CWA 1180 - HRA Watch

HRA Watch

Melrose workers fight scapegoating
May 2001

Seven out of nine PAA Is and one PAA II (and counting?) at the Melrose Job Center in the Bronx have been brought up on disciplinary charges since February for failure to do their work in a timely manner. Buckling under immense caseloads, severely understaffed and faced with frequent computer problems, the Melrose workers cannot in fact do their work properly because the system they work in is designed to fail. City officials would never admit as much, but they have been under fire from a slew of lawsuits that allege just that. The disciplinary charges against the Melrose workers come just as two of those lawsuits are in critical stages. Coincidence? Not likely. The city desperately needs a scapegoat to point to in order to explain why they are not delivering the services they are required to by law—and 1180 members have become that scapegoat.

But members at Melrose aren't taking this lying down—they are fighting back. The whole shop is organizing, including those who have not been charged as well as those who have. They have met with union officials, including President Arthur Cheliotes, several times to strategize and to document the conditions they work under. The union has also met with client advocates, the very people the city is trying to convince in court that it is the workers, and not their policies, that are at fault.

"The population that we serve is the same population that we are," explained shop steward Allison Bryan at one of the organizing meetings, making the connection between the way HRA treats clients and the way they treat workers. "This is much bigger than us," she said about the disciplinary charges.

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