Unions representing the city's blue collar workers are filing grievances claiming that some 2,000 hours of overtime work in the run-up to the G-20 summit was dished out to favorite units, while a plan for spreading the wealth was scrapped.

A mass grievance filed by the Pittsburgh Joint Collective Bargaining Committee, which represents nearly 600 city workers, reached city Operations Director Art Victor yesterday. If successful, it would force the city to pay some senior laborers, drivers and craftspeople who were not offered summit-related overtime an amount equal to the hours they should have been offered.

"We believe that overtime was distributed improperly based on the arrangement we had with the Department of Public Works, and we have filed a class-action grievance," said Gerald Pecora, vice president of the Laborers District Council of Western Pennsylvania, and a leader of the bargaining committee.

The city argues that normal procedures for offering overtime through the entire work force in order of seniority weren't practical for the Sept. 24-25 summit, which involved minute-by-minute changes in plans and security clearances for some assignments.

"This was a unique situation," said acting Public Works Director Robert Kaczorowski. "It wasn't like a Penguins parade or a Steelers parade. This was run by the Secret Service and the feds."

The work of cleaning up streets and facilities, removing graffiti, laying down barriers and more fell to the Department of Public Works, and during the weeks immediately before and after the summit some 70 of its employees worked around 2,000 hours of overtime, according to Mr. Kaczorowski.

At time and a half, that could mean upwards of $50,000 in earnings, said Teamsters Local 249 President Joe Rossi. "That's a substantial amount of overtime," he said.

More than a half-dozen city drivers represented by his local and the bargaining committee have filed individual grievances for lost overtime opportunities. He'll also join in proceedings related to the mass grievance.

Before the summit, the bargaining committee and the city agreed to create a list of employees interested in working extra hours, and then call through that list, rather than the entire department roster, with overtime opportunities, according to committee officials. It's unclear, though, whether that list was ever created. Mr. Kaczorowski said he never saw such a list.

Instead, citywide units including the Redd Up Campaign crew, the construction division and the maintenance division got much of the overtime, said Mr. Kaczorowski.

"The city used, I understand, the Redd Up Crew for that work, and they weren't the ones who had the priority under the contract based on seniority to do the work," said a committee spokesman who asked not to be named. "So we're looking for back pay."

Employees who got clearances to work inside of the security perimeter around the David L. Lawrence Convention Center also tended to get lots of hours, because it was easier to leave them in there than to move them in and out, said Mr. Kaczorowski.

"The people who got locked in and stayed in [the perimeter] got a larger chunk of it than the other employees," he said. "We tried to plan the best we could. Unfortunately, when it came time to do it, we couldn't implement our plan because of restrictions on the inner perimeter.

"The employees who missed that opportunity will be given an opportunity to catch up."

The first step in the grievance process will be a meeting between union officials and Mr. Victor, possibly followed by arbitration.

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