Public Employee Press

Workers’ persistence wins grievance at Elmhurst

Settlement with HHC produces awards of $7,500 each for three members of Local 420

Biomedical Technician and Local 420 member Amilcar Allende doesn’t give up very easily.

He didn’t back down after management at Elmhurst Hospital told him not to waste his time filing a grievance because he could never win. Not even after they threatened to write him up along with two of his co-workers.

“Management told me the union wouldn’t do anything for us,” said the Local 420 member. “But I trust the union.”

As Biomedical Technicians, Allende, Horace Villavicencio and Kelvin Endeavour were required to carry their pagers with them when they were not working. They were told they had to respond within an hour if the hospital called.
The union said this was equivalent to being on standby and that the members were entitled to overtime pay as stipulated in Article IV, Section 11.b of the citywide contract.

Local 420 shop stewards and DC 37 staff pursued the grievance all the way to Step III, lost at every step, but never gave up. Finally on June 13, when it looked like the impartial Office of Collective Bargaining could rule in favor of the three union members, the Health and Hospitals Corp. agreed to a negotiated settlement with the union. The agreement provided for retroactive pay back to 1998. They each received $7,500.

“We went this far,” said Allende after hearing the good news, “because we had a great team fighting for us. The union’s Legal Dept., shop stewards Aristedes Guzman and Pamela Harding and Council Rep Marva Lewis Bradford — they all deserve a lot of credit.”