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PEP Jul-Aug 2014
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Public Employee Press

City Council funds 200 new clerical jobs
Local 1549 wins push for hiring clericals



By GREGORY N. HEIRES

DC 37 and Local 1549 won a campaign for the hiring of additional clerical workers at the New York Police Dept.

"This is a great victory," said Eddie Rodriguez, president of Clerical-Administrative Employees Local 1549. Local 1549 called for the hiring on June 6 at the news conference on the steps of City Hall before the joint hearing of the City Council's Finance and Contracts committees.

Rodriguez said the local believes NYPD needs as many as 700 additional clericals but described the newly budgeted 200 positions as a very significant improvement in staffing.

Local 1549 activists joined City Council Public Safety Committee Chair Vanessa L. Gibson, Public Advocate Letitia James and Fire and Criminal Justice Chair Elizabeth Crowley at the news conference.

"Putting more police on the streets - especially in communities experiencing persistently high rates of street crime and gun violence - is critical to enhancing the public safety of every community throughout New York," Gibson said.

James said that by hiring non-uniformed employees and sending Police Officers assigned to clerical work back to the beat, the city would cut overtime costs and spending on administrative and clerical work.

Civilianization saves money

Ralph Palladino, 2nd vice president of Local 1549, who also attended the news conference and spoke at the budget hearing, noted that the pay difference between Police Officers and Police Administrative Aides is $69,930. Hiring 500 Police Administrative Aides and redeploying 500 uniformed officers from civilian tasks to patrol and law enforcement duties would, for example, save $35 million a year, according to the local.

"Despite three arbitration decisions ordering the Police Dept. to cease and desist, there are hundreds of full-duty, able-bodied uniformed officers of all ranks performing clerical duties," said Local 1549 Police Administrative Clerical Chapter Chair Janice Darden at the hearing.

"Clerical employees should not have to compete with Police Officers to do the jobs for which they were hired," she said. "The department's action hurts the morale of the civilian employees, in addition to wasting resources and taxpayer dollars. The fact is, you don't need a gun to sit at a computer."

Other City Council members who spoke in favor of civilianization included Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Margaret Chin and Andy King.

"The residents of New York City deserve better than allowing sworn law enforcement officers to sit behind a desk to perform clerical work," Rodriguez said. "Let civilian workers do clerical administrative work and Police Officers fight crime."

At the hearing, Palladino not only discussed the potential savings of civilianization at the NYPD but also called for the city to save millions of tax dollars by eliminating wasteful spending on contracting out clerical work and ending assignments of Sanitation Workers, School Safety Aides, Corrections Officers and Traffic Enforcement Agents to clerical work.

"Civilianization saves tax dollars, enhances public safety and creates jobs for New Yorkers," Palladino said. "It's good public policy."






 
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