....March 9, 5:04 PM
 
 
   
That Six-letter Word And Beating The Bush

By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

That six-letter word, “reform”!

So they tell me the reform show is over. The initial push to cosmetically reform the New York State Legislature has disappeared from those Albany hallowed halls.

In reality, a true effort to reform was never present. But after the pounding taken by the members as a result of pages like this declaring that NY had the worst Legislature in the nation, and finally the Brennan Commission giving our position the “official” stamp of approval, legislative leadership decided to play the shell game. They were going to “reform” – or make it look that way.

One on-time budget – ignoring the essential issue of the court-ordered Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) resolution – and a couple of cosmetic fixes, and now, the Legislature is back to abysmal business as usual.

There is talk of the possibility of another late budget this year. They will again disregard the most important issue to our city — the CFE. The Albany culture continues with questionable behaviors, uncontrolled lobbying, and void of membership input.

In Albany, Reform is just a six letter word, and it is never spoken for fear of reprisal.

You think I’m just ranting?

Ask your Assemblyman and State Senator if they read the bills they vote on? Do they even know what each bill is really about? Or do they merely press the “yes” button when they are told to?

“Reform” is just not happening up there.

Let us know you care. Let your legislators know you’re fed up.

And come back and visit this page weekly.
We’re not giving up.

OLYMPIC SPORT
Okay, the Winter Olympics have been over for a couple of weeks now, but I can’t get one image out of my mind.
No, it’s not the grace on ice exhibited by Sasha Cohen; nor is it Bode’s bungling, nor the speed of the skeleton track or the soaring ski jumps. Above and beyond the grace, the athleticism, the endurance, the pageantry, there was the curling.

That big polished stone, sliding down the ice with two supermarket floorsweepers on speed blazing the path, was just too much for me to pass on.

These guys — or gals — get the same gold medals as the real athletes who compete. The hockey team, the biathlete, the cross country skier, the snowboarding hotdogs, Apollo Ohno, got the same metallic donut as the folks who played shuffleboard on ice.

The ancient Scottish sport dates back to at least 1511. People curling on ice can be seen in the work of 16th century Dutch master Pieter Bruegel.

Curling, occasionally referred to as “chess on ice,” is touted as a game of skill and control.

Next Olympics maybe they’ll try bingo.

BUSH LEAGUE
I don’t claim expertise in foreign affairs or even U.S. Port Security. I am not bad in the area of public relations and I’ve always felt critical thinking was one of my talents.

The first mention of the administration’s plans to turn over the operation’s of six ports, including the ports of New York, New Jersey and others, to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates, caused my head to spin.

“Stupid!” was my initial reaction. “Very, very stupid!”
I was glad to see New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton and my friend Gary Ackerman (who serves as Ranking Dem on the House International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East) yelling similar things.

This one goes on the all-time list of presidential blunders.

BUSH LEAGUE, TOO!
And then there is the tale of the tape – the Katrina Tape.
The Dems have their first opportunity in lots of years to mount a campaign to take back the Congress. In the past, the Republicans have demonstrated they can go for the jugular. The Dems have demonstrated they can fumble.

We have witnessed sacrificial lamb Michael Brown – “Brownie, you’re doin’ one heck of a job” – telling the Prez and Homeland Security chief Chartock that the levees might break, the below sea-level Superdome roof may not withstand Cat 5 hurricane winds and this writer heard a call for help. That was before Katrina hit.

Contrary to previous reports, the White House knew, the President knew, and they blew it – blew it big time.

As November Congressional elections approach, the Democratic Party can seize the opportunity and take the debate to the Republicans. It is time to condemn the administration’s handling of Katrina and repudiate their ill-conceived plan to allow our ports to be controlled by those who may not protect our future.

If the party of the people has ever had a chance to recapture the Congress, the time is now. Can they mobilize or will they allow this opportunity to pass them by?
Call your member of Congress and tell them to fight the administration like your life depends on it.

Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.

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Prevailing Wage Law: Protecting Workers’ Rights

Trib Publisher Michael Schenkler and NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson. Jr.
By WILLIAM THOMPSON, JR.

For more than two years, an experienced electrical worker from the Bronx named Mr. Lebron – he prefers not to use his first name – installed and repaired telephone and data cables at the offices of a large City agency. All the while, his employer – a private company known as Netexit – shortchanged him for the work he was doing. In fact, the company was paying him less than half the wages he should have received.

Sound familiar? Unfortunately, Mr. Lebron’s situation is not rare. Responsible contractors do right by their workers, but unscrupulous ones may go to great lengths to avoid paying their workers a fair wage or providing benefits. Many workers don’t want to risk losing their jobs, so they remain silent, and others are not familiar with the regulations concerning fair pay. Workers in the immigrant community are particularly vulnerable to this type of abuse.

But in New York State, we have a powerful tool to help ensure that workers get paid what they deserve: it’s called Prevailing Wage, and it’s the law.

The law says that contractors – and subcontractors – doing work for a City agency must pay fair wages and, in many cases, provide benefits to the workers they employ. My office is charged with setting a fair rate for different types of work. We are also responsible for catching employers that don’t comply, and winning back wages for workers that have been underpaid.

In Mr. Lebron’s case, our efforts paid off – literally.
Last month, my office reached a settlement of nearly $1.5 million with Netexit for Mr. Lebron and 15 of his co-workers. The settlement – which represents the wages they were not paid – will be distributed among them.

This is the second largest settlement in a Prevailing Wage case in the City’s history and the largest settlement since I took office in 2002.

What happened? In this case, the company won a large contract to do telecommunications work at numerous worksites of the New York City Human Resources Administration. This meant it was required to comply with Prevailing Wage laws. Instead, the company tried to cut corners.

But they didn’t get away with it. The workers filed a complaint, and when it came to the attention of my office, we conducted a full investigation. We found that workers had received a technician’s rate and little or no overtime or benefits for a period of two years, even though they had actually performed work as electricians. They should have been paid an electrician’s rate – more than twice as much – and received benefits.

We confronted Netexit, but the company did not want to pay. The company even filed for bankruptcy to avoid having to pay up. But my office fought back. We pursued the case in United States Bankruptcy Court, and the court ruled in our favor last year. It was a long battle – as many of these cases are – because the company went to such great lengths to evade the law, but in the end, Netexit had nowhere to hide. And as a result, 16 workers will now get the money they are owed.

This incident is only one of hundreds of similar Prevailing Wage cases that my office pursues each year. Over the past four years, 612 cases have been closed, and my office has collected nearly $6 million in underpayments.

We’re pleased with our results, but we want to do more. To help spread the word about Prevailing Wage laws, my office has issued a new series of bilingual flyers to educate workers in a variety of fields – including bricklayers, carpenters, electricians, painters, plumbers, security guards, and sheet metal workers – about their rights.

I urge anyone who is interested in learning more, or anyone who is working on a city government project and not being paid fairly, to call my office at (212) 669-4443. We also have posted complaint forms on line at www.comptroller.nyc.gov.

Please note that it doesn’t matter if you are a citizen or not, or what your immigration status is, and that complaints can be filed anonymously.

Prevailing Wage laws help ensure that people are paid fairly and equitably. They make it harder for unscrupulous contractors to try to cheat immigrant workers out of the pay they deserve. And they help create a level playing field for contractors who play by the rules and pay their workers fairly. Prevailing Wage laws are about helping hardworking people and creating a better New York for all of us. I am proud to enforce them, and I am proud to help working New Yorkers get the wages they deserve.

William C. Thompson, Jr. is New York City’s 42nd Comptroller.

Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato
Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.