PEP, December 2010: Roundtable discussion: Civil service under attack

Public Employee Press

Part of a series on the attacks on government
Roundtable discussion
Civil service under attack

GREGORY N. HEIRES

The Bloomberg administration's efforts to weaken the civil service system could lead to widespread cronyism and favoritism and erode job security for civil servants.

"Tammany Hall is back," DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said, in the form of widespread contracting out to private employers not covered by civil service law as well as administration plans to gut the law's protections for city employees and the public.

Her stark statement was a loud warning that the civil service system is under siege - and an indication of DC 37's strong commitment to protecting civil service workers.

Wiping out civil service

The Bloomberg administration is pushing for changes that would:

undermine the "merit and fitness" criteria for hiring and promoting applicants traditionally selected on the basis of test results;
consolidate title series, shrinking promotional opportunities;
introduce greater "flexibility" into the hiring and promotion processes instead of objective criteria, encouraging favoritism, and
weaken seniority rules, undercutting job security.

Alan Viani, a former DC 37 negotiations director who is now a well-known arbitrator, said the Bloomberg administration's effort to change the civil service system reflects the current nationwide trend of targeting public employees and their unions as states and cities confront tight budgets.

City officials claim they need more "flexibility," Viani said, "but what they really want is control and patronage."

Roberts and Viani spoke at "The State of Civil Service in New York City," an Oct. 27 panel discussion sponsored by the DC 37 Civil Service Committee to focus attention on growing threats to the system. Daily News columnist Lisa Colangelo moderated the panel, which also included State Senate Civil Service Chair Diane Savino and City Council Civil Service Chair James Sanders Jr.

Many of the changes the Bloomberg administration seeks are contained in a five-year plan issued by the Dept. of Citywide Administrative Services in response to legislation implementing the Long Beach court decision by requiring the city to replace provisionals with appointees who have passed civil service tests after a maximum of nine months.

The DCAS plan, which the state Civil Service Commission has not yet approved, would reduce testing and employees' rights by consolidating titles and making many competitive civil service jobs non-competitive.

In state hearings, DC 37 leaders have raised specific concerns about proposed changes that would undermine civil service protections and open up hiring and promotions to patronage and favoritism.

"This is not only part of an assault on civil service work but on union work as well," Savino said.

"There are those who believe New York should not be a union town," Sanders pointed out.

Panelists suggested that Bloomberg's attack on teachers' seniority protections would expand to hit other civil servants.

"I would fight to the death on seniority," Roberts said. "That's one reason this union exists."

"Our goal is not only to protect the people in the civil service system now. We have to fight for the people who are coming behind us," said SSEU Local 371 President Faye Moore, who chairs the DC 37 Civil Service Committee.