Rec and Park Workers Anticipating Pink Slip Announcement at Meeting Today

Will the Empire at least provide him with COBRA?

​Last week we wrote about angst rippling through the city's Recreation and Park Department over imminent layoffs.

This week, scores of recreation directors and assistant rec supervisors -- the two classes of employees even the union confirms are facing mass layoffs and restructuring -- have been summoned for a Wednesday afternoon meeting with department director Phil Ginsburg.

"Well, this is ominous," deadpanned one Rec and Park employee.

Just what will happen at today's meeting will be apparent soon enough. But department employees we spoke with anticipate they'll be told that they'll all soon receive pink slips and will be encouraged to apply for whatever reformulated positions Ginsburg, the union, and department employees have hammered out.

Last week, SEIU organizer Margot Reed confirmed that $2 million worth of salaries will be dropped from the department via layoffs. When asked at the time if the recreation directors and assistant supervisors -- the folks attending today's meeting -- will be liquidated, she answered "The model of having rec directors and rec assistant supervisors -- it's fair to say it's going to change."

That change may start today. "There's going to be, for lack of a better word, some fireworks," said one department employee.

Update, 3:20 p.m. -- We got a hold of a longtime department employee who attended today's meeting. He outlined Rec and Park's proposal thusly: The scores of workers in attendance will be made to apply for 10 new supervisorial positions, 48 assistant supervisor positions, or 50 to 60 rec director positions that may be either full- or part-time. The longtime worker was nervous that those who'd butted heads with management in the past will be discreetly shown the door in the future. "Everyone in that room was scared," the worker said.

Image   |   Via John Gushue