Public Employee Press

Local 1505 City Park Workers win cash in out-of-title cases

If union members don’t read their job descriptions carefully, they might find themselves doing all sorts of out-of-title work and not getting paid for it.

Just ask City Park Workers Lewis Zuniga and Ruby McLain, Local 1505 members who recently won grievances over their work assignments.

At the World’s Fair Marina in Queens, a city park, Mr. Zuniga’s supervisors had him performing the duties of a dockworker. He was pumping water out of boats and pulling them out of the water with a huge forklift. None of these job duties are included in the CPW job specification.

After rejecting his grievance at earlier steps of the procedure, management settled the case just as the union was about to bring it to arbitration. Mr. Zuniga won a settlement of $550 followed by a transfer and a promotion.

Ms. McLain was handling the supervisory duties of a WEP Crew Chief in addition to her own job at Kings Park in Queens. The local filed a grievance with the help of DC 37 Rep Anthony Mammalello. Management agreed to pay her the $758 difference between her CPW salary and the minimum salary of a WEP Crew Chief for the time covered by the grievance.

“It’s important for members to check with their shop stewards if they think there’s a discrepancy,” said Arthur Elmore, the Local 1505 steward involved with both cases.

“The agency has no right to tell members that they can’t file a grievance,” said Local President Michael Hood. “Members have the right to file grievances, and when they do the union will be right there fighting with them until we win.”