DCAS Reclassifying Effort Given Mixed Reviews by Unions; Like Prospect of Reducing Provisionals, Fear Too Much Agency Latitude

By ARI PAUL

The Department of Citywide Administrative Services has drafted a plan to dramatically reduce the number of provisional workers in response to a Court of Appeals decision last year that will involve consolidating and broadbanding titles as well as moving some Competitive jobs to the Non-Competitive Class.

PROS AND CONS OF PLAN: Department of Citywide Administrative Services Commissioner Martha Hirst (left) says a major reclassification of civilian job titles will actually open up opportunities for workers, both in gaining permanent status and being able to advance more easily. Communications Workers of America Local 1180 Vice President Bill Henning, while enthused that the provisional rolls will decrease, worries that giving agencies too much discretion in making appointments and promotions will lead to abuses.

Several labor advocates have raised concerns about granting the city too much discretion and called for certain modifications to achieve the goal of reducing provisionals.

Submitted Plan to State

The Court of Appeals ruling last year stated that provisional workers did not enjoy hearing rights under collective bargaining agreements, but put cities on notice that they needed to hold more civil service exams. As a result, Albany enacted legislation requiring the city to devise a plan to reduce provisionals over the next five years. DCAS submitted its plan to the state Department of Civil Service March 27, which will decide if it can go forward by late July.

"It's kind of an updating exercise," DCAS Commissioner Martha Hirst said in an interview last week.

The plan aims to reduce the city's more-than 35,000 provisionals to less than 10,000, and hold 140 civil service exams per year, up from 120. But the plan would also subject a variety of titles throughout agencies to fewer city tests by consolidating various levels of a job title and broadbanding several titles into one.

Among the many titles that would be consolidated are Accountant, City Planner, Demolition Inspector, Program Officer, Motor Vehicle Supervisor, Gardener and Steamfitter.

Hirst: Increases Opportunities

"Some people might say, 'Well, doesn't that eliminate promotion opportunities, you know, if you have six levels now and you collapse it to three; doesn't that mean there are fewer promotion opportunities?"' Ms. Hirst said. "I say the opposite: I say there may be fewer incremental steps, but in fact now if you're at one level you'll be able to take the promotion exam to the very highest level in the title."

Bill Henning, second vice president of Communications Workers of America Local 1180, suggested that a better plan would be to have a citywide promotion list, so someone on a list for a job at one agency could more easily get a similar position at another one.

"There are city agencies where they rapidly exhaust their eligibles, and there are other city agencies where people sit on the list for two, three years and they die there without being appointed," he said. "Administrative work is administrative work, but the same skill set that allows them to succeed in the Law Department will allow them to succeed in the Finance Department. Our union has raised this over the years unsuccessfully."

Mr. Henning added that this plan was practicable because the city shuffled managers between agencies and departments on a regular basis.

Urging They Take Tests

Ms. Hirst contended that by giving more exams while reducing the number of provisionals in the workforce, there would more opportunities for those workers to gain full-time status.

"We're certainly not looking to have people be out on the street who have been serving the City of New York," she said. "They've been there awhile. We are making sure that agencies are encouraging their workers to take any civil service exam offered in their area for which they qualify."

Titles that will be broadbanded include Architect, Civil Engineer, Electrical Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Pest Control Supervisor, Supervisors of Installation and Maintenance, and Service Inspector, as well as related titles.

Among the areas where positions will become non-competitive are community, marine, medical, skilled trades, parks, business, artistic, housing development and emergency dispatch titles.

'Piggyback on State Moves'

In terms of moving job titles from the Competitive to the Non-Competitive Class, Ms. Hirst said DCAS looked at equivalent job titles on the state level that have already been made non-competitive.

"The state itself did a lot of reclassifications of titles, and so we want to sort of piggyback on that effort," she said.

It was not practicable, Ms. Hirst argued, to have exams for job titles that need people with underlying licenses, and it was easier to defer to industry standards.

"Attorneys, say. They've passed the Bar," she said. "We have to offer an exam? No, they've already got credentials."

She added that it made more sense to make a job Non-Competitive when there were few incumbents.

'Don't Need Puppeteer Test'

"An extreme example that makes the point is Puppeteer," she said. "The Parks Department has the Puppeteer titles. To have to expend the energy and the cost of seriously developing the exam and administering the exam, it's more work than it's worth."

The plan shows that the 10 titles with the highest number of provisionals in order are Principal Administrative Associate, Clerical Associate, Associate Staff Analyst, Administrative Staff Analyst, Child Protective Specialist, Administrative Manager, Eligibility Specialist, Secretary and Traffic Enforcement Agent.

The DCAS plan would also allow New York City Transit and the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority to administer their own civil service hiring and testing.

Labor attorney Stuart Lichten took umbrage with the movement of Competitive titles into the Non-Competitive Class.

"I think it's a horrible thing," he said. "I think it's unconstitutional."

Fears Rise of Cronyism

Mr. Lichten believed that competition for jobs was important in reducing cronyism and corruption in city government.

"This reopens it to that all over again," he said.

Mr. Henning had mixed emotions about the shift, saying that it was incumbent upon the unions to adequately represent Non-Competitive Class workers, who he said lack certain rights that their Competitive Class counterparts have.

"If the unions do their job, which is to represent workers and to fight for contract protections, I have less concern about that," he said. "Once they're hired, for example, Non-Competitive Class employees don't have the same disciplinary protections as permanent Competitive-Class employees, and I think that's an outrage. As a union I think it's intolerable that we have workers who have different levels of protection."

Commissioner Hirst said her office was working with the unions to address problems with the plan. She believed the improvements outweighed any concerns.

'Unions Wanted More Exams'

"People will have concerns, certainly because we are making changes," Ms. Hirst said. "I think in some areas it's going to be a good thing because we're going to be giving more exams and for the longest time some of the unions have clamored for us to have more resources available to give more exams to their members."

Mr. Henning believed that the plan was an admirable one overall, but, invoking a recent settlement between the city and Parks Department workers alleging racial discrimination, he feared giving the city too much discretion in hiring.

"The whole goal of reducing the numbers of workers without rights, and that's basically what the Court of Appeals has said, that provisionals don't have rights, so anything that eliminates that status I'm in favor of," he said. "What I'm not in favor of is management exercising absolute discretion."