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PEP Feb 2006
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Public Employee Press

Local 1157 rains on DOT’s snow job

An impartial arbitrator froze the Dept. of Transportation’s attempt to give Local 1157 Supervisors a snow job about overtime pay for emergency snow removal.

The decision put a day’s pay in the pockets of 15 Supervisors.

“It was unfair that the agency changed Supervisors’ shifts to avoid paying overtime,” said Local President Mickey McFarland, who filed the grievance with Blue Collar Rep Bill Fenty and DC 37 attorney Alan Brown.

The union maintained that the Citywide Contract allows Local 1157 members who sign up for 12-hour shifts of emergency snow removal after their normal 8-hour shift to get time-and-a-half pay for the additional hours worked.

DOT’s federal excuse
But in January and March of 2004, DOT management used a federal law mandating rest for heavy-duty truck drivers to justify changing the longstanding policy to all but eliminate overtime pay for snow removal.

“Past practice went out the window when the agency suddenly got this brainstorm to change the shifts, cheat members out of overtime pay and blame it on federal safety laws,” McFarland said.

Brown argued that safety was not the issue and the federal act did not apply because although the Local 1157 Supervisors are required to have a commercial driver’s license, as Supervisors they don’t actually drive heavy-duty trucks.

Contract violation
“To change tours of duty to avoid overtime pay is unethical and violates the Citywide Contract and the Section 220 prevailing rate consent determination,” said Fenty.

The arbiter agreed with the union that DOT violated the collective bargaining agreement when it suspended the contract provisions to recalculate how Local 1157 Supervisors accrue overtime pay. DOT was ordered to pay the members according to past practice. As PEP went to press, Local 1157 and DOT were negotiating the terms of compensation.

 
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