ACS's Surprise Attack

The Administration for Children's Services dropped a bomb on its employees in the Office of Case Management last week, announcing that it plans to eliminate the office and the jobs of 650 Caseworkers by July 2008.

The move outraged the Caseworkers' union, Local 371 of District Council 37, because the decision was made without any negotiations. Its president, Charles Ensley, also complained that the employees are not being assured of other jobs within the agency under the overhaul, although he contends they have the appropriate skills to handle the change in assignment.

ACS officials argue that they are attempting to streamline the bureaucracy - the Caseworkers are responsible for overseeing private agencies that handle foster care and preventive service work under contracts with the agency. They also maintain that the 153 new Clinical Social Worker positions being created under the re-organization are not necessarily suited for the Caseworkers, since some lack the master's degree and others the family-conferencing experience that will be required.

ACS Commissioner John Mattingly's failure to talk with the union before announcing the program raises suspicions that he hoped to ram the changes through over Local 371's protests. Besides believing that he has violated the contractual requirement to negotiate, Mr. Ensley is incensed at the prospect that some of the Caseworkers could be laid off if they aren't chosen for the Social Worker positions or to fill other vacancies in city government.

Mayor Bloomberg laid off a couple of thousand city employees four years ago, but that was during a budget crunch, and many of the workers were rehired when the financial picture improved. The last time employees were laid off at a time when the city had a healthy budget surplus was in 1998, when then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani executed a ham-handed purge of hospital staff that cut workers represented by unions that opposed him politically while leaving untouched members of locals that had supported his re-election.

Mr. Ensley is weighing options that include filing an improper labor practice petition with the Office of Collective Bargaining. It would be a good time for DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, notwithstanding her past feud with Mr. Ensley, to draw on some of the good will she has cultivated with City Hall to make clear to Mayor Bloomberg that it is unacceptable for any of the union's members to be faced with losing their job in a time of prosperity.