Ferrer Refuses to Get Specific on Union Jobs
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The Democratic mayoral candidate, Fernando Ferrer, won’t say whether he supports making 25,000 home health care workers city employees at a cost to taxpayers of up to $1 billion.
Mr. Ferrer yesterday received the endorsement of Service Employees International Union/Local 1199, which wants to organize the workers. The New York Post reported Monday, and the Bloomberg campaign has since confirmed, that the union was asking for the expansion of the city payroll as a condition for its endorsement.
Mr. Ferrer and the union president, Dennis Rivera, said yesterday only that no “specific” agreement was made between the two of them.
“Bloomberg has done a fantastic job in trying to dampen the enthusiasm behind the endorsement of Fernando Ferrer,” Mr. Rivera told cheering union members and staffers at the union’s West 43rd Street headquarters.
“The reality is that we do not have any kind of specific agreement with Ferrer,” Mr. Rivera said. “We have a commitment on his part that he will work with us to try to find a solution to deal with the problems of health care workers and all the workers in New York City.”
Mr. Ferrer, who beat out three rivals to get the Democratic mayoral nomination, echoed the union leader’s comments when asked about a quid pro quo agreement. The commitment, he said, was to “work every day to make their lives better.”
When asked whether Mr. Ferrer would turn the home-care workers, who now are employed by predominantly nonprofit city contractors, into city workers with public employee wages and benefits, a spokeswoman for his campaign, Christy Setzer, issued a statement that did not rule out anything.
“Home health care workers need a better deal and better working conditions,” she said. “He’s going to work together with 1199 to find real solutions to delivering good jobs with a living wage and decent benefits.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Ferrer attacked Mr. Bloomberg for not committing to scheduled debates. “Don’t depend on a $100 million campaign,” a red-faced Mr. Ferrer shouted to sign-waving supporters. “Come on out and go mano a mano with me!”
The Democrat called on the mayor – who is not required to participate in debates because he does not accept public money for his campaign – to “stand up and defend your policies.”
A senior Bloomberg campaign adviser, William Cunningham, has said the mayor will participate in two debates and that staffers were simply determining where and when they would take place. But Mr. Cunningham took issue with Mr. Ferrer’s phrasing regarding the lack of a “specific” agreement with the union over bringing the home-care workers onto the public payroll. He called on Mr. Ferrer to be more up front about whether he agreed to the union’s demand in exchange for its backing.
“That’s a very interesting use of language,” Mr. Cunningham said during a phone interview. “He should tell voters right now whether or not he supports hiring 25,000 more city workers, paying them salaries, paying them benefits, paying them pension costs, and absorbing that into a city budget that we know has a $4 billion deficit looming for next year.”
Mr. Cunningham said mayoral staffers rebuffed the union’s requests to make home health care workers “part of the city’s work force” as far back as February. The campaign, he said, shot it down for a final time last Tuesday, the day of the Democratic primary.
“Once again they were told it wasn’t going to fly,” he said. “At that point, apparently, they felt free to talk to Ferrer.”
The union’s endorsement is expected to give Mr. Ferrer’s campaign thousands of foot soldiers who will portray the election as an important one and help get out voters, especially in the low-income minority communities. Mr. Rivera said he was “angry” at the Bloomberg camp’s attempt to “cast doubts” on the endorsements. “Please believe that we don’t get mad, we get even,” he said.
Mr. Ferrer billed himself as the candidate willing to fight for working-class people who have been left behind despite the city’s prosperity. As he has at churches in the past, he championed himself as the biblical David to Mr. Bloomberg’s multi-billionaire Goliath. David, he said, “had no muscles, no tattoos, no shining armor.”
“All he had was smooth stones and the rest was history,” Mr. Ferrer shouted to union members. “1199, all 200,000 of you, you are my smooth stones! With your smooth stones, we will win.”