CWA 1180 - HRA Watch

HRA Watch

HRA creates a title that goes nowhere and solves nothing
" I just don't want this job"
March 2001

May 2001 UPDATE:

Job Center members packed the union hall May 23 to discuss the latest developments. One thing is clear: we we are winning, and if we stand fast, we can bury the JOS scheme altoegther. For more, click here.

I just don't want this job," said Frajan Payne about the Associate Job Opportunity Specialist title HRA has created.

"I have no intention of taking it," Patricia Ross said decisively after a recent shop meeting in which the new title was explained and discussed.

Payne and Ross are two of dozens of Local 1180 members the Communique asked about the new HRA title. Not a single one said they wanted the job or would take it. And not a single one thought HRA's latest organizational shuffle would improve services. The universal assessment by 1180 members and officials is that it is not in their interests to take the Associate Job Opportunity Specialist title. "It's a title that goes nowhere," as 1180 staff rep and HRA veteran Gwen Richardson put it.

Local 1180 is fighting HRA's decision to create and implement the new title. The union is mobilizing on multiple fronts, through shop meetings and steward strategy sessions as well as a formal grievance and meetings with client advocates and more.

A host of unanswered questions

NOT IMPRESSED. The more they heard about the new title, the less 1180 members wanted it. Top to bottom: Shirley Davis, Cheryl Townsend, Patricia Ross, Jeffrey Ewart, Carol Barrios and Kathy Simmonds.

Human Resources Administration (HRA) officials first announced plans last October to create a new title series for welfare workers that will combine the current duties of Eligibility Specialists, Caseworkers, Supervisors and Principal Administrative Associates. Some 4,500 workers will be affected, including 600 PAAs. The new titles are called Job Opportunity Specialist (JOS, which combines the current duties of Eligibility Specialists and Casework-ers), Associate Job Opportunity Specialist (AJOS, which combines the current duties of PAAs and Supervisors) and Administrative Job Opportunity Specialist (which is the managerial title). They plan to introduce the title in all of the agency's Job Centers.

No workers can be forced to take the new positions. If they choose to accept the position, Local 1180 PAAs would become AJOSes through a transfer from one civil service title to another; the JOS titles are competitive civil service titles. Anyone moving into an AJOS position will take their pay, experience and longevity differentials and seniority with them. Anyone who does not want an AJOS position has been guaranteed that they will get transfers to other parts of the agency.

Many details remain unresolved. HRA officials have met with representatives from Local 1180 and the other affected unions (Local 371 and Local 1549) several times, but so far they have failed to answer a host of questions that the unions have raised. Local 1180 staff reps have been meeting with members in affected workplaces and have, in turn, been unable to clarify numerous issues raised by this latest management scheme. "They're not addressing a whole bunch of stuff," exclaimed Leona Tota from the Crotona Job Center in the Bronx after listening to Richardson's overview of the situation.

Richardson just nodded in agreement. "We don't know what the bargaining unit is going to be for this new title," she said. "We don't know what the salary will be for this new title. We don't know what the job security will be. What we do know is you'll be stuck in a Job Center."

Locked in the same little location forever

The idea of integrating all aspects of a client case into one job to create "one stop shopping"—the stated reason for the new title series—has some intuitive appeal, but there are also good reasons why keeping the different functions separate makes sense. The problem is not necessarily "single case management" per se, it is the way it is being done.

The first problem is that the JOS titles are specific to welfare centers; they do not exist in other agencies or even in other parts of HRA. "I'm not going to take it," said Pearl Joachim from Crotona at a recent shop meeting, "because then you're stuck in the welfare center." Around the room everyone agreed. "No one wants to get locked in," Jeffrey Ewart explained. At the Greenwood Job Center in Brooklyn, the reaction was the same. "It's going to keep you locked in," said Payne. "If you're a person in your 30s with ambitions, this is not for you. You'll be locked in the same little location forever and ever."

Equally troubling is the issue of who will represent workers in the new titles. On an interim basis, HRA has said that workers in the new titles will continue to be represented by the unions which represent them in their current titles (PAAs making the move would continue to get 1180 benefits and 1180 representation) but this is a temporary arrangement and it is unclear when and how it will be decided which unions represent which titles. It may ultimately be decided through an election, but anyone taking the title now is taking the chance that they may not end up being represented by the union they prefer. This creates needless uncertainty for workers.

Moreover, because the jurisdictional issue will not be resolved for an indefinite period, possibly years, workers in the new positions will also be working for different salaries. A former PAA could end up working side by side with a former Supervisor, doing exactly the same work for thousands of dollars less. Likewise, PAAs could end up working side by side with new hires, who will have no union representation or rights at all until the jurisdictional issue is settled, and those new hires could be making thousands less than them. It is even possible that a former PAA II who becomes an AJOS could be making less money than a former Supervisor I whom she supervises!

"Oh no!" said Shirley Davis from Crotona when she heard this. Who could possibly want to take a job under these conditions? Tota agreed: "It's human nature," not to want to do the same work as someone else for less money. "It's called divide and conquer," Denise Scott from Greenwood observed. The unresolved jurisdictional issue is a recipe for resentment and division among workers who should be united in a common effort to get fair treatment from management.

Services will not improve

Furthermore, creating a new title does not address the fundamental problems at HRA. Phones will still go unanswered and caseloads will still be uncovered if workloads are not reduced and staff is not increased. Shuffling people into new titles is no substitute for adequate resources or competent management.

"Those of us who have been around for a while," observed Richardson, who first started working for HRA in 1966, "have seen many, many changes come down the pike. Some work, most don't." Ross agreed. "I'm one of those who have been through a lot of changes," she said. "And none of them have been for the better. And I don't feel this is going to be any better. I don't want this job."

Davis raised the obvious question: "What are they offering that you might want this job?" There's no extra money, there's more work, plus there's all the problems outlined above. Indeed, the Communique did not find anyone willing to take the job. Word around the Job Centers is that the Supervisors are no more enthusiastic than the PAAs about the AJOS position. If HRA management cannot fill the new positions from within, they are planning to hire from outside. It's hard to imagine people with no experience in HRA being able to handle this new job. "You're going to lose all this experience the PAAs have," said Kathy Simmonds from the Crotona Job Center. Without that experience, the always-chaotic environment in the Job Centers is going to be "more of a mess," according to Crotona member Sharon Brown.

HRA is planning to train people for the new positions in 21 days. "You can't possibly learn this stuff in 21 days," Cheryl Townsend said. Of course, that will only add to the mess.

Precursor to privatization?

Local 1180 members and officials also worry that the consolidation of titles may be a first step towards an effort to privatize the work. HRA Commissioner Jason Turner was the architect of a plan in Wisconsin under which government welfare workers have been largely replaced by private companies. People stuck in the JOS titles could be extremely vulnerable in such a scenario. If their work is later privatized, they could end up without a job because there are no JOS titles anywhere else in the city. Local 1180 is determined to fight the JOS title scheme for this and all the above reasons. By law and under our union contract, management has the right to determine which titles to use and how to deliver services. They must, however, negotiate with the union over how those management decisions will impact 1180 members. The union is doing everything possible to make sure its members' rights are protected in this process.

Most importantly, members are saying "no" to this new title. The wealth of experience that 1180 members bring to the Job Centers gives them power—without that experience, management can't run these centers. And if HRA is unable to implement the new titles because PAAs and Supervisors and Caseworkers and Eligibility Specialists won't take them, then there's a chance that a new city administration, which will come into office in 2002, will think better of this ill-advised scheme and relegate the "title that goes nowhere" to the dustbin of failed ideas where it belongs.

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