member of Local 508, told The Chief that the news of an insurgent slate in Local 461 “made my day.”

“If these lifeguards are running for the right reasons, I think that’s so great because for so long we’ve been under unfair leadership,” Fash said. “That would make me so happy if finally, the reign of terror is over. I’m thrilled and I’m excited about it.”

According to a notice sent by Diamond, nominations for the union’s top positions will be heard in a virtual meeting Feb. 29. Elections for Local 461 are traditionally held the day after the nominations meeting, but if that schedule is followed, the voting date would be March 1 and Local 461’s constitution mandates that their elections be held in February.

But the 2021 election was the first to be held in February in 25 years, with prior votes being held over the summer despite the requirement. DC 37 did not return a request for comment on possible constitutional issues regarding the scheduling of this week’s election.

Agramonte said that once at the union’s helm, he and the other lifeguards on Borrel’s slate would engage with seasonal lifeguards by increasing transparency, particularly with regard to the union’s overall role, by alerting members to meetings and elections, and by informing seasonal lifeguards on how to stay in good standing so they can vote in union elections. He said he would be open to moving elections to the summer and to exploring other possible changes.

“The union right now does not give seasonals information on how to participate in the union,” Agramonte said. “Once we take over the local, we’ll give our members more information so they will be able to participate.”

LETTERS TO THE

Takeover poses multiple questions

To The

tal Lewis’ article, “DC 37 Retirees Association taken over by AFSCME” (The Chief, this issue) the question that occurs to me as well is: “Why did it take a severe IRS penalty before AFSCME addressed this reportedly six-year-old problem with the DC-37 Retirees Association?”

Because it represents 40,000 dues-paying retired city workers, I’m probably not the only puzzled reader. Were there no existing mechanisms in either AFSCME or District Council 37, both of which have financial staff making six-figure salaries, to help an affiliate avoid such measures?

An AFSCME staffer had referred to its financial standards code. It specifies that all union officers are to ensure that required governmental reports are filed on a timely basis. Is there no AFSCME fiduciary responsibility lying between publishing a Code and taking control of a local affiliate?

Closer to home, DC-37’s constitution says that the union’s “treasurer shall perform such duties as are necessary to conduct the council’s review of local union finances as provided for in this constitution. The treasurer shall cause to be provided annual training sessions for local union officers in local union accounting, bookkeeping and record-keeping. In conjunction with the International Union, the council’s treasurer shall annually provide local unions with an established written financial standards code setting forth all necessary and required accounting processes.”

Is DC-37’s sole fiduciary responsibility to provide training, but not to even ask if local affiliates submit governmental financial reports in a timely manner?

Lewis was unable to get a response from AFSCME or DC-37 for the article. So the severity and the

timing of AFSCME’s treatment of the DC-37 Retirees Association, that is a “takeover” of its finances, undoubtedly leads to speculation in many quarters.

Helen Northmore

Who is watching the store?

To The ediTor: As a DC37 member and retired staff member of DC 37, it is heartbreaking to read that AFSCME has placed the union’s Retirees Association under administratorship.

What is the real deal here? The stated reason for the administratorship shy away from referring to the Medicare Disadvantage plan fight with DC37 and the MLC.

There appears to be a propensity for AFSCME to allow its affiliates to ignore financial standards and codes for political reasons.

They charge that audits were not performed since 2017. That is concerning, but what was AFSCME doing from 2018-2023? At this time, they are not making any claims of any financial wrongdoing. AFSCME is not serious about unionizing. They instead are furnishing anti-union groups with ammo.

There is a pattern of AFSCME not demanding fiscal compliance and allowing politics to determine compliance.

Who is watching AFSCME? This is scary.

Eddie Gates

Serious oversight

To The ediTor:

I am a DC 37 retiree. Imagine my surprise when I received an email that said the union’s retirees association was placed under emergency administratorship by AFSCME, the parent union.

The retirees association has not filed IRS tax returns in six years, resulting in a revocation of the tax-exempt status the association enjoyed,

according to parent union’s international retirees director. Also, no outside audit has been conducted since 2017.

Didn’t the association’s leaders learn from the errors of the past, when DC 37 had a huge corruption scandal? So far, there is no evidence of any individual financial wrongdoing. But these are serious issues. Hopefully, it’s just stupidity.

Chris Inguanta

A Nobel for buffoonery

To The ediTor:

Donald Trump, a Putin fan, compares himself to the Russian patriot, Alexei Navalny, who was murdered by Vladimir Putin. Trump said he sees himself as a victim, not unlike Navalny.

If Trump were a history teacher, he might tell his students that George Washington and Benedict Arnold were both good guys. And really, were Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis so different in their contributions to America? Maybe not, according to Trump.

This is Trump’s interpretation of the First Amendment freedom of

speech clause: The right of a (former) president to hold mutually exclusive and contradictory positions with immunity, impunity and buffoonery.

Just how great does Donald Trump think he is? In October, Trump compared himself to Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison, before finally vanquishing apartheid.

So, Donald, which is it, Navalny or Mandela? Soon Trump may be comparing himself to Mahatma Gandhi or another Nobel Peace Prize winner, Bishop Desmond Tutu. Some of Trump’s supporters really think he is God’s messenger.

Michael J. Gorman

failing to file tax returns, all of the cast are oppressed.

Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, should know better. As an African-American man, he has undoubtedly confronted prejudice, discrimination and rejection. How he could now turn his back on his members’ legitimate efforts to make the ideals of the labor movement real, in part by fighting to retain traditional Medicare as opposed to the privatized Medicare (dis)advantage program formerly rejected by his union is unbelievable!

Disunion

To The ediTor: Frantz Fanon, the Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist prominent in Algeria’s independence struggle, said it all!

When the oppressed achieve victory, they turn around and do the same thing to their oppressors. However, in the case of Local 37’s Retiree Association, which has been put under administratorship for

Sure, the association was lax in not filing its tax forms, but all he had to do was to call them in and offer his assistance. The fact that Saunders is joined by Henry Garrido, the executive director of DC 37. as well as Gregory Floyd, president of Local 237 of the Teamsters, and Mayor Eric Adams is shocking. Poor and low income Black and brown people will lose the most when faced with limited networks and delayed and denied care. Our white colleagues will suffer too.

Contract breakthrough didn’t come easily

BY BOB CROGHAN

AFSCME District Council 37 last February that it agreed to start negotiations with OSA.

We knew from experience that key elements of the DC 37 pattern would apply to our members. Those included four 3-percent pay raises and a final 3.25-percent wage hike, spread over five years, as well as a $3,000 pensionable signing bonus for OSA members on the city payroll on the day the contract was ratified. Many of our members were also very enthusiastic about another aspect of the DC 37 agreement that would allow employees to work up to two days a week from home.

The challenge, then, was to address our members’ priorities that did not merely replicate portions of the citywide pattern.

The OSA bargaining team, under the leadership of OSA Vice-Chair Adam Orgel, set out to negotiate a deal that poured enough money into the union’s Welfare Fund to finance a new prescription drug benefit. Historically, OSA’s Welfare Fund has delivered excellent vision, dental, insurance and superimposed major medical benefits. However,

the appropriate jump in minimum salary for the admins to be funded by the union. Since years of neglect by other mayors had created the mess, we felt there was no reason that OSA should pay anything more than a small share of the toll. We successfully negotiated new minimum salaries for employees newly appointed to the titles, but incumbents did not contractually receive the pay bump.

During our most recent negotiations under Mayor Eric Adams, OLR demanded that the union pay for the salary jumps for all admins who were not given these new minimums in the last contract, whether the city had decided to unilaterally pay these employees the new minimum or not. The union held the line on how much we would be willing to pay toward the goal of bringing all admins up to the new minimums.

planning to retire soon would have to remain on the job to benefit from the $3,000 signing bonus. And members would have no access to remote work until the contract was ratified.

And so, we came to the conclusion that waiting to prevail in an impasse hearing was not worth what many members might lose in the meantime. When the city came up a bit on its offer for welfare fund contributions in late November, we agreed, with each side paying a portion of the cost of the admin salary upgrade.

When we presented the terms at a Nov. 30 membership meeting, most of those who spoke were pleased. That viewpoint was punctuated with an exclamation point when the counting of members’ ratification ballots on Jan. 22 showed an overwhelming 100 to 1 approval rate.

as the price of drugs soared in recent years, the idea of adding a drug benefit became more pressing and was our focus for going beyond the pattern in this round of bargaining.

During the first two bargaining sessions last May, there were promising signs that the union could pull it off. City negotiators advised us the contract could be extended by six months to generate extra benefits aside from the pattern pay raises. When we told them we wanted most of the additional benefit gain to go towards our Welfare Fund, they did not object.

There was one sticking point — a problem that had festered for four decades after then-Mayor Ed Koch was unwilling to correct an imbalance in the pay relationship

between Associate Staff Analysts (ASAs) and those in the then-managerial title of Administrative Staff Analyst (Admins).

First-level admins were paid just marginally better than the ASAs they supervised while shouldering greater responsibilities. This led some ASAs to turn down the promotion and the extra pressure that came with it. First-level admins also had minimum salaries that were actually lower than the unionized ASAs they supervised. The three mayors who came after Koch also ignored the problem, usually stating that they lacked the funds to rectify the discrepancy. Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, the issue finally got attention at City Hall, but he and his negotiators wanted

The city was, in effect, demanding that every OSA member pay for decisions the city has already made unilaterally. When we refused to cave, the city began stalling. Officials promised us numbers on the cost of the changes, but failed to produce them in a timely manner. City negotiators then submitted a proposal to our bargaining committee that we had already rejected.

By November, OSA had brought the dispute to the Office of Collective Bargaining for a possible resolution. It was clear to us that the union would prevail in an impasse hearing. However, the city could appeal that ruling, further delaying the process. Members would be harmed potentially by these delays in three ways. They would continue to have their raises delayed. Members who were

OSA’s welfare fund has long been in good shape because of prudent spending, and the infusion of funds taking effect Sept. 6, 2026 will go a long way toward bringing members a quality, sustainable prescription drug plan.

Accomplishing our goals takes time, but it also exemplifies the essence of how union leaders can advance their members’ interests: look to be creative and fight vigorously for the best terms possible. However, when time becomes a force against our ambitions, figure out when to say we have gotten enough to shake hands. There will be another negotiation down the line to make further gains.

Robert J. Croghan is the chairperson of the Organization of Staff Analysts, a municipal union representing more than 5,100 active and 3,000 retired members.

Carol

WAKE-UP CALL

BY RON ISAAC

There are lessons to be learned by crossing the pond. England’s National Health Service used to be cited as proof that so-called “socialized medicine” works for everyone, regardless of their means. My parents-inlaw didn’t pay a penny for lifesaving cancer surgery. They were neither rich nor poor, nor did they have any supplemental insurance.

When on vacation in England, I needed non-urgent treatment. The doctor and I had a tug-of-war over payment. He refused to accept any. Something about medicine being above economics.

A recent Associated Press story in The Chief reported that England’s “junior” doctors, who are licensed non-specialist physicians, start at around $20 an hour. Hardly enough for a Ploughman’s lunch. The doctors will likely be striking soon for a few days, as they have done lately to no avail. The NHS has fallen on hard times.

Reagan, Bush Picks

Hypocrisy On Supreme-Court Choice

VINCENT SCALA

years of been Justices the more have women is 4 over decision to African-Amerhe we qualified comical if ignoJobs the and What an President for selectblue-ribbon apconfirm or politicontext is Ronto woman immedifrom find obvious1991,

It has gone down the drain. The” brain drain.” Doctors are bailing out and emigrating . Canada is another nation to which critics of the U.S. system are looking with envy.  It is free but not freely available. Americans carp about the recommended interval between routine colonoscopies being extended from five to ten years in order to pander to insurance companies. But in Canada, you aren’t eligible for one unless you have blood gushing from your rectum for four consecutive pay periods, as witnessed and certified by a human resources timekeeper and three physicians whose surnames must have exactly five syllables.

THE CHIEF-LEADER, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2022

George Herbert Walker Bush had to replace the first African American, Thurgood Marshall. He looked all over the country and the “most-qualified” was Clarence Thomas, also an African-American? Of course not. Clarence Thomas is an African-American conservative and he got the gig.

Expect a Top Candidate

Let’s please stop the nonsense in this country. We have never had an African-American woman on the court.

In the U.S., there are more insurance plans than species in the animal kingdom. Like human fingerprints, no two plans are the same. They are filled with elusive language and escape clauses. Our most creative minds are neither rocket scientists nor magicians of algorithms, but experts in billing codes, which are more treacherous to navigate than the Strait of Hormuz. Our medical system is “complicated,” a word that is used to cover all bases of optional interpretations. By the way, why can’t we just say what we mean without resorting to silly concealment schemes, especially when intent is obvious, such as “Schitt’s Creek” or “Meet the Fockers”?

Biden will not be selecting a cashier from Stop-and-Shop or a pilates instructor from the local sports club. He will select a highly educated, highly credentialed woman who attended a top college, top law school, clerked for a Justice, served on the Federal appellate court and all the other “credentials” deemed necessary in this day and age for a Justice.

Entrepreneurship is the cornerstone (or baseboard) of American medicine, even on the level of private practice. According to Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracker, the U.S. has the highest per-person health-care spending, but the lowest life expectancy among “peer countries.” Japan spends the least (less than half of what we do) yet ranks first. And their longevity exceeds ours by almost seven years.

Letters to the Editor

about the end of the world and other cautionary tales.

Migrants are on a faster pace to becoming New Yorkers than many realize. Already they are indistinguishable from the rest of us as they dodge and scatter out of the way of unlicensed, uninsured, lithium-ion battery-run motorized electric scooters. What is the city doing about those sidewalk-jumping death machines? Is City Hall waiting till the body count reaches Battle of Gettysburg proportions before it does anything?

Get used to it. Life is dangerous.

Venturing outside has its risks. So does staying at home, listening to radio ads designed to strike terror into our passive hearts. One of them features a voice like a Wild West gunslinger from the days of the ole frontier. He’s plugging emergency food supplies in anticipation of an evitable apocalypse, such as a takeout of our national electric grid. He promises that the food will remain edible for 25 years.

Yummy! Today’s rum raisin ice cream in 2049!! Bring on the Rapture! And a little dose of it on the horizon.

FIVE

Audacity to Criticize Molina

boundaries of the solar system and that efforts by the indigent to obtain medications from overseas are interdicted by federal officers?

To the Editor:

Is there a tainted ménage à trois marriage among the FDA, insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry?

On Feb 19, the NY Daily News published an article entitled, “As NYC Correction Commissioner Molina cleans house, critics worry he’s coddling jail unions.”

Most people don’t know that increasingly, doctors are joining huge hospital conglomerates, which micromanage them as though they were entry-level civil servants. Even doctors need self-affirmation, especially when the pressures they are under make them feel like passengers on the ill-fated submersible that exploded en route to the Titanic a few years ago.

improving patient care and protection from systemic abuses.  Union busters are enamored of error messages about the motivations of workers. And they’d like to enfeeble the NLRB, which has made some noteworthy decisions of late. One of them is particularly far-reaching, because it clarifies the hazy line between students as amateur college athletes and the realm of professional competition.

Whether it’s a newly elected Mayor, Governor or President, every new administration replaces personnel, notwithstanding their work performance. No reason is needed to remove someone in an appointed position within NYC government with the exception of the Commissioner of the Department of Investigation, even though there is more than enough justification to fire all the top managers in DOC.

In view of this, might it be a good idea for even senior physicians to unionize? Can policy-setters and lawmakers think outside the box without throwing the box away?

According to the American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics,  there is no prohibition as long as “union actions are focused on improving care.” What about unions refusing to perform certain procedures?

Resistance to medical doctors being allowed to unionize is predicated on several pretexts and fallacies.

One is that physicians are ineligible, because they are technically supervisors. The National Labor Relations Board shot down that specious argument.

Top managers likely get their jobs through political connections and serve entirely at the pleasure of the Mayor. Moreover, the personnel that Louis Molina removed were in charge of critical units which they failed to lead effectively.

THE CHIEF-LEADER welcomes letters from its readers for publication. Correspondents must include their names, addresses and phone numbers. Letters should be submitted with the understanding that all correspondence is subject to the editorial judgment of this newspaper. To submit a letter to the editor online, visit thechiefleader.com and click on Letters to the Editor.

Earlier this month, a regional official stated the obvious: that players on Dartmouth College’s men’s basketball team are employees, even though they are part of the student body. The college’s trustees deem the statuses mutually exclusive.

Henry Ford said that his Model T car was available in every color, as long as it’s black. I can imagine assignment editors telling reporters they can cover any story, as long as it can be made migrant-related.  Spam, like migrants in some respects according to some people, has gotten a bad rap, though unlike Monty Python, it is not fun to watch. Spam was a staple that helped British troops get through the Second World War. In the computer age, of course, it refers to a folder that contains mostly unsolicited updates

The cessation of the College Board’s profiting from the sale of New York City public school students’ data, such as names, addresses and test scores. That is the upshot of their consent decree with the state attorney general’s office. Still, they have a Cheshire Cat smile on their corporate face, because the fine is only $750,000. Over the last decade, they reportedly raked in tens of millions of dollars, and almost a quarter of a million students’ information was compromised just in 2019. Well, a single column won’t change the world. Neither a fifth column.

criminals and probably require arrests, prosecutions and imprisonment?

As employees they would be eligible to join a labor union, if they voted in favor. All 15 members of the team have already signed a petition seeking representation by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  If it comes to fruition, it would be a trailblazer for the NCAA. The Dartmouth trustees are appealing, and the NLRB has given them a March 5 deadline.

New fertile ground for unions is continually being discovered. Maybe it would be a good idea for a new board game like Monopoly. One is already being developed centered around the theme of the borough of Queens, and residents have been asked to nominate landmarks and locales.

If the homeless who are removed from the subways refuse to cooperate with programs designed to help them turn their lives around, what are the penalties? Will they be arrested or placed in secure mental facilities where they will be less likely to do harm to others?

Is it really due to socioeconomic factors, such as crime and poverty, and the disparity of available social services? Are all the causal agents visible? How is it that our drug costs are higher than the outer

The attacks on this decision should be seen for what they are. They are idiotic political theater from a cohort that sees even a tiny effort at progress as threatening the white male position in society.

WORK RULES by

Vincent Scala is a former Bronx Assistant District Attorney. He is currently a criminal-defense attorney in New York City and its suburbs.

DOC was on the brink of an implosion as a result of the feckless leadership of Vincent Schiraldi and his coterie. Now Schiraldi, who was the worst DOC commissioner in its 127-year history, is questioning Molina’s personnel decisions.

Opponents trot out the lame, shifty, mothballed bogus alibi they use against teachers’ unions: that it subordinates the interests of students or patients to their own material gain. Yet data shows patient mortality declined significantly in California after nurses unionized. The same would hold with doctors, whose every job action so far has been driven primarily by the goal of

How is it that Schiraldi, a so-called juvenile-justice reformer and expert, failed so miserably in managing DOC?

Barbara Smaller

How is it that Oren Varnai, the head of DOC’s Intelligence Bureau and

Tax Year

BARRY LISAK

and by deducunder Act

additional deduction because she is 70 years old. Her standard deduction for 2021 is $14,250 ($12,550, the standard deduction for 2021, plus $1,700, the 2021 additional standard deduction for the singles who are over 65 or blind).

In 2021, Nicole and her spouse are joint filers. Both qualify for an additional standard deduction because they are both over 65. Their Form 1040 standard deduction is $27,800 ($25,100, the 2021 standard deduction for joint filers, plus 2 x $1,350, the 2021 additional standard deduction for married persons who are over 65 or blind).

The above examples reflect the benefit of the new standard deduction. Millions of taxpayers won’t be itemizing this year to reduce

management by top bosses. Commissioner Molina is addressing all those issues. Neither Schiraldi, nor any of his senior managers, have

Many years ago, there was a skit on the absurdist cult 1970s television show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” spoofing Spam, the anti-delicacy mystery meat. Everything was on the menu, but everything on the menu had Spam in it. There was no getting away from it. Media is making migrants the new Spam. They appear as ingredients in stories on every topic.

Journalists are exploiting them.

Those homeless people who are mentally or emotionally incapable of living safely with others have to be “imprisoned,” either in prisons (if convicted of crimes) or in secure mental institutions. Those who refuse to cooperate with reasonable and necessary treatment from qualified and competent authorities have to be treated the same way—prison or secure mental facilities.

Only those homeless who cooperate with those who provide necessary treatment, and can live peacefully with others, should be placed in housing in the neighborhoods in all five boroughs of

MICHAEL J. GORMAN

Skeptical of Union ‘Health’

The proposed New York Health Act would provide on a statewide level what Medicare-for-All would provide nationwide. Yet in recent issues, it has been claimed that the reason some unions oppose this is because the medical plans they already have provide benefits that this proposal would not

Now as a retired transit worker, I have always had good health coverage since I started working for the system in 1979. But one friend who was an excellent Transport Workers Union Local 100 rep had serious health issues before he recently passed away. He had a stroke while he was still working, and had to fight numerous large bills for medical care that was supposed to be covered. I remember him saying, “I have great coverage as long as I don’t get sick.”

Under the New York Health Act, patients would not have to worry about

Press Association via AP Images

Junior doctors on the picket line last week outside St Thomas’ Hospital in central London during their continuing dispute over pay.

Brooklyn’s She Wolf Bakery workers win union

Accusations flew during lead-up to vote

BY DUNCAN FREEMAN dfreeman@thechiefleader.com

Workers at She Wolf Bakery in Brooklyn voted 17-5 to unionize with the Retail Wholesale & Department Store Union following a contentious unionization campaign marred by accusations of antisemitism against two workers and recriminations against the unionization effort by the bakery’s owner.

Staff at She Wolf, founded in 2009 and which now delivers to eight greenmarkets and several restaurants in the city, announced their unionization petition on Jan. 18. Soon after, previously friendly managers at She Wolf’s Greenpoint bakery started treating workers with disdain, workers say.

Also following the Feb. 20 vote, Andrew Tarlow, the owner of She Wolf’s parent company, the Marlow Collective, came to the bakery and, along with a consultant and managers, held what workers labeled “captive audience meetings,” which employees attended in groups of two or three over the course of a week. Tarlow delivered a personal, emotional appeal to workers in these meetings and the consultant gave a presentation on what unionizing would mean for workers, staff who participated in these meetings told The Chief.

“They present you with this cocktail of misinformation, manipulation and some intimidation that’s

tailored to spark your concerns and worries,” said Kira Zimmerman, a baker at She Wolf and organizer of the union. “It’s not facts, it’s spin.”

Even though workers had been counseled by RWDSU on what to expect during captive audience meetings, the trainings still inspired doubt in some workers that staff countered by relying on their mutu-

TRAFFIC: Sadik is new 1182 head

Continued from Page 1

“You’re in uniform, you go out, assist the public, talk to the public, do what you have to do,” he said shortly after beginning his threeyear term.

Sadik noted that while other city workers with civilian titles worked from home during the height of the pandemic, traffic agents, like police officers, were out doing their rounds, as he did. “I carried a civilian title and I wasn’t allowed to use it to stay home,” he said.

Syed leaves office after having bargained a 66-month contract, retroactive to November 2021, that will bring the union members 18.4 percent compounded raises through May 10, 2027.

Starting pay increased to $45,811 from $41,493 and tops out at $55,740, up from $47,874. The deal reduces the number of steps to reach max pay from 11 to eight. The contract also secured a $3,000 ratification bonus, increases in the city’s annuity contributions and bumps in the longevity allowance differential and uniform allowance.

Rahim could not be reached for comment. But in a Facebook post while the runoff election was underway, he lauded the contract’s terms. “While no contract is perfect, this is the best wage and benefit agreement in the history of the Local,” he wrote.

Sadik, though, said the contract’s terms didn’t reflect the work. “It’s free labor,” he said, saying that a TEA essentially functions as “a cheap cop.”

While he said he understands how the city works — “I’m not naive,” he said —  Sadik said the TEAs were not being treated equitably. “I see us being treated unfair. Unfair. And we haven’t had anybody go out there and ask for things for us,” he said.

During his contract campaigns, Rahim made similar arguments to those by his successor, noting that traffic agents are tasked with much more than writing tickets. They direct car and pedestrian traffic while standing in the middle of some of the city’s busiest intersections, and are commandeered as force multipliers at parades and demonstrations. They also are occasionally called as first responders.

Rahim also argued  that TEAs, whose uniforms denote them as NYPD, are subject to some of the Police Department’s Patrol Guide’s rules and regulations, including discipline protocols, despite being civilian employees. And the nature

of their primary tasks can lead to confrontations with the public.

‘Anything but minor’

Sadik, 56, was elected vice president in August 2022, when Rahim secured a partial term in the local’s first officer elections since it came out of administration following the allegations against local and against Rahim.

An audit report into 1182’s finances concluded after the local shortly after the local was placed in administration by the local’s parent union, the Communication Workers of America, found several questionable payments from the local, among them more than $32,000 between October and 2017 and May 2019 for vehicles, including a Land Rover, in Rahim’s name; nearly $40,000 to a digital services vendor for a poorly functioning website; and more than $84,000 improperly paid out between 2017 and 2018 in bonuses to the local’s officers and employees.

“The financial malfeasance was anything but minor. Syed Rahim and the Executive Board blatantly disregarded their obligation to care for the Local’s assets, entrusted to Local officers by the membership, and were also unwilling or unable to comply with legal and regulatory requirements,” CWA administrators wrote in a June 2020 report.

Rahim began a swift ascent through the local’s ranks soon after he was hired as a traffic agent in 2005, and was elected Local 1182’s vice president in 2011 and president in 2015, winning re-election in 2018. Although he was reelected to the shortened term in 2022, his tenure had been compromised.

He was removed from his post in May 2019 when the CWA’s executive board  placed it in temporary administration, from which it was released only three years later, in part because of pandemic-related challenges. Rahim, a Bangladesh-trained chemist who was hired as a traffic enforcement Agent in 2005, was back on the streets handing out summonses.

Rahim, 67, is likely to retire, according to Sal Albanese, the former City Councilman and three-time mayoral candidate who served as Local 1182’s spokesman during Rahim’s tenure. “They ran a very aggressive campaign against him,” Albanese said.

“He’s a good union leader,” he said, noting the contract’s terms. But, he added, “Union campaigns are sometimes harsher than political campaigns.”

al solidarity, Zimmerman added.

“You come out of the meeting and feel like the ground has been rocked under you,” Zimmerman said. “It feels like you’re being divided on purpose.”

Amid the meetings, two employees at She Wolf created and distributed a zine about tactics that managers may use to dissuade workers from unionizing that included an image, pulled from a separate book of illustrations, of an angry employer with a hooked nose and a top hat next to text reading, “Don’t be manipulated into passivity.”

A week before the union vote was initially scheduled, Tarlow, who is Jewish, picked up a copy of the zine and found the illustration to be an antisemitic depiction of himself. Tarlow, according to Eater, then wrote an email to his staff and RWDSU’s president, Stuart Appelbaum, who is also Jewish, that the caricature is “a violation of our policies against harassment and discrimination and is hardly consistent with the equitable and inclusive environment we strive to create, and you claim to want.”

The two employees who made the zine quickly apologized to Tarlow in an email, saying they had no in-

tent to offend, and Appelbaum told Tarlow that he too was “personally offended” by the image. Tarlow, though, refused to meet with the two employees who made the zine in person, workers said.

“I remain hurt beyond words that an assertion of your rights leads to an antisemitic attack,” Tarlow said in a subsequent email.

The owner took to Instagram to express his frustrations, writing in a now deleted post that union organizers have taken a “divisive” and untruthful path to unionization.

Although he wrote that he did not believe the image was meant to be “discriminatory and anti-Semitic,” it was nonetheless damaging and hurtful. “The image is a depiction of how they see me and want their coworkers to see me, too,” Tarlow wrote. “It is ugly and mean, meant to other, dehumanize, and separate me from the people I deeply care about and work alongside every day.”

‘Needs to be organized’

The Marlow Collective couldn’t be reached for comment on the union vote but in a statement to Eater, a spokesperson for the company

said, “Today a majority of She Wolf Bakery hourly employees elected to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. We respect their decision and look forward to negotiating in good faith with the Union.”

In his Instagram post and in his emailed response to the Zine, Tarlow accused his employees of excluding Spanish-speaking workers in their organizing push. Zimmerman pushed back on that characterization.

“We spent months talking to everyone” before filing for unionization, Zimmerman argued. “Every single person in our workplace was involved in these conversations and it became evident through these conversations and through our own research and consultations that joining a union would be the best way forward.”

Zimmerman said that workers are seeking higher wages, clearer pathways to promotion and better protections from extreme temperatures, and they see a union as the best mechanism to get management to enact the changes that workers want which have previously been ignored.

Zimmerman said that during the summer, bakers and porters in the Greenpoint facility work in 100-degree temperatures next to open ovens and during the winter wear coats to keep warm on days when sometimes the warmest room is the walk-in refrigerator. Requests for more temperature regulation have been ignored by management, she added, and managers have told employees working in stiflingly hot rooms to drink Gatorade to mitigate the temperatures.

The staff, Zimmerman added, is hoping their unionization push inspires workers at other bakeries to do the same.

“It’s not an organized industry but it needs to be because bakers, restaurant workers, food workers in general work in terrible conditions across the field and we accept that because it’s just how the field works. It’s what we think we can get,” Zimmerman said. “But it’s not. It’s just what the structures in place are offering us and when workers come together and show that we’re willing to work and act together to make their workplaces safer, to make them kinder and to make them better that’s a game-changer that I think will impact the way we feed each other.”

RWDSU

Workers of She Wolf Bakery in Brooklyn celebrated after successfully voting to join the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union. Workers affirmed their union push despite a unionization campaign they said was disrupted by captive audience meetings and accusations of antisemitism from the bakery’s owner.

Panel suggests giving cabs congestion-pricing pass

BY RICHARD KHAVKINE richardk@thechiefleader.com

tor, Bhairavi Desai, called the levy on cabs “a disgrace.”

“This is a reckless proposal that will devastate an entire workforce,” Desai, arguing that taxi drivers were still being hurt by a post-pandemic decrease in fares, said at the time.

The union estimated that the fee would add up to $15,000 a year for yellow cab drivers, who Desai noted already have two MTA fees tacked on to fares — a 50-cent surcharge and a $2.50 state congestion surcharge for trips that start, end or cross below 96th Street. The congestion-pricing feed could bring drivers to the brink of bankruptcy, she added.

for-hire vehicles are exempt from the standard passenger-vehicle toll of $15, and would instead be subject to per-trip surcharges of $1.25 for every trip they make into the Central Business District. App-based for-hire Uber and Lyft vehicles would be charged $2.50 under the proposal, which will be voted on by the MTA once the public-comment period concludes March 11.

Using data from the Taxi and Limousine Commission, the IBO calculated that exempting yellow cabs would reduce congestion pricing revenues by $35 million a year, or 3.5 percent of the MTA’s $1 billion annual revenue estimate.

To make up that difference, one possibility would be “to distribute the revenue loss equally across all non-exempt vehicles,” the brief notes. In this case, that would mean increasing tolls on passenger vehicles to $15.53 during peak hours, and charging Uber and Lyft drivers $2.59.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance did not respond to a request for comment on the IBO brief. But following the release of the congestion-pricing proposals in late November, the union’s executive direc-

“This terrible proposal ignores the devastation about to be unleashed on a workforce the federal government found to be an environmental justice community,” she said then.

For its part, the MTA’s Traffic Mobility Review Board, which came up with the toll amounts, contends that its recommended pricing schemes would have “minimal potential impacts to the taxi and FHV industry.”

“Ultimately, it is passengers — not drivers — who make the choice to add to vehicle congestion in the CBD, despite readily accessible public transportation to and within the CBD. And it is passengers whose travel patterns must be influenced to fight congestion in the CBD,” its November report concluded.

But the union’s stance received significant backing from the Adams administration. During a press event in early December, Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi said the administration was requesting “a full exemption” for yellow cabs. “This is a fleet that has had a history of serving New York, especially Manhattan, for decades. And this is a fleet that has gone through incredible financial distress,” Joshi said. “So it’s really important to support that industry and the working people in it to move New Yorkers around.”

The rise of jailhouse labor

Part two of a sweeping two-year Associated Press investigation into prison labor.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary, better known simply as Angola, is imposing in its sheer scale. The so-called “Alcatraz of the South” is tucked far away, surrounded by crocodile-infested swamps in a bend of the Mississippi River. It spans 18,000 acres — an area bigger than the island of Manhattan — and has its own ZIP code.

The former 19th-century antebellum plantation once was owned by one of the largest slave traders in the U.S. Today, it houses some 3,800 men behind its razor-wire walls, about 65 percent of them Black. Within days of arrival, they typically head to the fields, sometimes using hoes and shovels or picking crops by hand. They initially work for free, but then can earn between 2 cents and 40 cents an hour.

Calvin Thomas, who spent more than 17 years at Angola, said anyone who refused to work, didn’t produce enough or just stepped outside the long straight rows knew there would be consequences.

“If he shoots the gun in the air because you done passed that line, that means you’re going to get locked up and you’re going to have to pay for that bullet that he

shot,” said Thomas, adding that some days were so blistering hot the guards’ horses would collapse.

“You can’t call it anything else,” he said. “It’s just slavery.”

Louisiana corrections spokesman Ken Pastorick called that description “absurd.” He said the phrase “sentenced with hard labor” is a legal term referring to a prisoner with a felony conviction.

Pastorick said the department has transformed Angola from “the bloodiest prison in America” over the past several decades with “large-scale criminal justice reforms and reinvestment into the creation of rehabilitation, vocational and educational programs designed to help individuals better themselves and successfully return to communities.” He noted that pay rates are set by state statute.

Former inmates sue Current and former prisoners in both Louisiana and Alabama have filed class-action lawsuits in the past four months saying they have been forced to provide cheap — or free — labor to those states and outside companies, a practice they also described as slavery. Prisoners have been made to work since before emancipation, when slaves were at times imprisoned and then leased out by local authorities.

But after the Civil War, the 13th Amendment’s exception clause that allows for prison labor provided legal cover to round up thousands of mostly young Black men. Many were jailed for petty offenses like loitering and vagrancy. They then were leased out by states to plantations like Angola and some of the country’s biggest companies, including coal mines and railroads. They were routinely whipped for not meeting quotas while doing brutal and often deadly work.

The convict-leasing period, which officially ended in 1928, helped chart the path to America’s modern-day prison-industrial complex.

Incarceration was used not just for punishment or rehabilitation but for profit. A law passed a few years later made it illegal to knowingly transport or sell goods made by incarcerated workers across state lines, though an exception was made for agricultural products. Today, after years of efforts by lawmakers and businesses, corporations are setting up joint ventures with corrections agencies, enabling them to sell almost anything nationwide.

Civilian workers are guaranteed basic rights and protections by OSHA and laws like the Fair Labor

John Locher/AP Photo

Sylvester Hameline, who is doing time at the Montana State Prison in in Deer Lodge, Montana, worked milking equipment

Richard Khavkine/The Chief

The Independent Budget Office calculated that exempting yellow cabs would reduce congestion pricing revenues by $35 million a year, or 3.5 percent of the MTA’s $1 billion annual revenue estimate.

PRISON: Federal inmates labor as hidden workforce

Continued from Page 1

Standards Act, but prisoners, who are often not legally considered employees, are denied many of those entitlements and cannot protest or form unions.

“They may be doing the exact same work as people who are not incarcerated, but they don’t have the training, they don’t have the experience, they don’t have the protective equipment,” said Jennifer Turner, lead author of a 2022 American Civil Liberties Union report on prison labor.

Almost all of the country’s state and federal adult prisons have some sort of work program, employing around 800,000 people, the report said. It noted the vast majority of those jobs are connected to tasks like maintaining prisons, laundry or kitchen work, which typically pay a few cents an hour if anything at all. And the few who land the highest-paying state industry jobs may earn only a dollar an hour.

A $2 billion industry

Altogether, labor tied specifically to goods and services produced through state prison industries brought in more than $2 billion in 2021, the ACLU report said. That includes everything from making mattresses to solar panels, but does not account for work-release and other programs run through local jails, detention and immigration centers and even drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities.

Some incarcerated workers with just a few months or years left on their sentences have been employed everywhere from popular restaurant chains like Burger King to major retail stores and meat-processing plants. Unlike work crews picking up litter in orange jumpsuits, they go largely unnoticed, often wearing the same uniforms as their civilian counterparts.

Outside jobs can be coveted because they typically pay more and some states deposit a small percentage earned into a savings account for prisoners’ eventual release. Though many companies pay minimum wage, some states garnish more than half their salaries for items such as room and board and court fees.

It’s a different story for those on prison farms. The biggest operations remain in the South and crops are still harvested on a number of former slave plantations, including in Arkansas, Texas and at Mississippi’s notorious Parchman Farm. Those states, along with Florida, Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia, pay nothing for most types of work.

Most big farms, including Angola, have largely mechanized many of their operations, using commercial-size tractors, trucks and combines for corn, soy, rice and other row crops. But prisoners in some places continue to do other work by hand, including clearing brush with swing blades.

Paid in TP and toothpaste

“I was in a field with a hoe in my hand with maybe like a hundred other women. We were standing in a line very closely together, and we had to raise our hoes up at the exact same time and count ‘One, two, three, chop!’” said Faye Jacobs, who worked on prison farms in Arkansas.

Jacobs, who was released in 2018 after more than 26 years, said the only pay she received was two rolls of toilet paper a week, toothpaste and a few menstrual pads each month.

She recounted being made to carry rocks from one end of a field to the other and back again for hours, and said she also endured taunting from guards saying “Come on, hos, it’s hoe squad!” She said she later was sent back to the fields at another prison after women there complained of sexual harassment by staff inside the facility.

“We were like ‘Is this a punishment?’” she said. “‘We’re telling y’all that we’re being sexually harassed, and you come back and the first thing you want to do is just put us all on hoe squad.’”

David Farabough, who oversees the state’s 20,000 acres of prison farms, said Arkansas’ operations can help build character.

“A lot of these guys come from homes where they’ve never understood work and they’ve never understood the feeling at the end of the day for a job well-done,” he said. “We’re giving them purpose. … And

‘You can’t call it anything else. It’s just slavery.’

— Calvin Thomas, WHO SPENT MORE THAN 17 YEARS AT ANGOLA

then at the end of the day, they get the return by having better food in the kitchens.”

In addition to giant farms, at least 650 correctional facilities nationwide have prisoners doing jobs like landscaping, tending greenhouses and gardens, raising livestock, beekeeping and even fish farming, said Joshua Sbicca, director of the Prison Agriculture Lab at Colorado State University. He noted that corrections officials exert power by deciding who deserves trade-building jobs like welding, for example, and who works in the fields.

In several states, along with raising chickens, cows and hogs, corrections departments have their own processing plants, dairies and canneries. But many states also hire out prisoners to do that same work at big private companies.

The AP met women in Mississippi locked up at restitution centers, the equivalent of debtors’ prisons, to pay off court-mandated expenses. They worked at Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen and other fast-food chains and also have been hired out to individuals for work like lawn mowing or home repairs.

“There is nothing innovative or interesting about this system of forced labor as punishment for what in so many instances is an issue of poverty or substance abuse,” said Cliff Johnson, director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi.

In Alabama, where prisoners are leased out by companies, AP reporters followed inmate transport vans to poultry plants run by Tyson Foods, which owns brands such as Hillshire Farms, Jimmy Dean and Sara Lee, along with a company that supplies beef, chicken and fish to McDonald’s. The vans also stopped at a chicken processor that’s part of a joint-venture with Cargill, which is America’s largest private company. It brought in a record $177 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2023 and supplies conglomerates like PepsiCo.

Though Tyson did not respond to questions about direct links to prison farms, it said that its work-release programs are voluntary and that incarcerated workers receive the same pay as their civilian colleagues.

Sheriff: “A win-win”

Some people arrested in Alabama are put to work even before they’ve been convicted. An unusual work-release program accepts pre-trial defendants, allowing them to avoid jail while earning bond money. But with multiple fees deducted from their salaries, that can take time.

The AP went out on a work detail with a Florida chain gang wearing black-and-white striped uniforms and ankle shackles, created after Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey took office in 2012. He said the unpaid work is voluntary and so popular that it has a waitlist.

“It’s a win-win,” he said. “The inmate that’s doing that is learning a skill set.… They are making time go by at a faster pace. The other side of the win-win is, it’s generally saving the taxpayers money.”

Ivey noted it’s one of the only remaining places in the country where a chain gang still operates.

“I don’t feel like they should get paid,” he said. “They’re paying back their debt to society for violating the law.”

Elsewhere, several former prisoners spoke positively about their work experiences, even if they sometimes felt exploited.

“I didn’t really think about it until I got out, and I was like, ‘Wow, you know, I actually took something from there and applied it out here,’” said William “Buck” Saunders, adding he got certified to operate a forklift at his job stacking animal feed at Cargill while incarcerated in Arizona. Companies that hire prisoners get a reliable, plentiful workforce even during unprecedented labor shortages stemming from immigration crackdowns and, more recently, the coronavirus pandemic.

In March 2020, though all other outside company jobs were halted, the Arizona corrections department announced about 140 women were being abruptly moved from their prison to a metal hangar-like warehouse on property owned by Hickman’s Family Farms, which pitches itself as the Southwest’s largest egg producer.

Hickman’s has employed prisoners for nearly 30 years and supplies many grocery stores, including Costco and Kroger, marketing brands such as Eggland’s Best and Land O’ Lakes. It is the state corrections department’s largest labor contractor, bringing in nearly $35 million in revenue over the past six fiscal years.

“The only reason they had us out there was because they didn’t want to lose that contract because the prison makes so much money off of it,” said Brooke Counts, who lived at Hickman’s desert site, which operated for 14 months. She was serving a drug-related sentence and said she feared losing privileges or being transferred to a more secure prison yard if she refused to work.

Counts said she knew prisoners who were seriously hurt, including one woman who was impaled in the groin and required a helicopter flight to the hospital and another who lost part of a finger.

Hickman’s, which has faced a number of lawsuits stemming from inmate injuries, did not respond to emailed questions or phone messages seeking a response. Correc-

tions department officials would not comment on why the women were moved off-site, saying it happened during a previous administration. But a statement at the time said the move was made to “ensure a stable food supply while also protecting public health and the health of those in our custody.”

Some women employed by Hickman’s earned less than $3 an hour

after deductions, including 30 percent taken by the state for room and board, even though they were living in the makeshift dormitory.

“While we were out there, we were still paying the prison rent,” Counts said. “What for?”

AP videographers Robert Bumsted and Cody Jackson contributed to this report.

John Locher/AP Photo

Christopher Terrell, a prisoner at the Cummins Unit of Arkansas’ Department of Corrections, Aug. 18, 2023, in Gould, Arkansas. The biggest operations remain in the South, and crops are still harvested on a number of former slave plantations, including in Arkansas.

JOB HIGHLIGHT

Elevator Servicers and Repairers recruiting apprentices

Applications can be obtained only in person at JATC, 35-40 36th Street, 2nd floor, Long Island City, NY 11106, Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., excluding legal holidays, during the recruitment period.

The committee requires that applicants be at least 18 years of age and have a high school diploma or a high school equivalency diploma (such as TASC or GED).

ATTESTATION REQUIRED

They also must sign an affidavit

attesting that they are physically able to perform the work of an elevator servicer and repairer, which includes the ability to lift and carry in excess of 50 lbs. for extended periods; to work an 8-hour day continually on their feet; to work through periods of extreme weather conditions or temperatures; to work in restrictive and confined space; to work at heights of up to 1,000 feet or more on ladders, scaffolds, scissor lifts or boom lifts; and to work with electrical, mechanical and hydraulic equipment and rotating machinery. Applicants also must successfully complete physical and drug tests, at the expense of the sponsor, after selection and prior to enrollment. They must be legally able to work in the United States. And they must provide a military transfer card or discharge form DD-214, if applicable, after selection and prior to indenture.

There will be no limit on the number of applications distributed. All applicants must present a valid photo ID issued by a city, state, or federal government agency. The ID will be matched to the application number assigned to the applicant during the entire application process. The applicant may not send another person to pick an application on their behalf or make copies of the application. Applications must be returned via U.S. Postal Service using certified mail, with return receipt requested, to JATC of the Elevator Industry, 35-40 36th Street, 2nd Floor, Long Island City, New York 11106.

Applications not sent via certified mail, with return receipt requested, and/or not postmarked by March 22 will not be considered.

Applications will be numbered and must correspond with the name and number of the applica-

Below is a roundup of New York City and State exams leading to public-service positions. Most of the jobs listed are located in the New York Metropolitan area and upstate.

There are residency requirements for many New York City jobs and for state law-enforcement positions.

Prospective applicants are advised to write or call the appropriate office to make sure they meet the qualifications needed to apply for an exam. For jobs for which no written tests are given, candidates will be rated on education and experience, or by oral tests or performance exams.

DCAS Computer-based Testing and Application Centers (CTACs) have re-opened to the public. However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, walk-ins are no longer accepted and appointments must be scheduled online through OASys for eligible list or examination related inquiries.

All examination and eligible list related notifications will be sent by email only, you will no longer receive notifications via the US mail.

All new hires must be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, unless they have been granted a reasonable accommodation for religion or disability. If you are offered city employment, this requirement must be met by your date of hire, unless a reasonable accommodation for exemption is received and approved by the hiring agency.

For further information about where to apply to civil service exams and jobs, visit the thechief.org/exams.

The Federal Government has decentralized its personnel operations and holds few exams on a national or regional basis. Most Federal vacancies are filled by individual agencies based on education-and-experience evaluations. For information, contact the U.S. Office of Personnel Management or individual agencies, or see www.usajobs.gov.

➤ OPEN CONTINUOUSLY

4125/4329 Bus Operator (MaBSTOA and MTA Bus) $26.19 per hour

NASSAU COUNTY EXAMS

➤ CLOSES MARCH 5

62-488 Public Health Educator I $47,870$99,986; NHCC: $104,534-$128,481 ➤ OPEN CONTINUOUSLY

7078 CR(D) Cytotechnologist I $43,863$91,243 7094 CR(D) Cytotechnologist II $52,099$108,383 7095 CR(D) Cytotechnologist III $66,357$132,168

61-639 CR Librarian I $43,000-$61,333

60-180 CR Librarian I, Bilingual (Spanish Speaking) 5263 CR(D) Medical Technologist I $31,963-$74,978

5002 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Acute Care) $59,507-$108,383

5003 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Adult Health) $59,507-$108,383

5004 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Community Health) $59,507$108,383 5005 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Family Health) $59,507-$108,383

5006 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Gerontology) $59,507-$108,383

5007 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Neonatology) $59,507-$108,383

tion given to the applicant at time of pick-up. The numbered application must match the name on the identification provided or it will not be processed.

ONLINE APTITUDE EXAM

Applicants must take a Wonderlic online aptitude test on or before 11:59 p.m. March 22. The unique link for the test is provided by Wonderlic and it will be included in the application when it is picked up. Applicants can contact recruitment@ jeojatc.com for questions concerning the exam. Applicants who score 80 percent or higher on the test (or the top 75 candidates, whichever is less) will initially be offered an interview with the JATC committee. Applicants offered an interview will be contacted and advised of the date and time for their interview. Interviewees must complete all forms

sent to them and bring them to the interview, including proof of classroom experience.

For further information, applicants should contact JATC of the Elevator Industry at 212-689-0789.

Additional job search assistance can be obtained at a local New York State Department of Labor Career Center (dol.ny.gov/career-centers).

Apprentice programs registered with the Department of Labor must meet standards established by the Commissioner. Under state law, sponsors of programs cannot discriminate against applicants because of race, creed, color, national origin, age, sex, disability, or marital status. Women and minorities are encouraged to submit applications for apprenticeship programs. Sponsors of programs are required to adopt affirmative action plans for the recruitment of women and minorities.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

ASSOCIATE

SPECIALIST

MAINTENANCE

SENIOR

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20-873

LABOR AROUND THE WORLD LABOR AROUND THE WORLD

Strippers in Washington state want a bill of rights LABOR AROUND THE WORLD

BY HALLIE GOLDEN Associated Press

For months, Andrea studied for her master’s degree in library sciences between dancing naked at clubs in Seattle. But then she was sexually assaulted at work and slapped by a customer — and nobody stepped in to help.

Now, she and hundreds of other strippers in Washington state are fighting for statewide protections that would be the most comprehensive in the U.S., according to advocates.

“We shouldn’t be verbally abused for just doing our job and existing,” said Andrea, who has seen a DJ at one club harass dancers if they don’t tip him enough. She avoids the club if he’s there, said the 24-yearold, who would only use her first name. The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

Known as the “strippers’ bill of rights,” proposals being considered in the Legislature would require a security guard at each club, keypad codes to enter dressing rooms, training for employees on preventing sexual harassment, and procedures if a customer is violent. They would also require training on how to de-escalate conflict between

employees and customers, and signs stating that dancers are not required to hand over tips.

The Senate bill was approved by the full body in early February on a 29-20 vote.

“Without this legislation, the conditions are not safe. There are harassment and abuse that is happening,” said Democratic Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, who sponsored the Senate bill. “But with this the workers are now empowered to have protections.”

The bills are the culmination of six years of advocacy work by Strippers Are Workers, a dancer-led organization in Washington, in re-

sponse to wide regulation gaps for strippers at the 11 clubs across the state, said Madison Zack-Wu, its campaign manager.

Local efforts elsewhere

But those regulation gaps extend beyond Washington. And during those six years of work by Strippers Are Workers, only one other state added worker protections for adult entertainers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In 2019, Illinois started requiring that adult entertainment establishments, along with other businesses, have a written sexual harassment policy. That same year, Washington added a few initial regulations, including panic buttons and blacklists for customers.

The list by NCSL doesn’t include bills focused on age minimums or human trafficking, a criminal industry whose victims are often recruited to work in U.S. strip clubs, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. These bills rarely address workplace protections like the ones in Washington, said Landon Jacquinot, an NCSL policy associate.

There have also been efforts at the local level, including a bar in Los Angeles and a strip club in Portland, Oregon, where dancers voted to unionize. And, in a 2014 decision with statewide implications, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that dancers at one Las Vegas club are employees, and are entitled to minimum wage and other protections.

But Zack-Wu said many strippers don’t want to become full-time employees. “This job is all about flexibility and trying to make it your own,” she said. The bills in Washington would apply to all strippers, no matter their employment status.

“It is a legal, licensed business operation in the state of Washington, so the people who work there deserve our attention and our respect

‘It’s not the easiest place for us to be sometimes but, you know, a lot of people persevere because we love the job.’

— Andrea, A SEATTLE DANCER

and the protections that every other Washington worker gets,” said Democratic Rep. Amy Walen, who sponsored the House bill.

A similar bill in Washington stalled last year after concerns were raised over it allowing alcohol in strip clubs. The Senate bill clears the way for the clubs to serve alcohol, while the House bill does not.

Most dancers in Washington are independent contractors, and they can be blacklisted if they report abuse or exploitation by managers, said Zack-Wu. Customers pay the dancers, who then have to pay club fees every shift, which could be as much as $200.

The proposed measures would cap club fees at $150 or 30 percent of the amount they made during their shift — whichever is less — while barring clubs from carrying over unpaid fees from previous shifts as part of dancers accessing the space.

In late 2022, Eva Bhagwandin had just given a man three lap dances at a club in Seattle only to have

War, instability weigh down global economy: IBO chief

BY JON GAMBRELL Associated Press

The head of the World Trade Organization warned on Monday that war, uncertainty and instability are weighing down the global economy and urged the bloc to embrace reform as elections across nearly half the world’s population could bring new challenges.

WTO Director-General Ngozi

Okonjo-Iweala sought to offer some praise for her organization as it held its biennial meeting in the United Arab Emirates, even as it faces pressure from the United States and other nations.

But she was blunt about the risks ahead, as higher prices for food, energy and other essentials sting people’s pockets, “fueling political frustration.”

“People everywhere are feeling anxious about the future and this will be felt at the ballot box this year,” she said.

None are perhaps more critical for the WTO than the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5.

Running again is former President Donald Trump, who threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the WTO and repeatedly levied tariffs — taxes on imported goods — on perceived friends and foes alike. A Trump win could again roil global trade.

Okonjo-Iweala did not mention Trump by name, but offered a warning about attacks against multilaterism.

“The multilateral trading system, which I term a global public good since it was created 75 years ago, continues to be misconstrued some quarters and undermined,” she said.

U.S. skeptical of WTO role

But even if President Joe Biden is re-elected, the United States has deep reservations over the WTO. The U.S. under the past three administrations has blocked appoint-

ments to its appeals court, and it’s no longer operating. Washington says the WTO judges have overstepped their authority too often in ruling on cases. The U.S. also has criticized China for still describing itself as a developing country as it did when it joined the WTO in 2001. Washington, Europe and others say that Beijing improperly hampers access to emerging industries and steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology. The U.S. also says China floods world markets with cheap steel, aluminum and other products. The WTO’s member-nations will discuss a deal to ban subsidies that contribute to overfishing, extending a pause on taxes on digital media such as movies and video games, and agricultural issues while meeting this week in the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi. Also on Monday at the opening session, Comoros and Timor-Leste joined the WTO, bringing the number of nations in the bloc to 166.

But headwinds remain for the organization and the world’s economy, particularly as the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic remains uneven across nations.

Okonjo-Iweala made no mention of Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, though she noted the ongoing disruptions to shipping caused by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea over the conflict.

“Shipping disruptions in vital waterways like the Red Sea and the Panama Canal are a new source of delays and inflationary pressure,” she said. WTO is also hampered by its voting format, with major decisions requiring consensus — meaning countries must actively vote in favor for proposals to take effect.

“If we thought the world looked tough in mid-2022, when we were slowly emerging from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine had shaken food and energy security, we are in an even-tougher place today,” Okonjo-Iweala said.

his card declined, the 28-year-old said. He became aggressive, yelling that he already paid. The manager didn’t step in and there was no security guard, so she and a waitress had to get him and his screaming friends out of the club. She was never paid the $140 she was owed, but still had to pay $200 to the club. Afterward, she learned that another dancer had experienced something similar two days before with the same men. “The lack of security and training and the lack of support between the management to the dancers, creates this culture where customers know that they can come in and not pay, they can come in and assault dancers, and they can come in and pretty much do whatever they want,” she said. But Zack-Wu said there is concern that adding these protections without also adding revenue from alcohol sales could result in businesses, which have struggled since the pandemic, shutting down.

“We don’t want clubs to shut down now or in the future because that will just put everyone out of work and then put them in even riskier or more dire situations,” she said.

Republican lawmakers said they support protecting employees in this industry, but it’s challenging to know the best way to regulate it.

“We also want to make sure that we’re doing this correctly and striking the right balance for, not just the workers, but communities and neighborhoods as well,” said House Minority Leader Drew Stokesbary, a Republican.

Andrea, the dancer in Seattle, received her degree in November and wants to work in a library while continuing to dance. But she hopes soon there will be added protections.

“It’s not the easiest place for us to be sometimes but, you know, a lot of people persevere because we love the job,” she said. “But with all these protections in place, it would really help a lot.”

But forecasters raise expectations for the U.S.’s economy

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

This year looks to be a much better one for the U.S. economy than business economists were forecasting just a few months ago, according to a survey released Monday.

The economy looks set to grow 2.2 percent this year after adjusting for inflation, according to the National Association for Business Economics. That’s up from the 1.3 percent that economists from universities, businesses and investment firms predicted in the association’s prior survey, which was conducted in November.

It’s the latest signal of strength for an economy that’s blasted through predictions of a recession. High interest rates meant to get inflation under control were supposed to drag down the economy, the thinking went. High rates put the brakes on the economy, such as by making mortgages and credit card bills more expensive, in hopes of starving inflation of its fuel.

But even with rates very high, the job market and U.S. household spending have remained remarkably resilient. That in turn has raised expectations going forward.

Ellen Zentner, chief U.S. economist

The job market and U.S. household spending have remained remarkably resilient.

at Morgan Stanley and president of the NABE, said a wide range of factors are behind the 2024 upgrade, including spending by both the government and households. Economists also more than doubled their estimates for the number of jobs gained across the economy this year, though it would still likely be down from the previous one.

Offering another boost is the fact that inflation has been cooling since its peak two summers ago. While prices are higher than consumers would like, inflation has slowed enough that most of the surveyed forecasters expect interest rate cuts to begin by mid-June.

Public frustration with inflation has become a central issue in President Joe Biden’s re-election bid.

Though measures of inflation have plummeted from their heights and are nearing the Federal Reserve’s target level, many Americans remain unhappy that average prices are still about 19 percent higher than they were when Biden took office.

The Fed, which is in charge of setting short-term rates, has said it will likely cut them several times this year. That would relax the pressure on the economy, while goosing prices for stocks and other investments.

Of course, rate changes take a notoriously long time to snake through the economy and take full effect. That means past hikes, which began two years ago, could still ultimately tip the economy into a recession.

In its survey, the NABE said 41 percent of respondents cited high rates as the most significant risk to the economy. That was more than double any other response, including fears of a possible credit crunch or a broadening of the wars in Ukraine or the Middle East.

Lindsey Wasson/AP Photo

Andrea, who recently got her master’s degree in library sciences while working as a stripper in Seattle area clubs, is among those fighting for bills to pass in the state Legislature that would expand statewide protections to workers, like having a security guard at each club, keypad codes to enter dressing rooms and de-escalation training.

WTO/Prime Vision

At the opening of the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi Monday, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, at right, issued warnings about the future of the global economy.