Working in this Bronx motel is a bloody hell.
The owners of a hot-sheet motel where union laborers have been protesting wage and benefits cuts failed to replace a bloody mattress two years after a dead man was found on the bed, workers claim.
Owner Ankoor Naik has also ignored two independent reports that found inadequate training and protection for employees at the 94-unit flophouse despite hazardous conditions and bedbug infestations, workers and safety experts attest.
“We find blood, needles for drugs, condoms in the rooms, everything,” said union member Paula Amparo, 42, who has worked at the Capri Whitestone Motel since 2008.
A room attendant snapped a photo on April 28, 2012, showing the bed in Room 230 with a bloody pillow on it, according to testimony brought before a labor arbitrator in April.
Cops confirmed that Juan Cabrera, 19, died of an apparent drug overdose in the room. A police report says he was partying with two others when he stopped breathing and was found “vomiting and foaming from the mouth.”
“There are times when we have to handle blood and other… things,” Amparo said. “It’s an unsafe place for workers.”
Employees claims of training and equipment being inadequate were backed by a health and safety firm that arbitrator Elliot Shriftman ordered to investigate the situation.
“The photos introduced into the record by the union are horrific,” Shriftman wrote. “The number of contaminated, blood-soaked mattresses allowed to remain in use is not a fact on the record, but the specter of belief that safety and health are at the lowest level of concern to management is a finding easily made.”
A walk-through of the motel conducted last month by Emilcott found the bloody mattress from room 230 had been removed at some point prior to their inspection but bodily fluid stains were discovered on four other randomly checked mattresses. A room attendant who photographed the soiled mattress in room 230 weeks before the inspection told an arbitrator it had been in use up until April, 2014.
The firm also found that hotel management had failed to properly train staff on how to handle sheets and towels contaminated with human waste and other substances.
Workers contend Naik, the hotel’s owner, isn’t following up on Emilcott’s safety recommendations or instructions to provide waterproof mattress covers for each of the rooms.
Naik raised the ire of employees after he slashed wages and discontinued health benefits during a contract dispute in January. The hotelier was unavailable for comment, according to a security guard at the motel on June 12.
The city and state Health Departments and the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which holds some oversight over hotels, were unable to cite a regulation concerning the replacement of bloody mattresses.
A spokesman for the federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration urged workers concerned about workplace safety to contact OSHA’s toll-free hotline, (800) 321-OSHA.
