CWA Local 1081
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Newark, NJ, 07102
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September 2016: Beverly Brown Ruggia

June 4, 2013

Yvonne Davis, Director
Essex County Division of Welfare
18 Rector Street, Floor 9
Newark, NJ, 07102

Re: Step II Class Action Contractual Grievance
Unprepared 4th Floor Office Opening
Article I. Purpose
Article VII. Discipline
Article XXV. Non-Discrimination
Article XLIX. Safety of Staff

Dear Ms. Davis:

CWA Local 1081 submits this Step II Class Action Contractual Grievance on behalf of all of our members assigned to the 4th floor office whom are located within the privately-owned 18 Rector Street/10 Park Place, Newark building and dedicated to servicing Newark and Irvington Food Stamp and/or General Assistance clients.

The County has cynically created a pernicious predicament for our above cited adversely affected members by its failure to ensure the placement of a copy machine, a fax machine and boxes for the retention of clients' paper slips before the newly-minted office was yesterday first fully opened for business. This merciless managerially myopic miscalculation has resulted in an overabundance of clients having to wait to be serviced as our members have been forced to go to other agency offices within the building to make copies of clients' documents as well as send and receive faxes. The new office's reception clerks have not even been provided boxes for the retention of visiting clients' paper slips which has only served to exacerbate the excruciating environment.

These terribly-timed transgressions have also only served to worsen the woeful confusion caused by the "disastrously dysfunctional food stamp Case Banking" process, first implemented within the County-owned 50 South Clinton Street, East Orange former home of the 4th floor of the Food Stamp office, which our Union protested within the attached Step II Class Action Grievance of May 30, 2013 CWA Local 1081 wrote you. Yesterday, scores of clients were shuttled to the waiting rooms of the offices on the 5th and 6th floors due to the onerous overcrowding within the waiting room on the 4th floor.

Yet, once again, the executive branch of the government of the government of the County of Essex has ignored the needs of the most needy of its residents, this time by "its failure to ensure the placement of a copy machine, a fax machine and boxes for the retention of clients' paper slips before the newly-minted office was yesterday first fully opened for business". I have long ominously opined that were the Division of Welfare to plant grass upon its sites' roofs in order to emulate a park or golf course, or even better yet place thereupon some faux zoo animals, the Administration would expeditiously ensure the provision to our agency of all and any resources we required. The County has historically expedited much needed provisions and services through emergency contracts when the Administration has seen fit. However, when it comes to providing for the poor of the County the Administration's vision appears regrettably impaired.

The resolution CWA Local 1081 demonstrably demands to this grievance consists of the County immediately providing for the placement of a copy machine, a fax machine and boxes for the retention of clients' paper slips within the 4th floor office.

We seek a hearing in this regard.

Sincerely,


David H. Weiner, President
CWA Local 1081

Copyright 2011 CWA 1081