ince the act was passed in 1947 thar the ‘city has ever applied its provisions for automatic dismissal of public workers who strike The strikers are demanding higher pay and working conditions which will permit them 10 do a better job for the. city’s half-million welfare cases. The walkout was called by the Social. Service Employees (SSE) and Local 371 of the AFL-CIO State, County and Municipal Employees. The strike action’ was originally sparked by the SSE, an independent union formed by dissident members of Local 371. It recently won an election to replace Local 371 as bargaining agent for the Welfare Department’s 6,000 social investigators. Many of these are young college graduates. The AFL-CIO union still bargains for the 4,500 clerical and supervisory employees. Despite the rivalry, strike solidarity has so far been achieved with the unions pledged to each other’s picket lines. The strike began in the face of a judge’s restraining order and the threat of the Condon-Wadlin Act. The New York Labour movement has traditionally been bitterly opposed to the Act and the Democratic Party has promised to repeal it. Nevertheless, the Democratic Party cry administration applied the acr Jan $, the evening of the second day of the strike, dismissing 5.398 workers whose names had up to that time been turned over to the city comptroller’s office, City officials admitted thar 90 per cent of the social investigators and at least half the clerical and supervisory workers stayed out the first strike day. Picket line morale was high and even more stayed ourthe second day. Some pickets carried: placards headed “Fink List”: and ‘Scab List’ -with: names.of workers who crossed the. picketr line: OD 24. -7r9ltud
Aside from wages, the chief grievance is the huge case load. It is supposed to be 60 cases per investigator but often runs up.to go. The SSE is demanding a reduction to 500. cases and additional help to eliminate overloading. The city administration refuses to negotiate the key working conditions issue. The unions point out that working conditions and frustrations of not being able to handle the case load properly are so bad that the yearly turnover of social workers is 40 per cent. The daily press, which is usually engaged in a campaign to make welfare harder to obtain, has suddenly begun to shed crocodile tears for the city’s needy. An editorial in the Jan. 4 ‘New York Times’ demanded that the city invoke the Condon-Wadlin Act, replace the strikers and break the strike “‘in fairness to the most deprived of New York’s citizens.” At the picketed welfare centres, however, relief applicants express sympathy for the strikers, Brooklyn CORE and other social-action groups sent members to march on the picket lines. So did the Seafarers International Union, AFL- (o3(@) Ed Note: A leaflet issued by the Social Services Employees Union reads:—
everyone should know that the inefficient operauion of the Welfare Department and the disorganisation caused by staff turnover results in daily suffermeg for thousands of people including old people and children. This is the suffering we are trying to end. We want to help people, not just perpetuate their misery. We want to be able to rehabilitate our clients, not encourage people toward_independence}, not just-sendrchecks, We are asking for a salary scale that puts a premium on experience. We are asking for lower caseloads and for better working conditions. We are asking for an end to overcrowding in the children’s shelters, and an end to staff overwork there, that deprives children of the individual. care they so badly need.
We urge you to support our fight
for a Welfare Department that can
really do the job it is supposed to do.
If you want to help, contact:
Social Service Employees’ Union,
Department of Welfare,
408 Jay Street,
Brooklyn, New York.”
Messages of support from British
trade unionists would be very wel-
come.