AFSCME Fights For New York City Workers' Right to Live Ouside City

The New York Sun reports:

The city's largest public employees union, District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is pressing the City Council to join Mayor Bloomberg in ending a residency rule that requires 45,000 of the union's members to live in New York City.

But the proposal is facing fierce opposition from the usually labor-friendly City Council. Some council members say city jobs should be reserved for city residents.

Union leaders have argued it is unfair to force employees to stretch their salaries to pay for costly housing in the city when there are more affordable options available in the outlying areas. They propose that their members be allowed to leave the city and reside in the counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, and Putnam and aren't taking the council's resistance lightly.

The union indicated earlier this year that stances on the residency question will be crucial for City Council members seeking union support in upcoming elections.

"Our patience is running out," the union's executive director, Lillian Roberts, said yesterday. "We are very, very serious about this. It is going to impact anyone who can't understand they are hurting us."

Critics of the proposal say it would make it more difficult for New Yorkers to land city jobs, since they would be competing against applicants not only from the city, but from the six surrounding counties. Some council members consider the jobs a ticket to the middle class.

"It dries up employment opportunities for the people in New York City. It makes the field much more competitive," a council member who represents Harlem, Robert Jackson, said. "I don't want people from outside to be taking city jobs."

You might say the demand for city real estate is kind of artificially coerced.We don't usually agree with AFSCME but here we do.City politicians want a captive group of workers who will vote to keep them in office.Where someone lives,has little to do with job performance.