During the Town of Crawford's monthly board meeting, discussion turned to Crawford's Highway Department moving to its summer hours schedule in mid-April. The change in work schedule gives the department's thirteen full-time employees a work-week consisting of four 10-hour days, as opposed to the five 8-hour days they work during the rest of the year.

The highway department began this year's summer hours on April 15, prompting members of the town board to express some frustration. Referring to the department's early start time of its summer hours, Councilman Michael Menendez said that the schedule change was "ridiculous." Menendez continued saying, "They [the highway department] take advantage of us and of this whole town."

Menendez then asked when the department's labor contract, which was negotiated two years ago, would be up. Supervisor Carnes responded that the contract would be up for renegotiation in 2010.

The exchange showed a bit of exasperation on the part of some board members, while Councilman Larry Marshall was more succinct about his feelings regarding the schedule change, saying, "We're not going to take this crap no more."

At this point in the meeting, Carnes described language in the town's labor agreement with the highway department's employee union, which states that summer hours were to start on or around the first Wednesday of May. Carnes then said this was the second year in a row that the department moved up its summer schedule hours, despite a verbal agreement that he said was made on the part of Crawford Highway Superintendent Stephen Russell not to do just that.

In a Tuesday interview with Russell, the town's highway superintendent for 18 years, he disagreed with Carnes with respect to any language in the present labor agreement and the assertion that this year's summer schedule began earlier than that of previous years.

When asked if he knew of any language in the labor agreement defining when his department would change to summer hours, Russell replied, "no."

"It's the same time every year. From April to August — we go off summer hours by Labor Day," Russell said.

Russell went on to say that the four-day week is a success in allowing highway workers to get more done due to longer daylight conditions.

"It's the same set-up and takedown time on a job during the summer or the winter. But during the summer we have more hours in a day to get a job done. During the summer we are the first ones at the quarry, we're the first ones at the blacktop plant."

In a follow-up interview, Supervisor Carnes said that he would be researching the contract of the highway department's 2006 labor agreement and will explore the possibility of exerting "management rights" in stopping the early start of the summer schedule.

"I plan on raising the issue and having some more information by the June meeting to make sure that taxpayers are not being taken advantage of," said Carnes.

Carnes explained that his concerns revolved around the loss of workdays to the summer hour schedule, both by reducing the actual number of days needed for a full week, as well as possible further reductions of the highway department's workforce should employees take personal days or encounter inclement weather during the summer. Carnes then used the July 4 holiday, which falls on a Friday this year, as an example of the trouble with the four-day week. Carnes said that, in years past, when the holiday fell in the middle of the four-day work week, the department would shut down for the entire week — losing an entire week of work on the town's 76 miles of roads.

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