Public Employee Press

DEP Supervisor protests pay inequity

As a member of DEP Supervisory Employees Local 1322 and of DC 37, I often read in PEP about other members’ problems and victories.
I think an article should be written and our union should address the demoralizing predicament my fellow Supervisors and I are coping with.
We took a promotional test to become Supervisors, which established a pay increase over our subordinates. But now the salaries of the Laborers we supervise are substantially higher than ours.

Most of us have around 20 years on the job, but we now make less pay than a Laborer who has been on the job just over 2 years. We supervise one of the most essential water supply and sewer systems in the world.

—RUSSELL GIARDINA
DEP District Supervisor, Local 1322

Editor’s note: The union is concerned about the unconscionable situation the city has forced on its Supervisors at DEP.

With the dramatic increase in the underlying prevailing rate, Local 1322 members are now paid less than the Laborers they supervise. The union believes this is an injustice and is taking action in two different ways.

We have called on the Salary Review Committee to adjust the guaranteed rate for supervision in the Blue Collar Contract to ensure that the employees who supervise workers in prevailing rate titles receive higher pay.

And the union has filed a grievance charging that these inequitable rates violate the promotion language in the Citywide Contract. It is also city policy that supervisors should be paid at a higher rate then the titles they supervise.