Lexington garbage worker fired after woman gave him a TV. Colleagues want him rehired
Some employees in Lexington’s Waste Management Department want the city to re-examine the termination of a co-worker after he accepted a gift from a woman on his yard waste route.
Rico Givens was on his route on March 27 when a woman approached him with a television set. Givens explained he was working yard waste and could not take the television set. The woman said the television worked but she no longer had the remote. Givens, a single father, said he had a daughter who may want the TV.
The woman told him to take it, said Dion Henry, a sanitation worker and president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, Lexington chapter of the solid waste workers.
The city does not treat AFSCME the same as police, fire and corrections unions. The city meets with the union under a system called “meet and confer,” an alternative to full union status.
Givens brought the television back to work to see if he could get it to work without the remote. There are cameras in the room Givens was in. Henry said management must have seen Givens with the TV set.
Givens was later terminated because the department has a policy that does not allow sanitation workers to take things from the trash, which is commonly called scavenging.
“He wasn’t scavenging,” Henry said. Givens has been a great employee, Henry said. “He’s never been written up. He was selected to go to Eastern Kentucky and worked a week there helping clean up after the floods.”
Susan Straub, a spokeswoman for the city, said the city is reviewing the incident. Givens is not a civil service employee and has no employee protections. He serves at-will, she said.
Ashley Guy, who gave Givens the TV, said Givens didn’t approach her nor did he get it from her trash.
“I gifted Rico Givens an old tv for his daughter that I hadn’t been able to to use for quite sometime due to not having a remote,” Guy wrote in a text message. “I approached Mr. Givens and asked if he could use the TV. He didn’t ask me or pick through my trash.”
This story was originally published April 3, 2024 at 12:57 PM.
