Erodes Incentive to Advance
Attrition Bargaining Costs City

By SIDNEY SCHWARTZBAUM

It has recently become apparent that the contractual machinations resulting from the PBA arbitration have come home to roost upon the NYPD and the Department of Correction line staff as well as supervisors. We are currently at a point where the reluctance of a majority of our most knowledgeable and experienced employees to seek promotion is eating away at the fabric of both departments.

Step Up Carries Cost

First in 1990, and again now, this eroding of incentives for promotion reared its ugly head through what is commonly referred to as "attrition bargaining." This concept is so detrimental to both the NYPD and DOC that only 13 percent of the uniformed officers passed the promotional exam for first-line supervisor.

Within the Correction Department, this situation has evolved as a result of senior Correction Officers and Captains (at the top of their game for both life and job experiences) viewing a departmental promotion as an actual pay cut, when you factor in the actuarial value of lost vacation days, night differential, and the assignment of working additional tours versus an insignificant initial increase in their base salary.

Why Quality Matters

The Correction Department is still reeling from the financial burden of conceded lawsuits filed against the city by the Legal Aid Society, some of which might perhaps have been precluded by a more astute executive management within the department. The specter of those legal defeats should remind the Department of Correction and the city to ensure that the most deserving and competent personnel are promoted through the supervisory ranks - based on merit and fitness and real work experience in the field. This would ensure the best and most-respected upper management, while maintaining an environment engendered with high morale from within. The practice of promoting paper-pushing one-year wonders without requisite field experience will continue to erode the foundation of our Department.

What is most disheartening to me as president of the ADW-DW Association was that, after illuminating the actual contractual guidelines to a recent promotion class in the Correction Academy, nearly 25 percent of them chose to decline the promotion. It is the antithesis of good management that employees not aspire to climb the career ladder.

Just like the 1987-1990 PBA contract, "attrition bargaining" and all the luggage it brings will further erode the recruitment effort within DOC. Couple that with the present contractual problems enumerated with the first- and second-level promotions to Captains and Assistant Deputy Wardens, and we see a career path and agency in an almost-certain crisis.

Mr. Schwartzbaum is president of the Assistant Deputy Wardens'/Deputy Wardens' Association.