Public Employee Press

For City Park Workers:
Heavy-duty assignments bring extra pay



Local 1505 settled a grievance in September that puts an extra $1,600 in the pockets of each of five Queens City Parks Workers after management assigned them heavy-duty work with no additional compensation.

"This is a constant problem for our members," said Local President Dilcy Benn. "Parks claims they have no money to hire or promote workers, so they give CPWs out-of-title work." Not long after this case was resolved, Benn filed another grievance for these members because Parks continued to assign them the same work. "I have no problem at all doing the extra work," said Chris Bristole, a CPW with four years' experience. "But I should get paid for it. That's only fair."

The Parks Dept. knew Bristole has a commercial driver's license and used him to truck tons of asphalt to Queens parks, where he and four other CPWs filled potholes and patched walkways. They also mended and installed fences and guardrails and prepped baseball fields, using jackhammers, tractors and front-end loaders.

Managers never offered the CPWs formal training or hands-on supervision for these duties, which are usually done by Associate Parks Service Workers paid $7,000 more a year than the CPWs. The practice went on for over two years.

After reading in PEP about Bronx CPWs who won extra pay for out-of-title work, the five contacted Benn, who with Blue Collar Division Rep Tony Mammalello took the grievance to Step 3 before reaching the settlement that gives each worker the difference in pay between the two job titles for three months, or about $1,600.

"Parks managers have promised to hire workers in the higher-paid titles, but until that actually happens, we will keep filing grievances so members are paid for the work they're doing," said Mammalello.

"A lot of CPWs do a lot of work that goes beyond their job specifications," said Benn. "Every time Parks does this, we are going to get our members the money they deserve."