City sanitation workers recruit for Local #9483;
continue quest for equitable pay, due process, & dignity

By María Eugenia Guerra

"The patrón system is alive and well in Laredo, a 400-year old mindset. Change has to come from within us and that's what I believe their efforts are," said Murray Malakoff, general counsel to the Laredo Association of City Employees (LACE) Local #9483, an organization formed last year under auspices of the United Steelworkers of America. "They are about consciousness raising, asking of city practices, 'Is this right, is this just?' They have a right to pose those questions," Malakoff said, adding, "They are the questions every citizen should ask of its government."
About half of the Local's membership of 250 are sanitation workers in the City's Solid Waste Department, a segment that constitutes the most vocal part of the Union, which of late has been extremely vocal about equitable pay, Municipal Civil Service, recruitment of new members, and questioning City travel expenses to Washington, D.C., reflected on City Manager Larry Dovalina's American Express card. Local #9483 members recently marched outside City Hall while an early evening Council meeting was underway inside.
"I hope I am worthy of them," Malakoff said of the members of LACE. "I am in awe of their courage to ask for equality, which really is at the forefront of their efforts. They are also quite organized," he added.
"The City of Laredo does not recognize us as a Union," said Local #9483's president José A. Gonzalez, a sanitation truck driver who has been employed by the City for the last six years.
"They can call it what they want," said CM Dovalina. "It is an association and not a union. If you subtract the 194 members of the association and the 700 police and fire department employees from the 2,300 City employees, you still have more than 1,000 City employees who don't have an issue with how they are treated," he said.
"This is about dignity and respect, living wages, and better treatment from management," said Gonzalez. "We have no contract and no bargaining power like the Firefighters Union or the police unions. We do have representation on the City Grievance Committee, but grievances move by recommendation from the committee to the City Manager and then he can decide whether or not to follow the recommendation. We do not believe the City Manager should have the final word. We would like Civil Service due process for grievances for City of Laredo employees."
"Municipal civil service would require a change in the City charter," Dovalina said. "The benefit of Civil Service is in the eye of the beholder."
"Even within our own department, the solid waste department, we have in the past had no due process," Gonzalez said. "A grievance against you should begin as a verbal warning, then a written warning. If it has validity, it becomes a suspension, and then suspension for three days without pay. In our case, at times grievances have gone directly to the director, contrary to City policy."
"Typically a warning would come from a supervisor, and then it would move up the chain," said Dovalina of City policy.
"One of the basic problems these guys face in public works," explained Malakoff, "is that former director Joe Guerra tried to ameliorate the pettiness of disciplining for the least little errors. Under Guerra, infractions and suspensions prior to a certain date would no longer be included in evaluations. A new director comes along who's privy to the agreement and yet he reneges on it and reverts to counting the petty disciplines. One of my clients was disciplined for not wearing safety glasses. He received for that a very harsh discipline, suspended for a day without pay. What in effect happened was that the foundation for that discipline entailed the utilization of old reprimands to add onto the guy's record."
"That should not be the case," said Dovalina. "Every year is a new slate and infractions from previous years are not carried over and should not be used."
Javier Aviña, who has been a toll collector for the City's bridge system for seven years and is a member of Local # 9483, said, "There are reprimands and harassment for joining the Union. New policies that do not follow City policy are implemented, such as the one we had to sign off on for shortages at the toll booth. It used to be for $5 over or short. Now it is $3. If there's a mistake on the report, we will be warned. On the sixth warning for an over or under box we are automatically terminated. We have to count penny for penny, and you are going to see longer lines of traffic waiting to cross into Mexico while we count. If we refused to sign off on that agreement, we were told we would no longer have a job with the Laredo Bridge System."
"I think there is a misunderstanding about this," said Dovalina of Aviña's assertions. "It's a cumulative assessment that takes place. It is meant to narrow the threshold," he said, adding, "This is being reviewed."
"We've organized in solid waste," Gonzalez said, "because I think we have been the ones that have most felt how unresponsive the administration is and how misguided they are about how we are disciplined and written up. If you get hurt, you are issued a warning. If a dog bites you, you get a warning. How can that be your fault? And it ends up in your evaluation."
"We all got the 1.6 percent cost of living raise," said Antonio Martinez, who has driven a sanitation truck for the last eight years. "But if you need a perfect evaluation to get the four percent raise and a dog bit you, you probably won't get the raise."
"I would be surprised if those are accurate statements," said Dovalina, "that you could be written up for hurting yourself on the job or for a dog bite. If this is the case, the workers should push this through the grievance process. I look at this very carefully to gauge whether the issues are petty or if they affect the operation as whole." The City Manager said warnings in an employee's records would adversely affect a positive evaluation on which a raise hinged.
"Employees as a whole get a three percent increase, plus the 1.6 percent cost of living increase they got at the beginning of the year," Dovalina said. "They can get one to four percent, with most of them getting the higher number in the middle."
"Do the math on a four percent raise on a salary of $162,000 a year and on the $8.00 per hour pay of a refuse collector," Martinez said.
"There is a sanitation truck driver who has been in City service for 31 years," said Gonzalez. "He makes $13 an hour. There are recently hired secretaries who make $25 an hour. Find the equity in that."
"I've had an open door policy since I started in City government," said Dovalina. "Many of the individuals in this organization have walked in without appointments to express their concerns. In some cases I have agreed with them, in other cases I have not, but what should be very clear is that I am interested and I will listen. I get calls, I get anonymous letters, and I try to ascertain if issues are legitimate or not, but always I keep in mind that everyone has rights in the workplace and the right to express their opinions."
"The City is not run by the city council and the mayor," Malakoff said. "All the municipal amenities are carried out by these blue collar City workers. They provide countless services to the citizenry, and we take them for granted, when in fact we should recognize who it is that gives us the municipal amenities like clean streets. They should be accorded respect and dignity by management and rewarded with a fair and just wage," he continued.
"City employees can't strike, and they can't collectively bargain -- that's been State law for years," Malakoff said. "The exception to that are firefighters and police officers, who have their own law in the local government code. They may not be able to strike nor bargain collectively, but they sure can organize to ask for a fair and just wage and due process for grievances."
"We believe there is strength in numbers and so we are asking other City employees to join our membership," Gonzalez said. "The Union only asks one percent of your salary and no more than $20 per month. I pay $9 a month in dues. Five or six hundred of us could make a difference in making City government more responsive to those of us who work for the City. We could also help good, responsible people get elected to office. People who cared how they spent taxpayer money or how employees were treated."