Charge DC 37 Allows Temp Workers to Be Exploited by Parks

Motor Vehicle Operators Local 983 President Mark Rosenthal is renewing his protest of what he calls a "two-tier discriminatory system" affecting his union, under which Job Training Participants in the Parks and Recreation Department are paid $8.50 per hour, when they could be making upwards of $20 per hour.

MARK ROSENTHAL: 'Dues without real representation.'

The JTPs are six-month Parks Department workers, numbering about 3,000, who were organized directly under District Council 37, rather than in one of its locals, into a Job Training Participant Association in June 2006, after the union won the right to represent them in 2004.

Retaliation by DC 37 Head?

Mr. Rosenthal was heavily involved in the organizing drive and had pushed to get them into his local, which represents many of DC 37's Parks Department members. Instead, they remain in an Association rather than a regular local, which was justified at the time as saving them extra dues payments, although Mr. Rosenthal said it was political retribution for his opposition to DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts.

Mr. Rosenthal is raising the issue again, saying that the arrangement has done little to help the JTPs. "These JTPs are now Parks' second class citizens ... without a fighting Local to represent their interests, the JTPs are paying union dues without the benefit of real representation," he asserted.

DC 37 Blue Collar Division Director Jose Sierra responded in a statement that Ms. Roberts had sought to have the JTPs seriously considered for better-paying city jobs, and that the Health and Hospitals Corporation had hired 200 graduates of the program.

No Future for Them

But Mr. Rosenthal contended, "The association does not provide education and training, and has not built a road to better wages and real careers. Job fairs are non-existent. And now the private sector is hiring more parks workers than the City of New York."

One example he provided was JTPs working on sanitation trucks in the Parks Department, where they perform work that normally $25 per hour for one-third that rate. "They're working out of title," Mr. Rosenthal said. He added that his own local workers were having to pick up the slack because the JTPs were under-trained. "My guys are supposed to be assisting; we're doing their work instead, because there's no union workers on the truck. They're really being exploited," he said.