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“The president [Gayle Horwitz] came in and said there would be a mass termination,” according to one staff member. “She instructed everyone to go back to their cubicles. She said that if you got an envelope, you had until 12 noon to leave the premises.”
“There were four, huge, scary security people there,” another employee said. “The entire staff was traumatized — even the people who didn’t get fired. Everybody was very shaken because nobody knew what this was about, but clearly something horrible was happening.”
A woman from human resources was delegated to walk around the office handing out envelopes with a letter of termination. “She was like the Angel of Death,” said one staff member who was let go. “She walked by some people and stopped at others, handing them an envelope. It was all public. Everyone knew. People were screaming and crying.”
“When I received my envelope, I broke down. I was hysterical,” said another staff member. “I had never been fired. I live check to check. I’m the sole provider in my house. I take care of my mother. She just had surgery. She has to have more surgery in January.”
Nineteen people were fired that day — amounting to about one third of the Battery Park City Authority’s staff. Those who were let go had worked for the Authority anywhere from four to 28 years. Most had been with the Authority for more than 10 years. Two were within a few months of being vested in the pension plan.
There was no severance pay. In addition, the people who were fired were told that their health benefits would expire on Nov. 30. One of those fired, who lives by herself and has no one to care for her, has had a kidney transplant and requires daily medications to stay alive. Another had had a triple bypass heart operation. Several of those terminated had ill family members who were covered by their health plans.
Among those fired were four single parents who are the sole support of their families.
Anne Fenton, a spokesman for the Battery Park City Authority, issued a statement to explain what had happened that said, “In an effort to meet its ongoing mission of ensuring a community of quality commercial, residential and park space, the Battery Park City Authority has restructured its operations including the consolidation of certain departments and functions. This restructuring will better position the Authority to meet its operational challenges moving forward.”
When asked directly, Fenton would not proffer an explanation as to why the terminated employees received no severance pay or any advance notice so that they could seek other employment. She said that her statement was the B.P.C.A.’s only comment.
“I understand that they had to restructure,” said one woman who was let go after more than a decade of working in Battery Park City. “We all knew that was potentially coming, but just the way it was done and how [it was done] are unprofessional in my opinion and it hurts. It was like they just wiped their hands of us and threw us in the trash. Thanksgiving is coming up and Christmas. They had no regard. It was like, so what?”
She said that with the holidays around the corner and with a 9 percent unemployment rate, she feared that it would be months at best before she could find another job.
“I’m just heartbroken at the way we were treated,” said another woman. “Some of these people spent their entire careers at the Authority and they’re not young people. After a lifetime of service, you’re thrown out in an hour and a half?”
“I feel worse than an animal,” one man said, who had been with the Authority for almost 20 years and had won many awards for his work. “What did I do wrong? What did we do wrong? We made the Authority what it is. The Authority gave a lot of money to the City through our efforts.”
Some entire departments were eliminated. There is no longer a planning department at the Battery Park City Authority. Should structural changes be requested in Battery Park City buildings such as those recently proposed by Brookfield Properties at 2 World Financial Center, there will be no one on staff to vet them. The most senior member of the construction department was fired. Senior members of the legal department who had negotiated contracts with Goldman Sachs and others were let go. Only one member of the Human Resources department remains.
“This is a catastrophe for many, many people,” said one member of the management team who was terminated. “I also think it’s a catastrophe for the Battery Park City community. You can’t walk down those streets and not see how beautiful it is, and you love the place and you want the best for it. I don’t think in the long run this is the best for it.”
“Most of the institutional knowledge has been pushed out the door,” said another terminated manager.
“I would like to think the board was not aware of the manner in which this was carried out,” said James Cavanaugh, who was president of the B.P.C.A. from 2005 to 2010.
“The B.P.C.A. has had an extremely good year and an extremely good 40 years. The employees who were terminated contributed to that. And I think that when one gives many years, and in some cases an entire career, to an organization, they deserve more than a kick in the pants on their way out the door. If a decision was made to downsize, given the fact that the Authority made $10 million this year more than they anticipated, they could have taken a little bit of that and softened the blow, particularly going into the holiday season.”
Cavanaugh continued, “These are single parents with kids, people with enormous medical needs. These are people who are going to have trouble finding jobs because many of them are middle-aged or older – this is going to be very, very tough for all of them. One or two of them were within months of qualifying for retirement. Now, of course, they won’t be able to retire.”
The 19 terminated employees are trying to help each other weather this crisis. Not wanting to be identified by name because all of them are seeking jobs, they have selected Hector Calderon, who formerly operated the Community Center and the ball fields, to speak for them. They call themselves the “Battery Park City 19.”
“The B.P.C.A. 19 request that the members of the Battery Park City Authority Board provide them with severance and medical benefits commensurate with their long term and valuable contributions to the Authority and the Battery Park City community,” Calderon said in a statement.
Calderon referenced the fact that the 19 employees had been “summarily dismissed without severance or proper instruction about how to continue their health benefits, which they were told would terminate on 11/30/11. The B.P.C.A. 19 believe that the board will rectify this injustice once circumstances surrounding their termination are brought to light.”
On Thursday, Nov. 17, at 6:45 p.m., Gayle Horwitz, president of the B.P.C.A., has scheduled a town hall meeting at P.S. 276, located at 55 Battery Place, so residents of Battery Park City can air comments and complaints. The B.P.C.A. 19 hope that the topic of the layoffs and how they were carried out will come up at that meeting.
In the meantime, the best answer that anyone has been able to give about the timing of the layoffs references B.P.C.A. Chairman William C. Thompson, Jr.’s mayoral ambitions.
“He wants to burnish his credentials,” one person said, “ and show that he can cut costs and be a tough manager. That’s what’s going on here.”
