Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and emergency service operators warned Thursday that 911 callers may soon hear an answering machine if immediate action is not taken.
The 911 operators and dispatchers say they are the first line of defense for members of the public experiencing an emergency and the guiding voice for first responders sent to assist those across the five boroughs, but now these workers are facing an emergency of their own.
Standing outside of police headquarters on March 27, the dispatchers told horror stories of extreme workloads, 16-hour days, and even being forced to sleep in cots at the call center due to an ongoing staffing crisis.
“The mental stress that we go through every day is unreal. It’s something that we can’t even fathom — sleep deprivation. We take more than 100 calls a day of people dying, shootings, people are having a hard time breathing, children who are dying, and we have to, in less than three minutes, activate who are we going to send to that person,” 911 operator and NYC Police Communications Technicians and Supervisors Union president Arisleyda Estrella-Skinner said.
Other workers — who asked not to be identified out of fear of retaliation — say they are forced to work 16-hour days almost every day, leaving them exhausted during life-and-death moments.
They also argue that they are forced to stay past their work hours even when their children are waiting at home. If workers say they can’t do it anymore, they are disciplined.
“If you go to them and say I’m burnt out, I can’t work 16 hours. They’re gonna say, do what you have to do, which means you have to go sick and get a doctor’s note. If you do go sick and you did not bring a doctor’s note, you get a command discipline. Let’s just say you stay there and do the 16 hours. You’re tired, you’re burned out, you fall asleep. What do you get? A command discipline. It’s a double-edged sword,” one worker said.
The crisis is becoming so dire that workers warn that callers experiencing an emergency could face the possibility of not hearing a live voice at the other end of the line.
Williams played a recording of an answer machine message he says some are already hearing when they need help.
“This is the actual recording of what people have heard when they’ve called 911, as they’re trying to get an operator to pick up the phone. This is alarming. This is scary. It is terrifying,” Williams said. “We have to sound the alarm before that message turns into all you get.”
Williams said he wrote a letter to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch in which he outlined some of the most egregious concerns, such as the docking of pay for being unable to work the forced overtime, a lack of adequate mental health resources despite the trauma inherent in the work, and photos of employees sleeping in locker room facilities due to time and financial constraints.
“Overworked individuals cannot properly advise callers or provide information to authorities on a continuous basis with the necessary accuracy,” Manhattan Council Member Yusef Salaam said. “It’s a very, very dangerous situation.”
amNewYork reached out to the NYPD for comment and is awaiting a response.
