After Blistering by Union, Council
ACS Puts Layoffs on Hold

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

The Administration for Children's Services backed away from its initial wave of layoffs in foster care one day after a raucous City Council hearing where Commissioner John B. Mattingly was raked over the coals for trying to reorganize the system without negotiating with the union.

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang 'ON A COLLISION COURSE': Charles Ensley, the president of Local 371 of District Council 37, criticizes an Administration for Children's Services plan that could displace 650 of his members, saying the failure to negotiate on the changes violated the union's contract.

Union officials and Council Members accused ACS of valuing abstract, academic qualifications over work experience, and some Council Members cited the racial implications of doing so.

The city's plan to restructure foster and preventive services would phase out the Office of Case Management and its 650 employees. ACS's General Counsel told the union March 30, however, that the agency would not send out layoff notices to 97 provisional employees on April 14 as had been planned, and would instead negotiate with the union. There was no word as of April 2 on the other workers' fate.

The union filed four improper practice charges March 30 asking the court to bar the plan until ACS negotiated over the impact of the changes.

Hearing's 'Clear Impact'

"I think that the City Council hearing had a real impact," said Charles Ensley, president of Local 371 of District Council 37, which represents the affected workers. "Councilman [Bill] de Blasio and other Members were fairly clear in how they reacted to the process that had taken place."

An ACS spokeswoman said the agency would work with the union to find jobs for the 97 provisionals in ACS or in other city agencies.

Under at-times heated questioning during the Council hearing, Mr. Mattingly said he was open to considering work experience in lieu of a master's degree in social work for some positions. Union officials were still unsatisfied, asserting that all job placements should be negotiated.

"There has not been a single re-organization where the city did not negotiate prior to its implementation, and those negotiations always resulted in a better plan," said Mr. Ensley.

The overhaul would create 500 new positions for Social Workers, staff analysts and technical and legal assistants. About 150 of the new jobs would be family-conferencing Social Workers and would require master's degrees. About 250 of the affected Caseworkers have master's degrees.

Mr. Mattingly complained that the media had exaggerated the impact of the restructuring by referring to 650 layoffs which he said might never happen. He noted that 800 Child Protective Specialist jobs, which do not require master's degrees, will open up within the next 15 months as the new system is put in place.

A Tough Audience

The Commissioner took pains to show his appreciation for the workers, a couple hundred of whom attended the hearing, interrupting the proceedings several times with applause as well as boos.

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang EXPERIENCE ISN'T EVERYTHING: Administration for Children's Services Commissioner John B. Mattingly tells a City Council hearing that while the experience of Caseworkers might allow them to take on new decision-making responsibilities, they might not 'be able to do the more complicated and difficult job.'

"This is not about problems with any individuals," Mr. Mattingly said. "It's about the system, and it's a problem with how we go about doing this work."

He said that the changes were needed to improve the city's services, noting that the city ranks among the lowest in the country for reunifications after entry into foster care, placements in non-family settings and the amount of time it takes to move from foster care to adoption.

Mr. Mattingly added that the agency would set targets for internal hires. But he also said that the job requirements for the new family-conferencing facilitators would be more demanding than Caseworkers' jobs, because they require participating in decision-making meetings at the non-profit groups that provide services to foster children, instead of simply approving the groups' decisions.

Experience Has Limits

"We will consider their experience; we do care deeply about experience," he said. "We are just saying that experience in that job might not mean that they will be able to do the more-complicated and difficult job."

But Caseworkers asserted that they had sufficient skills to perform the new jobs.

"We've been doing family-based conferencing for at least 12 years," said Mark Casner, who has worked at ACS since 1989 and has been a Supervisor II for the past seven years in the Office of Case Management.

Colleagues said that only since the brutal death of seven-year-old Nixzmary Brown last year, allegedly at the hands of her stepfather, have they had less direct contact with families and children, because of a policy change implemented by ACS.

"Before the Nixzmary Brown case, we were visiting children and families and had caseloads of over 100, averaging 200 children," said Sabina Sabina, who has been an ACS Child Welfare Specialist for about seven years and is currently getting her Master's of Social Work from Columbia University. "We have done this job in the past. We feel comfortable that we will be able to do this work."

Councilman Sees Bias

Some Council Members saw the changing of job titles, and the demand that Caseworkers re-apply alongside applicants with no experience in ACS, as discriminatory.

"This is racist in my opinion," said Councilman Charles Barron, as most of the employees attending the hearing rose to their feet and applauded. "I think it's a removal, an ethnic cleansing of the department."

The majority of Caseworkers, like the children they serve, are black or Latino, and many said they thought Mr. Mattingly was seeking to bring in predominantly white Social Workers with more academic credentials to replace them.

"If the direction you are trying to go in doesn't have the kind of cultural mix we see in the population," said Councilman Thomas White, a former member of Local 371, "you're doomed to fail."

Mr. Mattingly said there was no attempt to change the complexion of the work force. "I will commit to the fact that the new staff will be as diverse as it is now," he said.

Public-Relations Blunder

The Commissioner acknowledged mistakes were made in how the plan was announced, since members of the news media were notified before the union or the City Council.

"The way this issue became public and the way in which this came out was not right," he said, "and I have to accept responsibility."

Union leaders insisted, however, the agency hid its plans from the union.

"This was not just a mistake that he didn't share with you or me or the social worker community," Mr. Ensley told the Council Members. "It was deliberate."

ACS officials acknowledged the overhaul had been in the planning stages for about eight months.

Mr. Ensley said the union was seeking a court order to stop the plan, claiming the city violated its collective-bargaining agreement by implementing a plan that affected Local 371 members without negotiating with the union.

He said he hoped the talks about the 97 provisionals would lead to broader negotiations. "I am always hopeful that they will understand the error of their ways," he said. "Do I have proof; do I believe that they have reversed on the big issue? I don't have any evidence of that, but this was a good first step." If not, the city may have more than a boisterous hearing to contend with.

"Make sure you have a comfortable pair of walking shoes," Mr. Ensley told a group of workers after the hearing, "because come Easter, we will be on the move."