City Council Speaker Gifford Miller paid a visit to Local 237 headquarters recently to assure President Carl Haynes that he would do everything in his power as a city official to prevent the possible layoff of hundreds of skilled trades workers and their replacement by private contractors.

Under a privatization proposal by the Department of Education, 750 of 900 skilled trade employees — possibly including maintenance workers, plasterers and roofers — could be thrown out of their jobs and replaced by non-union and questionably capable replacements.

To institute such a program, the Department of Education has to receive the approval of the Council, an approval that Miller vowed to bring pressure to defeat.

Miller’s visit was made prior to the ratification Oct. 31 of a new contract by Local 237 plasterers in both the Citywide and Housing Divisions and all mayoral agencies. The contract, which was approved by a vote of 266 to 34, covers the period from July 1, 1999, to Sept. 30, 2001.

“It doesn’t make any sense for the DOE to seek to get rid of qualified work personnel, who are carefully monitored for productivity and accountability, and replace them with unsupervised day laborers,” Haynes insisted. “Skilled trades members must pass comprehensive background reviews and stringent qualification requirements, and take periodic training to retain their licenses, but there is nothing like this required of transient day laborers.”

Haynes pointed out that the DOE uses an out-of-town management group to locate contractors for school repairs and pays it 13.5 percent of all outsourced work. “This firm does not pay taxes to New York and has the reputation of ignoring labor laws,” the Local 237 president charged.

Haynes noted that qualified city employees have frequently been called on in the past to remedy badly done school repairs and renovations, repairs to which the DOE does not readily admit. He contended that as recently as Sept. 27, City Comptroller William Thompson had to subpoena the DOE to obtain information about outside work done in the schools.

The Local president said the School Construction Authority also has a questionable repair record, and uses the largest number of contractors under investigation by the Comptroller’s office. Both the DOE and the SCA regularly bypass regulations and underpay workers, he asserted.

Miller also promised to support the effort of President Haynes to get changes in the way the hourly pay for skilled trades personnel is calculated.