Page 10 - Work Force September 2019

‘Every day you’re out there, you feel vulnerable’
Highway workers discuss ris
Guglielmino: ‘People aren’t getting how dangerous this is’
As state steps up enforcement,
New York State Police and the Department of Transportation (DOT) recently announced
the start of “Operation Hardhat,” a joint effort to crack down on work zone violations and highlight the importance of safe driving through active construction and maintenance work zones on state and local highways.
State Police are patrolling work zones, including in Western New York, to ticket motorists who disobey flagging personnel, speed through a work zone or violate the state’s Move Over Law.
“Law enforcement and other emergency responders, including CSEA and PEF highway workers, work in a dangerous environment and risk their lives to keep the traveling public safe,” New York State Police noted in a recent news
Andy Hahn with his work truck.
Joseph Guglielmino, a highway maintenance supervisor 1 at the
state Department of Transportation, and his crew work primarily on Interstate 84 and the Taconic State Parkway, busy roads that have become even busier
as more people have moved north.
“We deal with the volume
of traffic, and people not
adhering to signs, not moving
over and not slowing down,” said Guglielmino, a 31-year DOT employee who also serves as 1st Vice
President of our Department of Transportation Region 8 Local. “People will move over after they see the first truck, then get back into their lane instead of staying over until they’re out of the work zone.”
Guglielmino said that distracted drivers is a major problem facing the workers.
“You could be in the truck at any point in the day and see people on their phones and their tablets. I’ve even seen people reading a book,” Guglielmino said. “Cell phone use and texting are the biggest things we see.”
“People just aren’t getting how dangerous this is for us.”
Guglielmino
Drake: Increased signs will tackle driver frustration
State Department of
Transportation Region 8
Local President William Drake
Sr., whose local encompasses
five counties, said proactive
measures must be taken
to quell what he feels is a
growing trend of road rage
and frustrated drivers.
Drake said he’d like to
see increased use of mobile
digital sign boards to give
drivers ample notice of
planned roadwork, so motorists can choose alternate routes ahead of time. Drake said that increased signage would also give drivers more
time to move into a lane away from the work zone. “People want their roads fixed, but they don’t
want to wait,” Drake said. If we had signs that say we have roadwork coming, [drivers] will know ahead of time. If [drivers] are sitting in traffic, they sometimes yell and scream.”
Drake would also like to see an increased police presence in the work zones.
While State Police are stationed in locations near the entrance of work zones, Drake believes this has a mixed effect. “When the drivers get past the police, they speed back up as they’re entering the work zone,” he said. “[Drivers are] speeding through our work zone.”
— Jessica Ladlee
— Jessica Ladlee
10 The Work Force
September 2019
Drake
Thousands of CSEA members employed by the state Department of Transportation (DOT) and local government agencies are working hard to maintain and improve roadways across the state.
Working on or near roadways is among the most dangerous work that our members do.
CSEA members and other workers who perform duties on or near highways face close calls and challenges every day, whether it’s from distracted drivers, reckless motorists or members of the
public expressing frustration at roadwork.
The numbers are daunting. Across the United
States, there is a work zone fatality every 11 hours and a work zone injury every 13 minutes.
More than 50 of our members have lost their lives working on roadways since CSEA began keeping such records in 1983.
Our union is fighting to make work zones safer, not only for our members who are in work zones every day, but for the general public.
“These are our brothers and sisters, and
someone’s parent or child, who are working in these work zones every day,” CSEA President Danny Donohue said. “Nothing is more important to our union than worker safety. We all need to get involved and do our part to ensure that our employers are protecting our members who are in work zones, and work to minimize the risks our members face.”
Through our ongoing Don’t Zone Out campaign and other efforts, our union has successfully fought to strengthen our state’s ‘Move Over’ law;
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