Trailblazer Takes On The Trash Ceiling

When Janice Parker became the first female trash hauler in the city’s history, she was recognized by the mayor and Board of Alders president for breaking the garbage can glass ceiling.

Three years after her one-time stint as a seasonal ​“refuse laborer,” she has filed a discrimination complaint against the city that once honored her.

Parker alleges in a complaint filed with the state’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) that she was discriminated against because of her gender when the city hired man after man over her for a full-time refuse job.

She was hired as a seasonal trash hauler back in July 2015 for a 120-day assignment in what today is still an all-male Refuse & Recycling Division of the city’s Department of Public Works. She never got recalled for an opportunity to work full-time in that division specifically for the refuse laborer, refuse truck driver, and a laborer position in the department’s Streets Division.

Parker hurt her knee just two days shy of completing the seasonal assignment but not before she’d collected citations from Mayor Toni Harp and Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker, two women in the city who know what it means to bust barriers.

After that seasonal job ended, Parker said she applied for full-time refuse laborer positions with the department but got nowhere. Meanwhile, she learned that as many as eight men — former seasonal workers like her and at least two former workers who were reinstated — were hired for full-time positions instead.

Parker, who now works full-time for the city’s parks and recreation department, told the CHRO in her complaint that between November 2013 and January 2017 she applied for positions in both departments for which she believes she was as qualified or more qualified than the men who were ultimately hired.

The city, in its response to the complaint, argued that any claim of discrimination that predates Parker’s hiring in July 2015 is invalid because it exceeds the 120-day period allowed for making such allegations. The city further argued that all of the men hired after July 2015 were more qualified than Parker.

Edwin Martinez, superintendent for public works, said in an affidavit provided to the CHRO that Parker missed work because of her injury and he never heard from her after the seasonal work ended. Parker disputes his claim, saying that she contacted the office repeatedly and eventually showed up unannounced and clocked in at the office. She said it was Martinez who sent her home on that day.

Martinez also said in his affidavit that Parker was a complainer, who indicated that she would not work in the winter.

“As a seasonal employee, Ms. Parker complained about the working conditions,” Martinez said in the affidavit. ​“I just did not have the sense that Ms. Parker was serious about a position as a Refuse Laborer.”

Parker said her alleged lack of seriousness was news to her given that she’s spent a number of years doing seasonal work for parks and rec before working for the refuse division. She also had taken the civil service exam to be a caretaker in the parks department and has had and demonstrated she knows how to use her commercial driver’s license. She said she was qualified to work refuse.

Parker has been on the job with parks and rec for a year. She is happy with the position, she said; but she still intends to move forward with the CHRO complaint about her past workplace.

“I want them to know that how they handled this wasn’t right,” she said, ​“and I want the door to be open for other women to work in that department.”