机械工程师批评纽约市住房管理局使用无资质劳工

据10月20日The Chief报道，由于电梯技工短缺，纽约市住房管理局指派了劳工来填补岗位空缺，但机械工程师及其工会称此举是以安全为代价的。今年早些时候本有针对劳工的市内服务考试，但由于新冠肺炎疫情推迟了。纽约市住房管理局预计需要197名电梯技工，但目前只有144名。由于无法找到有资质的技工，当局雇用了36名劳动工人来帮助机械工程师。代表纽约市住房管理局电梯技工的Gregory Floyd提醒该机构，告知其使用缺乏经验的工人执行此类危险任务可能产生的风险。他说：“如果发生意外，当局和整个城市都将承担责任，后果可能是致命的。”。他补充说，纽约市房屋局很难雇用有资质的技工，是因为他们每小时31美元的工资比私营企业低了9美元。纽约市住房管理局发言人则表示，目前正在进行安排面试雇用新技工。当局希望有关考试可以在本财政年度内恢复。纽约市住房管理局旗下管理的电梯分布在326个项目中，近期故障次数不断增加，使技工人数难以跟上。

MECHANICS CRITICIZE NYCHA'S USE OF UNQUALIFIED LABORERS

A shortage of elevator mechanic helpers has led the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) to assign laborers to fill in, but mechanics and their union say the move is compromising safety, The Chief reported on October 20. A civil-service exam for helpers had been planned for earlier this year but was postponed because of the pandemic. NYCHA is budgeted for 197 helpers but had only 144 on staff. Because it was unable to find qualified helpers, the authority hired 36 laborers to help the mechanics. Gregory Floyd, president of Teamsters Local 237, which represents NYCHA's elevator mechanics, warned the authority about the risks involved with using inexperienced laborers to perform such dangerous tasks. "If anything happens, the housing authority and the city will be liable, and the consequences could be deadly," he said, adding that NYCHA is having difficulty hiring qualified helpers because their pay of US$31 per hour is as much as US$9 less than what the private sector pays. A NYCHA spokesperson said the authority is in the process of setting up interviews to hire new helpers. The authority expects exams to resume sometime during the current fiscal year. NYCHA's elevators, spread across 326 developments, have seen an increasing number of outages, making it difficult for the mechanics to keep up.