Public Employee Press

Union gets Kim Snelling new wheels

On the cold winter morning of Dec. 19, Kim Snelling suddenly found herself without a way to get to her job at Metro Tech in downtown Brooklyn.

While most New Yorkers depend on public transportation, Snelling’s primary means of getting around town is her motorized scooter.

A Clerical Associate at the Dept. of Education and a member of Local 1251, Snelling has cerebral palsy and needs a motorized scooter that she drives from her Brooklyn home to the stop for the bus that takes her downtown to work.

On that December morning, however, Snelling’s usually reliable scooter broke down and she had to call 911 to get a ride home. Her scooter was discarded by the Dept. of Sanitation.

While she tried to get HIP to replace the scooter, she went to work almost every day with the help of a neighbor who drove her to work and picked her up whenever possible. At work, she used a walker.

HIP initially denied her claim because their policy required her to turn in the old scooter. Unable to walk more than a block, Snelling began to miss more days and became more frustrated. That’s when she called the union and the DC 37 Disability Advisory Committee for help.

“I was determined to get her that scooter,” said Local 2627 member Portia Perkins, who chairs the committee. “We started making phone calls on her behalf to HIP. She needed a new scooter and she needed it right away.”

“I had no idea how I was going to get to work without it,” said Snelling, but HIP informed her that it usually took around eight weeks to replace a scooter.

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts got involved and made some calls to HIP officials, and the Disability Advisory Committee kept the pressure on. The roadblocks gave way and Snelling went to work Feb. 12 on a new scooter.

“Thankfully,” she said, “with the help of the union I was able to get the scooter a lot sooner and get back to work.”