By Dominick Romeo
On April 1st, 2023 our Mayor and City Council launched their ordinance requiring superintendents and homeowners to throw out their trash at 8 PM, after already working an exhausting day. We start our workday at 7 AM and end our day at 5 PM, or even 6 or 7 when there are emergencies. By going back to work at 8 PM, we miss out on dinners with our families, nights out with friends, and are no longer able to sign up for night classes to better our lives, because we now have to throw our building trash out, 3 nights a week, 12 nights a month, and 144 nights out of the year! This is physically exhausting us superintendents! We have had our lives taken away by this Mayor and by City Council Members, and WE WANT OUR LIVES BACK!
Some have told us that we should be happy to be where we are – that we are not paying any rent – and that we should stop complaining about this while others have more difficult lives. But put yourself in our shoes! We already work an exhausting 10-hour shift, and we are NOT being paid to go back to work, 144 nights out of the year, and we now don’t have our evening off because of this poorly thought-out plan to tackle a rat problem that the City helped create. It’s the unregulated restaurant shakes, that have been feeding these mice and rats, and we are getting punished for the mistakes of this Mayor, and the lack of leadership by our City Council Members.
Now, City Council is blaming the mayor, and the mayor is blaming the Department of Sanitation, and the Department of Sanitation is blaming the City Council – because no one wants to take responsibility for this ridiculous mandate a few months before their elections, on November 9th of this year. They’re not even finning offenders who still toss out their building trash at 4PM, who are unaware that this regulation even exists, because these politicians know that this is not going to look good for them in November.
I reached out to my City Council Member through email back in January when I first heard about this regulation on NY1 News – I begged Erik Bottcher, who has been a huge disappointment for us residents here in Chelsea New York, not to do this to us! I told him that you are about to tick off the superintends in all five boroughs, and in return, you are about to tick off their residents, and in return, you are about to tick off your voters – but he wouldn’t listen to me, and they did this anyway.
Last month I decided to start a fully volunteered union, of non-union & union superintendents, so we too can have a voice when these politicians come up with other absentminded regulations that affect our health and our everyday lives! I’m hoping to get as many superintendents as possible to join in on the fight! It’s been a difficult road and I’ve been working hard to pull all of this together. But I feel that my efforts will pay off in time, and that we will be able to have our nights off again at some point. We deserve to be treated like a human being. Just like you deserve to be!
A petition to put back the time us superintendents throw out our building trash to 4 PM is below.
Please go to NYCBuildingSupers.com for more information on how you can help – and please make sure to hit “FOLLOW” on our Twitter account, https://twitter.com/NycSupers
THERE IS POWER IN NUMBERS!
YOU NOW HAVE A VOICE FELLOW SUPERINTENDS AND PORTERS!
LET’S USE IT WISELY!
EMAIL US AT NYCBuildingSuperS@gmail.com
HOW LONG DOES THROWING OUT TRASH TAKES?
Depends on size – number of bags to be taken to sidewalk. That’s not all, of course. It’s a routine of preparing garbage and cleaning courtyard after. That’s if garbage is taken out by live-in-super. If garbage is taken out by no-live-in supers or porters then that’s means traveling in night to workplace and back home. Unpleasant situation, is not? Form of 21st century slavery at best.
Over an hour to over two hours, depending on how much trash we have to toss out to the curb, and depending if it’s a recycling garbage night o regular trash night. We can’t eat with our family and friends now and have to eat grocery store-bought food at a ridiculous price it costs, because we are missing our dinners, 144 nights each year.