Working their Asses Off!!

by tiny

"We have kids to support, we have bills to pay" The brown eyes of Larry Montoya glistened in the morning glare. He spoke to me over the sounds of horns honking in solidarity with the over 40 street cleaners who were protesting their illegal and wrongful termination from The Department of Public Works. He concluded, "We are protesting to get our jobs back, they fired us cause of nepotism"

Mr Montoya was referring to the reasons why the protest had been called by the workers and their advocates, La Raza Centro Legal, who began assisting the general laborers after they were unfairly, and illegally, terminated from their jobs due to corruption and nepotism in the Department of Public Works.

"I was an Environmental Control Officer there before Deputy Director Mohammad Nuru and Edwin Lee began retaliating against an entire unit in DPW ( by firing us) because he didn’t like that our unit was making complaints against him publicly, " I spoke next to the very powerful looking Derek Maderis, one of the protesting DPW workers, an African Descendent general laborer with seniority who was wrongfully terminated. He concluded, " He tried to call this a service cut and its not."

"40-80 DPW workers in San Francisco were fired from their jobs and replaced by people further down on the DPW seniority list, as well as by people who were friends and relatives of Management, " to get the details on the claims of nepotism I sought out the fierce civil and human rights advocate and executive director of La Raza Centro Legal, Renee Saucedo who was protesting alongside the workers outside of the DPW offices on Cesar Chavez Blvd on Tuesday morning " The workers, the majority of whom are African American, Latino and Asian came to La Raza Centro Legal for help"

She continued, "We are fighting to get the hiring system investigated and to make sure the practices of the DPW, particularily by Mohammad Nuru are above the table and to make sure these folks get reinstated with full seniority" Renee concluded with her usual real talk," these are general laborers that work their asses off to keep this city clean, they do the hard jobs and they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity "

It was interesting to this reporter to note that the small but loud huddle of workers were overrun with an awkward looking array ( or perhaps: display) of cops, called out for what reason, I can't imagine as these peacefully powerful DPW employees were only exercising their constituional rights to free assembly and free speech. Its also important to note in the workers charge of nepotism and favoritism that Nuru was originally hired for another position under Willie Brown's Administration, well-known for its rampant nepotism and favoritism, including the hiring of the man who is now our Mayor.

To my queri of what the next move for these workers would be Renee said, " Well ultimately, Newsom is responsible for all of this and because Nuru didn’t have the courage to meet with them (the workers) today they are gonna go straight to the mayors office – probably within the next two weeks ."