By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

In a settlement between DC 37 and the Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development, six Local 375 members who were mandated to wear beepers and respond to emergencies were awarded $8,500 each in back wages and other compensation for standby duty.

“For years we carried beepers as a team effort during the winter months,” said John Presack, a former Construction Project Manager Level 2. “It was a courtesy to the city. Then a new deputy commissioner came along and expanded emergency duty to summer months. I stayed home and waited by the phone. I couldn’t enjoy time at my country house in Vermont. It cut into vacations and became a real problem year-round.”

Emergency Duty
What began a decade ago as an innocent call for teamwork became an around-the-clock emergency watch using beepers to cuff six Level 2 Construction Project Managers to their desks, long after their day at the HPD office ended.
As maintenance managers, the six responded to emergencies in the 3,000 city-owned buildings managed by HPD. If a building collapsed or caught fire or essential services—gas, heat, electricity, water—were disrupted, or any time the police or fire departments were called, the CPMs responded to secure the building and insure tenants’ safety.

Labor and management agree that the responsibility covers 24-hours, seven-days. But management said the six were on “beeper duty,” which the citywide contract allows without compensation. HPD had the best of both worlds, saddling the six with restrictive emergency duty but paying nothing beyond their 40-hour workweek. The policy was short-circuited when DC 37 filed a grievance.

After he spent his weekend off fishing upstate, management threatened to write up HPD newcomer Joe Martinez for being unreachable in an emergency. Shocked, Mr. Martinez pressed for an explanation. After four months and no answer from HPD, he called the union.

Local 375 Grievance Rep Michelle Keller, Research and Negotiations Associate Director Evelyn Seinfeld and DC 37 lawyer Melissa Brown brought the confounding case first to the Office of Labor Relations, then to arbitration. Since workers clearly were restricted in their ability to travel, DC 37 contended the six were actually on standby duty and therefore entitled to standby pay, half their hourly pay rate.

“Standby duty differs from beeper duty in several ways,” explained Ms. Brown. When an agency puts its workers on beeper duty, management can go down the list, calling employees until someone becomes available. No one gets paid extra for wearing a beeper.

Standby duty requires the designated employee to respond and be available for work at any time. “Travel is restricted and the employee can be subject to disciplinary action for not being available — two critical factors that made this case unique,” she said.

The arbitrator urged the city to settle the case with the union in December. The settlement is not a legal precedent, and clarification of the contract language will be part of Local 375’s contract negotiations.

“We’re grateful the union took on this issue,” Mr. Martinez said. “We no longer have an abusive beeper scenario hanging over us.”