Pubdate: Fri, 05 Jan 2001
Source: Staten Island Advance (NY)
Copyright: 2001 Advance Publication Inc.
Contact:  http://www.silive.com/
Forum: http://www.silive.com/forums/
Author: Michael Wagner and Alysha Sideman

FERRY SKIPPER AWOL ON DRUG-TEST DAY

Assistant Captain Is Suspended And Thousands Are Delayed

An assistant ferry captain allegedly ducked out of work Wednesday 
after learning random drug tests would be conducted that day, ferry 
sources said. His absence forced the city to cut back on the boat 
schedule, causing delays for thousands of commuters.

Numerous sources said yesterday that the officer, who works on the 
Andrew J. Barberi ferryboat, left the St. George terminal after he 
arrived for his 1:30 to 9:30 p.m. shift and learned he was going to 
be tested that afternoon.

"He jumped back in his car and took off," said a source, who 
requested anonymity.

When the assistant captain returned to work around 4 p.m., he told 
his supervisors he was tending to a family emergency, sources said. 
But ferry officials reportedly didn't buy that and, according to one 
high-ranking source, the officer was suspended for an indefinite 
amount of time with pay.

The assistant captain is the son of a long-time ferry employee, now 
retired, who garnered a great deal of respect among the crews, 
sources said. To some he was considered a "mentor," one source said.

Tom Cocola, a spokesman for the city's Department of Transportation 
(DOT), which oversees ferry operations, would confirm only that a 
boat was pulled from service for personnel reasons.

"We went to the reduced schedule because of absenteeism that 
shouldn't have happened," he said. "This matter is now under internal 
investigation."

Although captains are ultimately responsible for the operation of the 
boats, most crews divide the five-mile cross-harbor trips, with the 
captain steering and docking the boat in one direction and the 
assistant steering and docking in the other.

Under U.S. Coast Guard regulations, in order for any of the ferries 
to run there must be a complete crew on board. For the two 
6,000-passenger Barberi-class boats, the crew must number 16 people.

The ferry employs 16 assistant captains and 170 deckhands.

Because another employee could not be summoned to work on such short 
notice, one of the understaffed car boats was forced to remain docked 
for the evening rush. A three-boat schedule, rather than the normal 
four-boat schedule, was instituted.

Ferry service, which normally runs boats every 15 minutes during the 
rush, remained on a three-boat, 20-minute schedule until 7 p.m., at 
which time it resumed a regular half-hour schedule.

"It caused pandemonium, as people waited for over an hour for [car] 
boats," said a source.

Jim LaRiviera, president of the Marine Engineers Beneficial 
Association, the union representing captains and mates, said he knew 
about the incident but declined to comment on it. He did say all of 
his members are required to pass a drug test at least one year prior 
to when they are hired.

Random drug testing for ferry employees is done regularly. Even DOT, 
which pays an independent medical contractor to perform the tests, 
doesn't know when an employee will be tapped, said Ken Concecion, 
chief of the deep-raft division of the U.S. Coast Guard, which 
oversees inspections for all vessels over 100 tons in New York Harbor.

"They have a name, and they come down and say we want to see X, X and 
X," Concecion said. "They might say he's on a run, or this is his day 
off, so then they put it off to the next day. But the ferry 
management doesn't even know when it's going to happen. When we say 
random, we mean random."

Employees can't outrun the tests. If an employee doesn't show up the 
day his or her name is drawn, the test will simply be administered 
the following day.

"At some point in time, they're going to catch him," Concecion said.

On average, employees are tested about once or twice a month. But 
tests can always be requested in the event that a supervisor suspects 
a problem with a particular employee.

"That's why the testing is a 24-hour operation," Concecion said. 
"We'll have guys coming in on a weekend, even."

Drug testing records are confidential. If employees come up positive, 
they are pulled from the job until a Coast Guard-authorized physician 
checks them out, he said. Typically, if they're caught a second time, 
their licenses are revoked.

"It does depend, though, on the individual's record," Concecion 
added. "If it's a first offense, we're not going to take that 
person's livelihood away."

The ferry is no stranger to allegations of employee misconduct or error.

On Nov. 17 last year, a rush-hour ferry, manned by an eight-person 
crew including a captain, six deckhands and an oilman, crashed into a 
slip at Whitehall Terminal. Witnesses said the boat was moving too 
fast. Drug tests were conducted on the crew and one urine sample 
showed traces of nitrate, a substance sometimes used to throw off 
drug test results. The deckhand in question was suspended.

Last Jan. 6, eight ferry workers were rounded up aboard the American 
Legion and suspended for allegedly running a floating, high-stakes 
card game in the vessel's locker room.

On Dec. 17, 1999, Saul Jones, 50, of St. George, died after going 
into cardiac arrest on the Lehman as it left the dock at St. George. 
Deckhands could not find a CPR mask and the boat took far too long to 
return to the St. George slip, witnesses said. A similar incident in 
October 1997 saw Satya Vohra, a 47-year old Queens woman, left 
unattended on board the Lehman for 10 minutes after going into 
cardiac arrest. Deckhands reportedly couldn't find a CPR mask and 
some didn't know plastic resuscitation masks were available. The 
woman died.
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