CWA 1180 - Worksite Organizing

Justice delayed is justice denied
Union looks for a way to fight back against outrageous delays in grievance process
May 2001

It took Loreatha Jones two and a half years to win a grievance over an issue concerning two leave days. Alexander Saunders won his out-of-title grievance in less than three months, but while his agency technically complied with the decision the outcome left Saunders only half-satisfied.

Jones and Saunders are two of the hundreds of Local 1180 members who file grievances every year. Their stories llustrate both the good and the bad sides of the grievance procedure. On the one hand, they won; grievances are an important way that we enforce our contract. On the other hand, problems with the system threaten to undo everything we gain through it. Justice delayed is justice denied, the old saying goes, and for Jones and other members who have waited years for grievances to be resolved it rings all too true. Meanwhile, Saunders' case demonstrates the limits of our ability to enforce the contract if we rely only on the grievance procedure to accomplish that end.

We decided to look at the situation in detail, and to
assess what the union is doing, and could be doing, in response.

Loreatha Jones is a career civil servant who has worked in the Human Resources Administration since 1966. Since 1985, she has worked at the Fulton Income Support Center. In October 1998, she requested vacation time for the coming holiday season. The original request was denied. She then modified her request, asking for only two days off in early January. Again the request was denied.

Agency policy is that during the holiday season, up to 25% of workers in a shop can take time off. The granting of vacation time is regulated by seniority. Jones was the senior employee in her shop, and so should have been the first in line for some time off. But neither the 25% rule nor the seniority rule was applied. Furthermore, the director who denied the request refused to give a reason, citing only "administrative reason." Jones filed a grievance on December 18, 1998.

"Thirty years of dedicated service I've given them. This many years and I wasn't going to take no reason as an answer," Jones explained. "'Administrative?' What's that? Two days for my family, that's all. I have a sister who is mentally challenged. [That director] really thought this was a plantation. But we have a union, and we have a contract." So the fight was on.

"I said, I'm going to fight. You can take that to the bank. I knew it was going to be a long haul, and I was going to fight no matter how long it took." And it really was a long haul. The grievance was denied at step one on December 23, 1998; Jones appealed it to step two that day. A step two decision wasn't made until April 1999, and the union appealed that decision the same month. A step three hearing wasn't held until 14 months later, in June 2000, and the final step 3 settlement was not reached until February of this year.

"In between I did get aggravated and discouraged," said Jones. "But it was worth it." And when it was all over, she had won the right to have taken those two days as annual leave time. "The next day, when I came into the office, we shouted and celebrated. Everyone was happy for me, because this was about they can't just do whatever they want to us."

In the course of the grievance, "they thought I would give up, it was just two days, just give it up." But Jones was irked and offended by the way she had been treated, and rightly insisted that she be treated fairly in accordance with policy and the union contract. There are many others for whom more is at stake in a grievance, but they, too, experience unconscionable delays and "get aggravated and discouraged." In fact, the outrageous slowness of the grievance process is highly convenient for management, to say the least, which can rely on it to discourage union members from even trying to enforce their rights.

There are time limits spelled out in Local 1180's contract with the city for each step in the grievance procedure, precisely because justice delayed is justice denied. A step one decision is supposed to be made within three working days of the grievance being filed; a step two decision is supposed to be rendered within 10 days; and a step three decision within 15 days. This is to say that every time to city takes longer than this to make its decisions, it is in violation of the union contract! According to Local 1180 staff reps, decisions at step two can take weeks or months, depending on the agency, and at step three the process gets hopelessly bogged down. It generally takes several months to even get a step three hearing, and decisions often take over a year.

The immediate reason for the delays, at the agency level and especially at the Office of Labor Relations level (step three) is the tremendous backlog of cases the hearing officers have. Simply put, OLR is severely understaffed. Of course, the underlying reason for the delays is that the city prefers it that way.

Ironically, it is very similar to the problem welfare recipients face when dealing with the city. The immediate problem is that city workers who process public assistance claims are utterly overwhelmed and have far too many cases to be able to handle in a timely fashion—as 1180 members at HRA know all too well. The effect on poor people seeking benefits is to discourage them from even trying, and this is a deliberate effect. City officials have designed the system to work poorly and deliberately underresourced it. Likewise, the lack of staff at OLR keeps grievances from being heard in a timely and just manner, thus frustrating and discouraging union members, which suits management just fine.

Long delays are not the only way management can frustrate the intent of the union contract. Alexander Saunders' story illustrates this point. Saunders has worked at HHC for the last 16 years as a Computer Associate Tech Support (CATS), and he has "been working in computers since I was in the Air Force 40 years ago."

He started having problems with HHC management in 1998 after returning from septuple-bypass surgery. "Almost from day one they relegated me to the phones," he said, instead of the skilled computer work he knows so well and was hired to do. He filed a grievance, which was won at step one and took less than a week to resolve. Problems resurfaced the following year, though, after he had been transferred as a liaison to the Department of Corrections. While there, he ended up assuming the work of two people who left and were not replaced. "I wrote a memo and told [my boss] I couldn't do the work of three people and do a good job." In retaliation, he was suspended for five days. "Nominally for not getting the work done—which after all I couldn't do because I was doing three people's jobs—but really it was because I challenged him."

When he returned in January 2000, he was transferred to the Inventory Control Unit in Long Island City, "basically as a data entry supervisor," he said. "This was not the work I was trained to do, or the work of the title I am in." He said he "tried to go along with the job for a while," but knew it was out-of-title work and therefore filed a grievance in April. In July 2000, Saunders won the grievance at step two. The hearing officer ordered the agency to "reassign Mr. Saunders to duties that are commensurate with his title."

It was a significant victory for Saunders and the union. The ruling establishes that even when the out-of-title nature of the work is not higher-level work (as the vast majority of these grievances are) but more of a lateral shift, it is still out-of-title and the city cannot simply move a person to a job not covered by their title.

Saunders is back doing computer work, but he feels underutilized. "They have done just enough to cover their behinds," he explained about the current work he is doing. "It's a total waste of money. They would rather be petty than smart."

There are several lessons we can learn from Saunders' case. First, as 1180 officials have always stressed, we should try to resolve grievances at the lowest levels possible. Saunders' first grievance—at step one—was solved very quickly, and the second—at step two—in under three months, which is not fast enough but is nonetheless faster than most grievances.

The second lesson the Saunders case presents is about the limits of the grievance process. Using the formal contractual channels available, the union was able to hold HHC to the letter of the contract, but this result was only a partial victory. To do more, we have to use additional means beyond the grievance procedure itself. It is important to remember that grievances are only one tool we have in enforcing our contract. Grievances are not a substitute for organizing; they are an important and indispensable part of the larger struggle to win the respect and fair treatment we deserve. Given the systemic problems in the grievance process, we should probably think of a grievance as a starting point of a shop floor campaign, not its ending point.

We must also address those systemic problems aggressively, especially the outrageous delays in obtaining hearings and rulings at step three. OLR must be adequately staffed and union members, stewards and officers alike must demand that it is as loudly and relentlessly as necessary. Local 1180 officials have met recently with a number of other city unions to discuss the problem and begin strategizing about just how to do that.

There is a final lesson: We must not let the problems with the grievance process keep us from using it. If members get discouraged and decide not to file a grievance in the first place, then we will have let the city win—they will have succeeded in keeping us from enforcing our rights.

"My advice to other members," said Saunders, "is to avail themselves and do not hesitate to talk with your union rep, document everything and file a grievance. The worst thing you can do to yourself is just sit there and feel bad."

"File!" agreed Jones. "That's why we pay our union dues. The union is as strong as you are, and the union will do as much as you make it do, because you are the union."

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