City Council Staff Union Becomes First Legislative Union In NY State
arrow The City Council staffers union membership cards Courtesy of Zara Nasir
The first sector of New York City Council staffers have been voluntarily recognized as a union, which members say makes it the first legislative staff union in the state.
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson recognized 23 financial analysts as a part of the newly formed Association of Legislative Employees (ALE) earlier this month, according to an announcement released Thursday. The recognition comes following at least two years of organizing by council staffers. This is a historic event because we will be the first legislative union in New York State, Daniel Kroop, a core committee member on the union and senior legislative financial analyst, said in a phone interview. We think that the investment that the union will help us make will ensure institutional and fiscal knowledge stays at the Council. This is a
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It won’t be doomsday for subway riders quite yet, after the MTA
approved a $17 billion budget holding off on the drastic service cuts it has threatened because of its pandemic-induced financial crisis.
Instead, the transit agency’s
budget assumes fingers crossed that it will get a $4.5 billion cash infusion from the federal government. That’s roughly the amount Sen. Chuck Schumer has been
trying to secure for the transit system in recent stimulus bill negotiations. So gone, for now, are the 40 percent reduction in subway service the MTA had proposed. If the money comes through, it would be enough to close the MTA’s deficit for 2021 but still leave an $8 billion deficit in the following years. If it doesn’t come through, the service cuts and large scale layoffs could be resurrected in the new year.