Public Employee Press

Local 420 saves a member’s job at Harlem Hospital

Union members are hardly immune to stress on the job, especially when they work in high-tension jobs like many employees Health and Hospitals Corp.

Management frequently fails to take the pressure into account. Just ask Timaeus Whitted, an Institutional Aide in the Engineering Dept. at the HHC’s Harlem Hospital Center.

Whitted was an unwilling participant in an altercation with another worker in his section, but Harlem management quickly suspended him without pay pending the outcome of a disciplinary conference.

With Grievance Rep Alfred Grant representing Whitted at Step 1A of the hearing process, the union made it clear to management that he was not the assailant and was not responsible for the incident.

Once Grant proved without any doubt that Whitted was not the aggressor in the scuffle, hospital officials withdrew all disciplinary charges against the Institutional Aide, who is a member of Municipal Hospitals Employees Local 420.

Whitted returned to his job and received back pay of $3,361.95 for the period when he was suspended without pay. “I went to the union and they took care of business,” said a relieved Whitted. “They did a great job.”