Joyner joined the water services department in April 2014, rising to deputy director the following March, according to personnel records. This week, it revised that estimate to early June.ĭisgruntled employees at the customer service division trace their problems to one person: Deputy Director Michele Joyner. In mid-April, the city said it would take three to four weeks to provide those reports. In early April, New Times requested the investigative reports stemming from these complaints. Employees could cite more than one type of discrimination in lodging their complaints. Ten cases are still open.Ĭomplaints from 2018 cited discrimination on the basis of race (26 cases), discrimination on the basis of sex (15), and retaliation (10), as well as discrimination for disability, national origin, age, color, sexual orientation, and other reasons. The remaining 10 cases were closed after being dismissed for administrative reasons, dismissed by an external agency, or withdrawn. The department dismissed a dozen as having no cause, but it found cause with five others. With the 53 complaints filed last year, for example, 15 were investigated. But it also converted many of these complaints to investigations, and it found cause or negotiated settlements for a handful of them. The department closed some cases due to a finding of no cause, or for administrative reasons. The city says that so far this year, the Equal Opportunity Department has received 12 complaints related to water services. New Times obtained these and other documents for this article following requests under state public records law. That year, water services employees filed 58 complaints with the Equal Opportunity Department. Then, in 2017, the number of complaints exploded. In 2015, that doubled to 20 the next year, it grew to 28 complaints. In the last four years, these formal complaints of discrimination have skyrocketed.Ĭourtesy of Matt Rattei From 2011 through 2014, employees at the Water Services Department lodged an average of 10 complaints each year. The sheer number of complaints to the Equal Opportunity Department hints at frustrations from employees department-wide, and not just with customer service. “I can’t fight the city and cancer at the same time,” she told Phoenix New Times. She was denied multiple times and has since retired. One woman, Debbie Purcell, repeatedly asked for a schedule adjustment and location change after she was diagnosed with cancer, so that she could go to oncology appointments. These frustrations are driving employees like Rattei to find jobs elsewhere or simply quit. Employees allege that when they speak out, they are targeted and punished with coachings and transfers.Ĭomplaints to human resources or to the city’s Equal Opportunity Department lead either nowhere or to more retaliation, they say. They regularly endure micromanagement, favoritism, and retaliation, they claim, and policies are arbitrarily enforced. The customer service division of the city’s vaunted Water Services Department is a toxic place to work, former and current longtime employees say. He’s not the only one who feels that way. But in the last few years, it had become an impossible place to work, he said. Rattei didn’t always harbor such animosity for his employer. He’d worked at the department for 11 years. “I fucking hate this place,” he told a supervisor when he quit. Last November, Matt Rattei finally escaped the customer service division at the Phoenix Water Services Department.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |