Public Employee Press

Layoffs DOA at mortuary

In its ongoing drive to save vital city services and members' jobs, DC 37 recently averted layoffs of five Mortuary Techs at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

"DC 37 took a strong stand against the layoffs and the assistant commissioner was cooperative," said Michele Trester, an assistant director in DC 37's Research and Negotiations Dept.

The testimony of Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch before the City Council Health Committee on March 28 was the linchpin of the effort to save the Mortuary Techs' jobs, according to DC 37 Hospitals Division Grievance Rep Sharon Bankhead.

Hirsch said officials had used an archaic state health law listing medical examiner services as optional as an excuse to eliminate $16 million from OCME's budget and eliminate employees.

On May 19, DC 37, Local 420 and other unions met with OCME management to press the case against 11 planned firings, including eight DC 37 members. As a result, one computer worker transferred to the Dept. of Education, two Institutional Aides bumped two other IAs elsewhere in the Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene, and on May 25 OCME rescinded the layoffs of the five Mortuary Techs.

Mortuary Techs transport bodies from scenes of death to OCME facilities where autopsies and toxicology studies are done and all deaths from criminal violence are investigated.

Coming after an earlier round of layoffs, Hirsch said the cuts would have left a skeleton staff of three to work each shift, closed offices in the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island, forced families to travel to Manhattan or Brooklyn to identify loved ones, and delayed autopsies, funerals and responses to mass fatalities like the fatal March 12 Bronx bus crash that killed 15.

"Current backlogs and delays show just how much the employees are needed. Layoffs would have made OCME's problems much worse," Trester said.

"We are grateful that money was restored to the OCME budget," said Hospitals Division Director Audrey McConney. "Any job we save is a win for the union and the members we represent."