Public Employee Press

Civil service group honors SSEU Local 371 president

A civil service watchdog group honored Social Service Employees Union Local 371 President Anthony Wells Oct. 20 for his persistent fight to preserve the legal rights of public employees.

The Civil Service Merit Council honored Wells along with Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez, who has exposed widespread corruption and waste in city contracting, and Gene Carroll, co-director of the New York State AFL-CIO/Cornell Union Leadership Institute.

The award, presented by Robert Croghan, chair of the Organization of Staff Analysts, commended Wells for "using all of the resources available to meet the challenges his members face." The Merit Council praised Wells for pursuing a recent lawsuit that prevented the city from giving provisional employees more work credit than certain civil servants in education and experience exams for promotions.

DC 37 Retirees Association Vice President Louis Albano, a past president of the Merit Council, presented the award to Carroll, who noted that today's contracting out has led to political corruption and cronyism "remarkably similar" to the corrupt Tammany Hall system that controlled New York City politics from the 1850s to the 1930s.