Public Employee Press

200 City Parks Workers go from seasonal to year-round
With a boost from the union

"If anyone ever deserved a chance at full-time, year-round employment, the longtime dedicated seasonals did." —Local 1505 President Dilcy Benn

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

More than 200 seasonal Local 1505 members became full-time City Parks Workers in April after DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts and Local 1505 President Dilcy Benn convinced the Parks Dept. to put the experienced workers at the top of the hiring list.

When the city budget was announced at the end of January, Benn learned that the Dept. of Parks and Recreation would be hiring more than 400 CPWs, who were to be drawn from a pool of Jobs Training Program Participants - welfare recipients who worked at cleaning city parks in the six-month program.

Benn: "What about seasonals?"

Benn asked: "What about our local's seasonal members?"

"We have members who have worked seasonally - three-, six- and nine-month stints - for years. Many of them have been working for the Parks Department for five or more years and more than a few for 20 years - that's a career," she said. "If anyone deserved a chance at full-time, year-round employment, they did."

Although Benn was recuperating from major surgery, she called DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts and the two requested a meeting with Parks management. They negotiated for the seasonal CPWs to get a fair chance to apply and interview for the full-time civil service jobs. From her sickbed Benn sent a mass email, using the latest iPhone technology to alert her executive board and seasonal members that Parks was hiring full-time CPWs and urge them to submit their resumés.

"I also tapped my executive board and they took fliers to each work location throughout the city," she said.

In a two-week whirlwind of activity, she collected hundreds of resumés. One came from Alfred Foskey, a steady worker with top evaluations who had toiled as a seasonal CPW for more than 14 years.

"He was passed over seven years ago when the Parks Department hired full-timers," said Benn, who arranged for PEP to interview Foskey.

"My wife told me to stick with it, something would change," Foskey said. "It finally did. We lived all those years on half a job. It was better than nothing." The Foskeys have two children, ages 10 and 20, with the oldest in college.

"I went to work every day because my wife encouraged me. I am just sad she didn't live to see me get this job," he said, wiping away tears. Foskey's wife of 22 years, Danette Walker Foskey, died in March, a month before he attended an orientation for new full-time employees at a Parks Dept. site on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Orientations had to be scheduled every two hours to accommodate the massive hiring. Of 27 CPWs at one session, 75 percent had been seasonals for five or more years. Like Foskey, they happily went from six-month assignments to full-time jobs paying about $34,000 a year. Each must complete a year's probation.

Benn praised Roberts for throwing the power of DC 37 into the quest for justice for the longtime seasonals and thanked Parks Labor Relations Director Joe Tremble and Deputy Commissioner David Starks for putting the dedicated Local 1505 members first. The Parks jobs are funded through the Office of Management and Budget with mayoral funds, Tremble said.

Benn said, "I am so glad Parks willingly worked with us and treated our members fairly."