Public Employee Press

At Dept. of Environmental Protection
Local 1320 members win with
Contracting IN

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

Sewage Treatment Workers and Senior STWs in Local 1320 beat out private contractors on a $149,000 project to replace worn sump pumps at the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Harlem.

"We have a longstanding tradition of contracting in Department of Environmental Protection projects where we bid against outside contractors for the work," said Local 1320 President Jim Tucciarelli.

Steve Askew, a Plant Superintendant and Senior Stationary Engineer in Electrical Workers Local 3, compiled the winning bid, estimating the work hours, crew sizes, wages and equipment needed. "I'm totally confident in the staff's ability to do the work well and complete it within the allotted time and costs," he said.

Savings and safety

Working on premium time for three consecutive Saturdays, two crews of Local 1320 and Local 3 members removed 25 old, worn-out pumps in the plant's floor drains and installed new ones.

"Faulty sump pumps create workplace safety and health issues," explained Tucciarelli. Sump pumps remove contaminated water where mosquitoes that spread West Nile virus and other diseases could breed. They also create pooling of water on floors, which can cause slips and falls.

DEP annually schedules a number of jobs for private contractors and limits bidding by unionized staff to projects under $1 million, Tucciarelli said, "but by winning the bids we can tap into DEP's capital budget and acquire tools and materials that we can use to keep more work in-house."

Staff is better, faster

The union members have a home-court advantage over outside contractors. "This is our livelihood. We know the facility better than anyone, so we can do the work faster and more efficiently," Tucciarelli said. When outside contractors cut corners or don't work up to standard, DEP relies on its municipal employees to correct their mistakes. "It is better for the city to use us from the beginning - less screw-ups," he added.

"There is always specialty work that will have to be contracted out," Askew noted. "But routine maintenance work is well within the capabilities of municipal employees, and the city gets the jobs done by DEP employees for less than a contractor would get," he said. Because contractors have to pay prevailing wages on these projects, they can't save on labor costs, but they include profits in what they bill the city.

Keep work in-house

DEP and the locals have had the bidding policy in place for a long time, Tucciarelli explained. Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith renamed the policy "managed competition," which plays private-sector unions against in-house unions. "We are not competing with the construction trades, but we are here to do our jobs well," Tucciarelli said.

The locals anticipate contracting in more work as DEP realizes the economic and productivity benefits of raising the artificial limit imposed on the in-house unions.