“CRISIS POINT”: SEATTLE’S SPOKANE STREET DOT MEMBERS CALL FOR ACTION ON ENCAMPMENT CLEANUP PROTECTIONS
Protecting DOT members cleaning up homeless encampments is at a “crisis point” and the union and Seattle Local 378 members are pushing the agency to amp up action.
To stress the need to address the crisis, the Spokane Street DOT members last week held a solidarity event to show they’re standing together for the safety of co-workers and the public.
One of the jobs of these Local 378 members at the Spokane Street Department of Transportation yard in Seattle is cleaning up homeless encampments set up in highway right-of-ways.
That work has placed them in danger of contact with hazardous materials, biohazards, blood-borne pathogens and more. They often have to de-escalate tense and dangerous situations with encampment residents.
Some progress has been made on staffing and vehicles needed for encampment cleanups. Discussions have taken place over the past 10 months. But “little progress” has been made protecting the workers facing danger.
“We have reached a crisis point,” AFSCME Council 28 (WFSE) Executive Director Greg Devereux said in a Feb. 2 letter to the agency’s director of maintenance operations.
The Spokane Street DOT is already seriously understaffed – even before addressing the homeless encampment cleanup issues, Devereux said.
“Our DOT members who were hired to be maintenance mechanics continue to be concerned that they must engage in homeless encampment cleanup, which exposes them to a number of safety hazards with little or no specialized training,” Devereux wrote.
Devereux was blunt in his letter to the agency.
“We are gravely concerned that both our members and the public at large may face serious consequences in the near future,” Devereux said.
“We would ask that we move with all speed necessary to adequately staff the dedicated DOT homeless encampment crew, train all staff who may come in contact with homeless encampments in programs that will keep them safe, and that the dire understaffing at the Spokane Street shed is addressed immediately.”
