By JANE LaTOUR

What if you had to lie to your co-workers every day as part of your job description? Members of Clerical-Administrative Local 1549 are not hired to be undercover cops — but that’s exactly what some were ordered to do.

In 1999, the Human Resources Administration set up a PAI Auditors Unit. Nine employees were assigned to pose as welfare clients and — using scripts provided for them — call HRA offices to rate the call takers on their performance.

PAI is shorthand for the HRA motto — “Professionalism, Accountability, and Integrity.” But Eddie Gates, assistant director of the Clerical Division, said the agency was involved in “Persecution, Arrogance and Indifference to its own employees.”

In her 33 years at HRA, “I’ve never seen a project like this,” said Jeanette Harris, Clerical Associate III. “They assign you to do a job. If you don’t do it, you’re insubordinate. You can be written up. We were not supposed to tell the union. It seemed illegal. We were put in the position of evaluating people who could lose their jobs because of it.”

Five brave women fought back to protect the rights of their fellow members. All but Ms. Harris were Eligibility Specialists I. In 1999, Mr. Gates filed a working-out-of-title grievance. Management refused to settle and the case took almost three years to wind its way through the serpentine system to arbitration.

Meanwhile, the assignment continued to distress the employees. “The lying and deception required goes against my Christian and moral beliefs,” said ES I Lorna Lee Brown.

Back pay award
On Nov. 1, 2002, the arbitrator ruled that the work was appropriate for Investigators, not clerical administrative workers. He ordered back pay for the Local 1549 members to cover the difference between their pay and the rate for the Investigator title.

They are now back at the Info Hotline. “We’re ecstatic, of course,” says Jeanette Harris. “By taking the problem to the union, we got results. Melissa Brown, our union attorney, and our shop steward, Jackie Bonner, were terrific. They gave us hope.”

After 18 years at HRA, Jackie Bonner is very pleased to see the agency reined in: “I am really happy, because this was something that never should have been implemented in the first place.”