Public Employee Press

Parks workers settle on seasonal step

DC 37 settled a group grievance against the Dept. of Parks and Recreation that gives Assistant Parks Service Workers (APSWs) preference for seasonal promotions to Parks Supervisor, Level 1.

"The union fought to change the Parks Dept.'s longstanding hiring and promotion practices that denied APSWs the seasonal step-up," said Robert Gervasi, a Blue Collar Division council rep who filed the step 3 grievance in 2013 on behalf of 12 APSWs in Local 983.

DC 37 Assistant General Counsel Jesse Gribben handled the case, which was resolved in July and compensates the members who had filed the grievance.

The union charged that Parks continually passed over APSWs in violation of Article VI, Section 8 of the Blue Collar contract and ignored its own hiring practices agreement, specifically Section V of a 1986 step-up procedures guideline that says, "It is inappropriate for employees to jump two or three positions."

"For too long Parks bypassed APSWs and promoted less experienced, less qualified workers allowing them to jump two or three ranks to become seasonal Level 1 Parks Supervisors," said Local 983 President Joe Puleo. "Some of them didn't even have a driver's license, which is a job requirement."

Seasonal Parks Supervisors oversee the influx of extra summer workers at public parks, pools and beaches. When the summer season ends, they go back to their civil service title.

"Parks got over," Puleo said, "by exploiting workers in lower titles because if they were capable of doing supervisory work, why weren't they promoted to permanent positions?"

"The practice may have put a few dollars in the paychecks of City Parks Workers, but the income was short-lived and unstable," Puleo said. "They were only getting a seasonal step-up instead of being able to move up the Parks Dept. chain of command."

Under the new Office of Labor Relations agreement between DC 37 and Parks, the agency must give APSWs preference; give the union a list of rankings and grid scores of all promotional candidates, and meet with the union to explain the scores.

"The 12 who came forward to file this grievance really stood up for everyone else in the title," Gervasi said.

"This new agreement stops Parks management from circumventing the civil service system and playing favorites, and ends the animosity and resentment created when employees are passed over," Puleo said.

— Diane S. Williams