City Plan Omits Civil Service
To the Editor:

Union leaders in New York City have become accustomed to asking a question of our city administrators: What are you thinking? The question pops into my head as I review the Department of Citywide Administrative Services plan on reducing provisional appointments.

Here we have an excellent opportunity for New York to return civil service to its place as the linchpin of city employment by offering the competitive exams that make the system work but have became so infrequent for most civilian tiles in our recent history. This plan ignores that opportunity, reflecting a myopic vision of what city work and government are about.

Civil service is at the root not only of fair public employment, but of the very expectation that draws people to public service in the first place. It ensures that public employment is free of biases, prejudices, and abuses; open to all, and devoid of favoritism and political patronage. Regardless of who you are and where you come from, if you know how to do the job you can have it, and if you do it well you can advance to a better one by objective testing and the on-the-job test known as the probationary period.

We believe that about city employment because we understand that city government is not a business but a public trust whose mandate is to meet its citizens' needs and further their interests.

As I recently told the New York State Civil Service Commission, "We (city workers) serve our fellow citizens in the public service and maintain their trust because they understand we have been found qualified to hold our positions through an objective competitive process."

In short, civil service not only protects workers, it guarantees the quality of our workforce and its work. It is central to city government's ability to deliver on its mandate.

That's why, during the Koch administration, our union sued the city, demanding that it offer competitive exams, post lists of the results, and hire based on those lists. We won. We then launched an intense test-preparation program for our members that has continued to this day.

The result was unprecedented numbers of women and people of color from the ranks were promoted to managerial titles. Three decades later, the composition of the city's workforce continues to be affected by that court victory.

The administrations that followed haven't respected the court decision. In fact, the appointment of 35,000 provisional employees and the haphazard offering of exams have combined to produce a "second-class" workforce denied the protections of civil service and the opportunity of career advancement it offers.

If New York City is going to successfully move forward into the increasingly complex and demanding future, it has to recommit itself to the civil service system and weave it into the fabric of city policies, starting with this plan. That's the only way to ensure that the people who serve this city have stable employment and potential advancement and that the city we serve has the best workforce possible.

ARTHUR CHELIOTES, President, Communications Workers of America Local 1180