Public Employee Press

Arbiter slaps city on firing disabled workers

DC 37 won a major victory for disabled workers in May when an impartial arbitrator ruled that the city's rationale for laying off disabled workers in the 55-a program, "had no basis in fact or law."

The arbiter said the Finance and Health departments and the Administration for Children's Services violated the Citywide Contract by laying off the disabled workers and not putting them on a recall list, ordered the agencies to place the grievants on a recall list retroactive to February 2011, when they were laid off, and immediately reinstated with back pay those who would have been recalled.

Most of the Local 1113 members in the Office Machine Aide title in the Finance Dept. are 55-a participants, and more than 50 were laid off, said the local's President Debra Pitts.

"We need clerical staff, and these disabled workers were doing the job," Pitts said, "but the city laid them off and contracted out the work to temporary agencies."

The laid-off workers were told they could reapply, "but that would have meant starting over anew after a decade or longer on the job, which was totally unfair," said Pitts.

DC 37 filed grievances for the laid-off 55-a participants in Locals 1113, 768 and others and went to arbitration when management denied the grievances.

The union showed that workers certified as blind or mentally or physically disabled in the 55-a program are classified by state law as noncompetitive employees, who are covered by the job security provision of the citywide agreement. The arbiter called the city claim that these workers were neither competitive nor non-competitive "specious."

"The arbitrator saw clearly that disabled workers do jobs like everyone else and have the same rights as all other workers," said Senior Assistant General Counsel Steven Sykes, who handled the case.