Pregnant, forced to quit
Had to move to homeless shelter, says JFK Airport worker
A man attempting to commit suicide by cop didn’t get his wish when police merely tased him as he waved a knife inside a Brooklyn NYPD stationhouse Sunday, police sources said.
The emotionally disturbed man, 26, waltzed into the 75th Precinct stationhouse lobby in East New York about 8:30 a.m. and brandished the large weapon, cops said. “The government is f——-g with me. I want you to shoot me,” he blurted out, according to police sources. Video shows him holding the knife at his left side and shaking it back and forth as a cop backs away. Two officers A boss hailed a pregnant Kennedy Airport worker’s happy news, and then hounded the mom-to-be off the job and into a homeless shelter, a complaint to the city Human Rights Commission contends.
“She was like, ‘Congratulations, another Hallmark baby,’ ” Janice Martin, 23, said in an interview with the Daily News of a 2018 email exchange with Hallmark Aviation Services supervisor Sylvia Werdinig-Costelloe.
Seven months later, she was forced to quit because supervisors refused to ease her workload on Transportation Security Administration screening lines, Martin alleged in the complaint. She now lives in a Queens homeless shelter with her 4month-old infant, Ariah Carr.
“When everything first started happening I was like, then drew their guns and pointed them at him, causing him to grimace as if expecting to be shot. Two other cops pull out Tasers. Police ordered him to drop the knife, but he refused, cops said. That’s when one cop shot him with a Taser.
“Why didn’t you shoot me?” he asked before dropping the knife and falling backward, knocking his head on a glass door as he dropped to the floor, sources said.
Police then swarmed him. He was taken for psychiatric evaluation and is not expected to be criminally charged. ‘Huh, they’re just another company getting over, they don’t care about us’ or whatever,” Martin said in the interview. “But then when I really thought about it, I thought, how could somebody who worked for the company over a certain amount of time get treated like this?”
On June 20, labor union 32BJ SEIU helped Martin file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.
The complaint alleges, among other things, that Hallmark discriminated against Martin by “failing to provide a reasonable accommodation for her pregnancy.”
“It’s another example at the airport where there are nonunion contractors who won’t treat workers like they’re human beings. It’s a violation of the law, but also a violation of what’s the right thing to do,” union Vice President Rob Hill said in an interview..
Martin became pregnant in July 2018 and suffered initial dizziness, morning sickness and asthma so severe a doctor’s note declared that her “high-risk pregnancy” required she sit for half her shift, according to the complaint.
But in an email exchange that Martin showed The News, which is also cited in the complaint, Werdinig-Costelloe told her “there were no positions available that would allow her to sit,” and instead suggested she take a leave of absence.
Martin returned in October and renewed her request for a seated position. Instead of accommodating her, WerdinigCostelloe cut her hours to 35 from 40, and then cut them again to 20 hours by November, according to the complaint.
“I was trying to take care of myself and save up,” Martin told The News. “Of course I’ll take the lower hours because something is better than nothing.”
Martin said that in early December her pain worsened. She said that just before New Year’s Eve, Werdinig-Costelloe told her, “‘If you don’t get back to work Friday, I’ll just say you volunteered to quit.’ ” The complaint said she resigned.
Werdinig-Costelloe didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Martin told The News that she resigned, and her daughter (both in inset) was born March 6; they moved into the Jamaica shelter a month later.
Company CEO Philipp Huber told The News that the rights of pregnant workers are outlined in the employee handbook. “We do look after our employees,” he said.
Huber said the company employs mostly women and frequently gives pregnant workers time to get off their feet during work hours. “We do give breaks; however there are positions where they secure an entrance, so you can’t just walk away,” he said.
The complaint alleges that Hallmark Aviation Services never gave Martin any documentation outlining the rights of pregnant employees.
Martin told The News she’ll soon start a new job at Kennedy cleaning planes. “I want to get my apartment before my daughter turns 1,” she said. “I want my daughter to be able to go around the house, play in the cabinets, things like that.”