April 22, 2014
Sharon Butler, Director
Essex County Division of Welfare
18 Rector Street, Floor 9
Newark, NJ, 07102
Re: Step II Class Action Contractual Grievance
Unsafe and Unhealthy Stacking of Case File Banker Boxes
Article I. Purpose
Article VII. Discipline
Article XXV. Non-Discrimination
Article XLIX. Safety of Staff
Dear Ms. Butler:
CWA Local 1081 submits this Step II Class Action Contractual Grievance on behalf of our Union's members assigned to the Office of Medicaid Services to protest the deplorably unsafe and unhealthy conditions that have long existed, and have continued to be exacerbated, by the County's failure to cease the stacking of case file banker boxes upon nearly every surface of the OMS site.
Of the seven extremely important points CWA Local 1081 made below in support of our having filed this grievance, ASFS Frank Palmier's attached unresponsive and unacceptable Step I Class Action Contractual Grievance denial rejoinder address only #7, "To add even further insult to intensive injury, there has never existed within the OMS a lunchroom for the site's employees to utilize. The one room possibly available for that purpose was initially utilized as a conference room and has since been stripped of its conference table and chairs as they have been replaced by overflowing file cabinets. The employees are, therefore, compelled to each day consume their lunches at their desks in plain sight of their clients and sans the sanitary accouterments (such as a sink, refrigerator and microwave oven) that every other employee within the Division of Welfare has available to them within their respective offices."
For Mr. Palmieri to assert that the scores (albeit, a still woefully inadequate number) of employees assigned to the OMS are to be expected to "use the 9th floor lunch room if they wish" is managerially mathematically myopic considering the 9th floor lunchroom's size and the fact the employees assigned to that floor already fully utilize that facility. For Mr. Palmieri to assert that "Sinks, of course (sic) are available to staff in the rest rooms" and that "Thus they are not 'sans the sanitary accouterments" is as inaccurate a statement as it is ill informed. Please note the attached article entitled "Enteric Bacterial Contamination of Public Restrooms" in which scientific testing data proves that "Sinks, floors, toilet seats, and sanitary napkin disposals were the most contaminated sites based on occurrence. Coliform bacteria could be identified in more than 60% of sinks, and E.coli in 20%. Greater than 50% of restroom floors and sanitary napkin dispensers contained total coliforms." While our Union is pleased about the presence of "two (2) refrigerators and two (2) microwave ovens for staff use", without the benefit of uncontaminated water with which to clean and maintain these four devices into which food is daily deposited their present presence possibly portends of probable problems with sanitation and thus threaten the health of those employees utilizing them within the devices' current conditions of cleanliness or likely lack thereof.
- As per the four (4) attached photographs of the OMS site I took yesterday with my cell phone's camera, the photograph marked #1 reveals that a large number of the above cited case file banker boxes are dangerously stacked some six boxes high upon the floor as well as several boxes high upon the office's baseboard ventilation system, the former representing the danger of a tripping hazard and possibly of toppling upon employees and the latter both a toppling hazard and blocking the flow of fresh air into the office.
- As per the four (4) attached photographs of the OMS site I took yesterday with my cell phone's camera, the photograph marked #2 reveals that a large number of the above cited case file banker boxes are dangerously stacked some five boxes high upon the floor thus representing the danger of a tripping hazard and possibly of toppling upon employees and clients and their children alike.
- As per the four (4) attached photographs of the OMS site I took yesterday with my cell phone's camera, the photograph marked #3 reveals that a large number of the above cited case file banker boxes are dangerously stacked some two to three boxes high upon the floor as well as several boxes high upon the office's baseboard ventilation system, the former representing the danger of a tripping hazard and possibly of toppling upon employees and clients and their children alike and the latter both a toppling hazard and blocking the flow of fresh air into the office. A slew of files sitting upon the floor are not even contained within case banker boxes, thus laid bare for any client or other non-agency employee to peruse, or even purloin, this representing a breach of clients' confidentiality.
- As per the four (4) attached photographs of the OMS site I took yesterday with my cell phone's camera, the photograph marked #4 reveals that a large number of the above cited case file banker boxes are dangerously stacked six boxes high upon the floor representing the danger of a tripping hazard and possibly of toppling upon employees and clients and their children alike and blocking the flow of fresh air into the office.
- In addition, the existence of such a slew of dangerously strewn case file banker boxes makes if difficult, if not at times impossible, for our Union's applicable members to retrieve clients' cases upon which to perform work thus suppressing the dedicated employees' ability to optimally service their clients and to especially do so within a timely fashion.
- Finally, the existence of such a slew of dangerously strewn case file banker boxes represents a fire hazard for the employees and clients and their children alike that travel within the offending areas.
- To add even further insult to intensive injury, there has never existed within the OMS a lunchroom for the site's employees to utilize. The one room possibly available for that purpose was initially utilized as a conference room and has since been stripped of its conference table and chairs as they have been replaced by overflowing file cabinets. The employees are, therefore, compelled to each day consume their lunches at their desks in plain sight of their clients and sans the sanitary accouterments (such as a sink, refrigerator and microwave oven) that every other employee within the Division of Welfare has available to them within their respective offices.
The resolution to this grievance our Union reiterates consists of the following:
- The County shall immediately employ, and deploy, many more employees within the OMS.
- The County shall immediately dedicate the requisite human (overtime) and physical resources to ensure the case files that may be stored offsite are so stored.
- The County shall immediately ensure that the case files that may be shredded are so shredded and that the case files that may be placed within real file cabinets are so placed whether it be within the OMS or upon another floor within the privately-owned 18 Rector Street/10 Park Place building.
- The County shall immediately dedicate the abovementioned former conference room as the OMS employees' lunchroom with all of the same the sanitary accouterments (such as a sanitary sink) that every other employee within the Division of Welfare has available to them within their respective offices.
This Step I Class Action Contractual Grievance comports with our Union's attached Step III Class Action Contractual Grievance of April 7, 2014, entitled "Dearth of Medicaid Employees and Physical Plant Capacity", and with our Union's attached II Class Action Contractual Grievance of April 14, 2014 entitled "Unprecedented, Unwarranted & Unwise Diktats".
With the advent and further implementation of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), AKA "Obamacare," and its resultant welcomed increase in Medicaid-eligible Essex County residents, the caseloads of the OMS shall only continue to burgeon and the above cited problems only continue to worsen unless CWA Local 1081's resolutions to this grievance are promptly put into place by the County of Essex
We seek a hearing in this regard.
Sincerely,
David H. Weiner, President
CWA Local 1081