 SAVE OUR PSYCH CENTER — PEF
Division 301 Council Leader Maureen Hogle and PEF Field
Services Director Tom Privitere join in Syracuse protest
vigil. — Photo by Michael Greenlar
PEF fires major
salvos in budget battles for state services
By DENYCE DUNCAN LACY
PEF launched a huge counterattack last month in the
battle to save public services and jobs from state budget
cutters. Armed with weapons from its legal,
political-action and public-relations arsenals, the union
pulled out all the stops to protect New York’s most
vulnerable citizens and more than 1,000 essential jobs.
Union leaders are using legal action, protest
demonstrations, testimony, letter writing, petitions and
advertising campaigns to fight the governor’s budget
proposal to slash state services. The efforts are aimed
at preserving state mental health and research
facilities, as well as the Institute for Basic Research
and the three state University of New York hospitals.
Suing to stop
closures
On March 17, PEF President Roger Benson announced the
union was taking legal action to block the state from
shutting down three state psychiatric centers and two
mental health research facilities, as proposed in the
Executive Budget.
PEF went to state Supreme Court in Albany and gained a
temporary restraining order against the closures of the
Elmira, Middletown and Hutchings Psychiatric Centers and
Nathan S. Kline Institute, and the consolidation of parts
of Nathan Kline with the New York Psychiatric Institute.
The union maintains that state officials are violating
New York’s Mental Hygiene Law, which requires the
state to give 12 months notice before making
“significant service reductions” at psychiatric
facilities. The closures and consolidation were announced
in February and are scheduled to be completed by late
June, 2003.
“These actions by the state are blatant violations
of state law and show complete disregard for the rights
of the mentally ill,” Benson said. “The
closures would disrupt mental health services to
thousands of mentally ill New Yorkers and force the
layoffs of as many as 1,000 state employees. These
actions will also result in irreparable harm to the
employees and communities that provide essential services
to the mentally ill.”
Blocking state
layoffs
PEF’s lawsuit came as the state began implementing
the closure and layoff process at the psychiatric centers
and research facilities. On March 13, the state Office of
Mental Health (OMH) began moving ahead with the closures
and consolidations without waiting for legislative
approval of the budget plan, notifying employees at the
targeted psychiatric centers and mental health research
facilities of the timetable for the shutdowns and
workforce reductions.
Potentially affected employees received agency reduction
forms, known as “blue cards,” and the state
began making decisions about which employees will be
offered “voluntary transfers” to other
psychiatric centers. Staff at Elmira Psychiatric Center
would be offered transfers to Rochester Psychiatric
Center 90 miles away, while staff at Middletown and
Hutchings would have to travel 50 to 60 miles to take
jobs at Rockland or Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center.
Under the state’s timetable, by early June,
employees who would be laid off would receive three weeks
notice. PEF’s lawsuit will temporarily block the
layoffs.
Previous
lawsuits prevailed
Benson noted the state previously tried to close six
other state mental hospitals without providing the
one-year notice, and PEF sued and won — stopping the
closures and cutbacks at Kingsboro, Pilgrim, Creedmoor,
Manhattan, Buffalo and Hudson River Psychiatric Centers.
“State officials know what the law is, and they know
it is designed to protect people with mental illness and
provide for an orderly transition to changes in their
treatment and care,” Benson said. “By flouting
its own laws, the state left us no choice but to sue to
protect and preserve these vital services and the people
who deliver them.”
The state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental
Disabilities (OMRDD) also issued blue cards to its
employees at IBR in Staten Island in mid-March. OMRDD
facilities are not subject to the 12-month notice
requirement of the Mental Hygiene law, but PEF is
continuing to lobby lawmakers and advocate for IBR to
remain open.
Peaceful protest
Hundreds of PEF members from Hutchings Psychiatric Center
took to the streets last month to protest the planned
shutdown of their facility, holding a late afternoon
candlelight vigil and rally outside the State Office
Building in Syracuse.
The protesters lit 128 candles and wore stickers with
numbers to symbolize the number of patients that would be
transferred more than 50 miles away to the Mohawk Valley
Psychiatric Center in Utica.
“The closure of Hutchings and transferring of
patients will make their recovery more difficult by
separating them from their families, friends and other
community supports,” said PEF steward Bob Hogle, a
residential program manager at Hutchings and a leader in
the protest.
“It’s time lawmakers realize the importance of
treating the adults and children who suffer from mental
illness,” Hogle said (pictured left).
“They also should consider the damaging effects on
the Syracuse economy with people losing their jobs or
being forced to move.”
“This closure has too many negative impacts, added
PEF Region 4 Coordinator David Stallone. “Patients
and their families will suffer, more than 300 people will
either be transferred or lose their jobs, and the local
economy will get worse.”
As The Communicator went to press, PEF leaders in
Syracuse were planning another rally to save Hutchings
for March 20, outside the Onondaga County Office
Building. Inside, PEF Vice President Ken Brynien and
Elmira PC Council Leader Dave Porter were to testify on
PEF’s behalf opposing the mental health cutbacks
before the Assembly Standing Committee on Mental Health,
Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities.
 PUBLIC PROTEST — PEF Exec. Board
member Dr. Robert Lowinger (pictured right) tells NY 1 TV
how closing the Bronx and Bronx Children’s
Psychiatric Centers will hurt that community.
Reaching out to
media
The governor’s proposal includes closing the Bronx
and Bronx Children’s Psychiatric Centers in 2005.
Concerned PEF leaders at those facilities held a
legislative breakfast in March where union leaders told
lawmakers and the news media about the need to keep their
hospitals open.
“Bronx Psychiatric Center is the only location in
the state with bilingual wards and programs geared to the
psychiatric and cultural needs of Hispanic patients and
their families,” said PEF Executive Board member and
psychiatrist Dr. Robert Lowinger. “The adult and
children’s hospitals are specifically designed to
treat the heavily minority population from which their
inpatient population derives.”
And PEF members at the Bronx facilities also held press
conferences in February and March to decry the closure
plans, gaining positive media coverage in local and
Spanish-language newspapers and radio stations in New
York City.
PEF nurses at the SUNY hospitals in Brooklyn, Syracuse
and Stony Brook, Long Island began wearing “Not for
sale” buttons in March to fight the Executive Budget
proposal to privatize their facilities. They also began
planning rallies for early April.
 Ad
campaign offers remedy
PEF is also releasing a new PEF broadcast and media campaign as part of its fight to keep the
threatened facilities open and state-operated. Ads began
appearing in The New York Times on March 30 and in
newspapers and on television and radio stations in New
York City, Middletown, Syracuse, Elmira, Rockland and
Long Island. The campaign stresses the critical services
offered by the OMH and OMRDD facilities and the SUNY
hospitals, and they urge the governor and state lawmakers
to make the wealthiest New Yorkers pay more in temporary
taxes to raise needed revenues, instead of slashing state
services.
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COMMUNICATOR HOMEPAGE
Inside This Issue:
Features
PEF fires back in budget
battles for state services
PEF fights to raise state
revenues
Budget cuts leave research
in tatters
Unions may unite in battle
over health benefits
DEC: Polluters’ lackies
can replace state monitors
Departments
President's Message: NYS
budget must be fair
You Said It: Member's
letters this month
Health & Safety:
Evaluating your safety risks
Member Mobilization:
Building Survivor Skills
Nurses' Station: Lobby Day
plans for May 5th
Retirees In Action: Fight
health insurance hike
PEF Membership Benefits
Program & Travel Corp
Members In Action
Union Matters
'Operation Enduring Freedom'
with state workers
DOH members ahead in
evacuation planning
Call for Delegates: Annual
Convention Rules
Member dons dress to raise
$$ for charity
Other Links
Professional Directory
Members' Classified
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