9,000 more NYC workers to be furloughed: Mayor de Blasio
Mayor de Blasio on Wednesday announced additional furloughs for city employees, saying he’ll have to take even more painful steps if the feds and state government don’t come through for the Big Apple.
The latest round of furloughs affects over 9,000 managerial employees, who will have to miss five days' pay between October and March. The move will save the city $21 million as it faces staggering tax revenue losses, de Blasio said.
A mix of managerial staff and non-union employees comprise the 9,000, whom the city began to inform Wednesday morning, according to city Labor Relations Commissioner Renee Campion.
“It’s a difficult [move] because it will affect real people and their lives,” de Blasio said at a press conference. “It will affect their families. And these are people who have been working nonstop for months trying to protect all of you and look out for the whole city.”
Last week, de Blasio announced five-day furloughs for 495 mayoral staffers — including himself.
The moves come after months of pleas from the mayor for Congress to send billions of dollars in aid and for Albany to authorize the city to borrow funds to cover operating costs.
So far, President Trump and Senate Republicans have balked, as has Gov. Cuomo.
Over the summer, the city made its first budget cut during the de Blasio administration. Lawmakers passed an $88 billion package, down from $93 billion last year.
The latest budget included painful cuts to city agencies. But with the city’s Independent Budget Office projecting $10 billion in tax revenue losses through 2021, the mayor has been saying for months that he may have to lay off up to 22,000 workers.
He previously said the firings could come as soon as Oct. 1, but tapped the brakes in August amid ongoing talks with union leaders.
Harry Nespoli, chair of the Municipal Labor Committee, said unions are still fighting possible cuts.
“They want to take more from the unions than what the unions can possibly give up,” he told the Daily News. “Once you turn around and you give something up, you never get it back.”
Still, de Blasio indicated Wednesday that more pain could be in store for labor.
“We have to look for any and all savings we can find right now,” he said. “No one wants layoffs, but unfortunately, they are very much still on the table.”
Maria Doulis of the nonprofit Citizens Budget Commission said the city has to work harder to find savings.
“It’s good that the mayor is taking some action to begin to generate labor savings, but this is barely scratching the surface of what’s needed,” she said.
She repeated CBC’s calls for the city to make municipal workers pay part of their health insurance premiums. Unlike workers in the private sector and other swaths of government, city employees currently don’t pay anything toward insurance premiums, she said.
In one scenario drafted by the commission, if workers paid 5% of premiums for individuals or 12.5% for families, the city would save $500 million.
“There is room to ask employees to contribute a few dollars in their paychecks toward health care so the city can bring down its costs and not have to force this dire consequence of layoffs for 22,000 workers and their families,” Doulis said.
