Communication Workers of America

November 28, 2007

Anibal Ramos, Director
Essex County Department of Citizen Services
18 Rector Street, Floor 9
Newark, NJ , 07102

SUBJECT: Step III Class Action Contractual Grievance Discriminatory Health Study Article I. Purpose
Article XXV. Non-Discrimination
Article XLIX. Safety of Staff
Chapter VI-I. Standards of Conduct
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Dear Mr. Ramos:

CWA Local 1081 submits this Step III Class Action Contractual Grievance on behalf of all of our Family Service Worker members whom have been compelled, as of very recent, to take part in an initiative in conjunction with the New Jersey Department of Health and Human Services in collaboration with Rutgers the State University in "a Food Stamp nutritional educational program directed to promote the importance of calcium consumption from calcium-rich foods". Unfortunately, Director Nigro did not respond to our Union 's attached Step II Class Action Contractual Grievance of October 31, 2007, in this regard, as prescribed within Article XXVII. Grievance Procedure of our contract.

The fact that "This initiative targets African American and Hispanic parents and caregivers of children from birth to eight (8) years of age and adolescents" is laudable, and CWA Local 1081 recognizes that "poor consumption of calcium-rich foods can lead to an array of diseases and health conditions in this population". However, our Union opposes the involvement of our affected members in this study, as it is presently constructed, for the following reasons:

1. CWA Local 1081 has read the Rutgers study entitled "Analysis of Away-from-Home and at-Home Calcium Intake in the United States " that states "Americans consume calcium considerably below the recommended daily allowance. This paper examines the impact of socioeconomic and demographic factors on individual intake of calcium from the away-from-home and at-home markets. Results generally imply that older, Hispanic, and black females, from larger and lower income households, who are food stamp recipients, and from the West, have lower average daily calcium intake away from home than others." Our Union has also read about KidStrong (Inside & Out) for grade 5 that was part of a sequential effort to reach kids with the bone building message. The program was developed by The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services (NJDHSS), in cooperation with the New Jersey Department of Education, the Osteoporosis Coalition of New Jersey and NJN Public Television. We are aware, as well, that Jump Start Your Bones now follows where KidStrong (Inside & Out) left off in grade 5. The program was developed as part of a sequential effort to reach kids with the bone building message. It was developed by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Department of Family and Consumer Sciences and the Department of Nutritional Sciences, in cooperation with Piscataway Township School District through funding provided by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. Jump Start Your Bones is a curriculum designed for students in grades seven and eight. It includes fun and easy to use lesson plans and handouts for 12 lessons. The problem is, sir, that the Essex County Division of Welfare is not a state university with seemingly unlimited funding, not a state department with significant funding as well or a well-healed suburban school district supported with state funding to carry out such an educational project.

2. Respectfully, our Union questions the managerial wisdom and scientific validity of compelling our affected FSW members to apparently target only "African American and Hispanic parents and caregivers of children from birth to eight (8) years of age and adolescents" for this initiative. The policy distributed, which has as yet to even have been assigned a "Policy Number", is also confusing. While the "Policy" section states our affected FSW members are to apparently target only "African American and Hispanic parents and caregivers of children from birth to eight (8) years of age and adolescents" for this initiative, the "Procedures" section states only that "At the time of initial application, reapplication or reopen for TANF/FS, applicants who have children between the age of birth to eight (80 years old shall…". The procedures section does not specify two specific demographic populations cited within the policy section. Our clients do communicate with one another, and were we they we might well be concerned that the Division of Welfare (for it would not appear to them that Rutgers or the DHHS were actually conducting the initiative) seems to be discriminating against the children of all other races and ethnicities regarding the need for sufficient calcium within their kids' diets.

3. The affected members of CWA Local 1081 have not been trained to carry out this initiative on behalf of Rutgers and the DHHS, particularly the part within the procedures section of the policy that directs our members to "Inform applicant of the benefits of calcium consumption for the age group". Reviewing the brochure which our affected members are to provide the preordained clients, from which our Union assumes the former are to glean their significant scientific knowledge of calcium's benefits for the benefit of the adult(s) and adolescents assembled, it refers to "How Much Calcium" in the metric term of "mg" or milligrams. Perhaps the management of the Division of Welfare has not heard, but the educational system of the United States of America has yet to switch to teaching measurements utilizing the metric system. Therefore, neither our members, who are not supposed to "Inform applicant of the benefits of calcium consumption for the age group", nor their clients, would probably be aware that a milligram is "a unit of mass and weight equal to one thousandth of a gram". Even if both worker and client were aware of that fact, how are the latter to measure their young charges' calcium intake when the equipment needed is relatively expensive based upon their meager incomes and no doubt difficult to locate at the local bodega or corner grocery store?

4. According to its own web site, the Rutgers University Foundation supports Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, by reaching out to individuals, corporations, and foundations and linking them to Rutgers programs throughout New Jersey and the world. Created in 1973, the foundation enhances Rutgers ' mission of excellence in education, research, and public service. It has raised more than $1 billion over the last three decades. The Essex County Division of Welfare, on the other hand, is chronically short staffed and its staff perpetually overworked with the highest caseloads of any of its county welfare agency counterparts within New Jersey . Why can't Rutgers, the DHHS, or together in their vaunted partnership sponsor Rutgers ' students to conduct the "Calcium: Select Project Initiative" and do so within the waiting room areas of the office. While they do so, the agency could run an educational digital loop on the waiting rooms' television sets extolling the virtues of clients partaking in the study and the need to include more calcium within the clients' children's diets. Certainly such educational fare is preferable to the commercial television shows the agency now allows the clients to watch as an apparent means of mollifying or hypnotizing them until their name is called to be interviewed.

5. Unfortunately, once again you have chosen to initiate a project (such as the ill-fated unit telephone answering debacle) that will adversely affect the members of CWA Local 1081 without affording our Union at least the common courtesy of a heads-up on your plans. This procellous proclivity of yours to pretermit our Union in this fashion is at once myopic and irresponsible, for it often obliges us to take a contentious rather than a cooperative approach to the subject matter at hand.

1. The County shall meet immediately with our Union to rationally and responsibly discuss this initiative which CWA Local 1081 and its members deem, for the most part, worthy and would desire it succeed.

2. The County shall include within the immediately abovementioned meeting representatives of Rutgers and the DHHS (the latter, by the way, no longer formally exists under that title).

3. The County shall halt the "Calcium: Select to Project Initiative" at least until the above cited meeting has transpired.

   Sincerely,
   David H. Weiner, President
   CWA Local 1081