Across New York state, Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) members are showing up wherever the Governor appears to protest and confront him about his threat to lay off 8,700 state employees. Union members are also holding rallies and demonstrations in front of the offices of legislative leaders who are backing the governor's plan. Rochester State Employees President Doris Cota, Western Region Political Action Committee Chairman Tim Finnigan and Western Region President Flo Tripi take part in a picket outside Assemblyman Joe Morelle's Irondequoit office Wednesday morning. CSEA delivered a message that mass state layoffs will put lives at risk and jeopardize services in the state. The union has provided lawmakers with several others proposals that would close the budget gap.
Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Statewide Secretary Denise Berkley was recently presented with the prestigious Bertram Harris Civil Service Award during the 56th Annual Brotherhood Observance and Awards Luncheon in New York City. Berkley, center, poses with Metropolitan Region 1st Vice President and Brotherhood Co-Chair Linda R. Williams, left, and Brotherhood Chairman Randy Johnson, right.
Lisa Bohannon, at work in the Unified Court System law library, is a participant in a long-term cancer prevention study. Bohannon, a principal court analyst and a 14-year CSEA member, has been a longtime supporter of the American Cancer Society through its annual Relay For Life event and is motivated by a need to contribute to research in the hope that more can be learned about cancer. She, like many, has lost family members to cancer.
The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation is going green. The agency is implementing a Compressed Pay Period, or CPP, Pilot Program. The new program reflects concern for employees seeking a work/family balance and helps reduce energy use, traffic and air pollution. Eligible employees will be able to decrease the number of their workdays and increase the number of hours worked each day to earn a day off every tenth day. Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) member, Kathy Follet, along with a committee, helped the compressed pay period program expand at her agency.
From left, New York Labor-Religion Coalition Director Brian O'Shaughnessy, Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Executive Vice President Mary Sullivan, Albany Catholic Diocese Bishop Howard Hubbard, author Kim Bobo, and NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi attend a ceremony opening the 40-Hour FAST for Social Justice. This year's FAST focused attention on wage theft. Hubbard and Iannuzzi co-chair the Labor-Religion Coalition.
How employers are stealing from workers, and how we can help stop it. Author and community organizer Kim Bobo brought her message to Albany to help the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)'s New York State Labor Religion Coalition begin its annual 40-hour fast for social justice. Bobo, founder and executive director of the Chicago-based Interfaith Worker Justice, has published a book, Wage Theft in America: Why millions of working Americans are not getting paid and what we can do about it.
Unidentifed Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) members and staff joined correction officers and other union members as well as concerned citizens at a recent rally to save Hudson Correctional Facility from closing. A state plan to close Hudson and three other upstate New York correctional facilities has met with strong opposition from workers, political leaders and community members.
Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)'s Central Region President Colleen Wheaton offers support to Groton, NY, Schools Unit President Sheldon Clark over his recent firing. Clark, an 18-year bus driver with a safe driving record, was unjustly fired by the board in January following a December, 2007, incident in which the bus received minor scratch damage to its cargo door. No one was injured and the students on the bus were unaware of the incident.
Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Treasurer Joe McMullen speaks out for affordable prescription drugs and taxpayer savings as part of a news conference in Albany, NY. The event brought together an unprecedented alliance that includes the American Association of Retired People (AARP), New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), the Business and Labor Coalition of New York (BALCONY), the Public Employees Federation (PEF), Consumers Union, New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) and the Center for Medical Consumers. The alliance is calling on state officials to make prescription drugs more affordable and accessible to New Yorkers through marketing and purchasing reform. CSEA has long supported the idea of using the state's buying power to negotiate the best possible prices for prescription drugs.
Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Rockland County Local Women's Committee members and Rockland County Local President Fritz Ernest at Helen Hayes Hospital in Haverstraw with one of the three portable DVD players they donated to the spinal cord injury unit at the hospital in Haverstraw, NY. Patients from throughout the Northeast who have spinal cord injuries get quality care at Helen Hayes, a state run hospital that employs hundreds of CSEA members.