LEARNING CIVIL SERVICE RULES — PEF Director of Civil Service Enforcement Tom Cetrino clarifies some facts on civil service for delegates at a workshop at PEF's 26th Annual Convention.
Photo by John Epting
Workshops teach how to buck privatization, protect jobs
By DARRYL MCGRATH
Privatization, workplace stress, out-of-title work — these are critical issues for PEF and also facts of everyday life on the job for many PEF members. And at convention workshops in Lake Placid in October, union delegates got solid information on how to fight back against these problems.
Several of the eight workshops — including those on occupational stress; civil service and out-of-title work — filled to capacity. For many, the workshop topics provided a renewed sense of solidarity. For all, they offered practical advice.
Instructors included PEF staff, outside labor experts and, in the workshop on privatization, a panel of PEF activists who described how they retained or added jobs for state workers at their agencies.
REVIEWING THE AGENDA — Two PEF members from Region 10 review the agenda at the annual convention held in Lake Placid in October. Photo by Ken Dischel
Those panelists were: Louis Ferrone, a PEF Executive Board member, PEF statewide labor-management chair for the Department of Transportation and recipient of the union’s 2004 Privatization Award; Susan Kent, Executive Board member and co-chair of the statewide labor-management committee at the Department of Education; Greg McBride, a member of the Job Security Committee; and Lydia Kosinski, a member of the Region 8 Civil Service Committee.
Learning from success
Kent described a successful campaign at the state Education Department to add more state employees in the curriculum and assessment areas, after an embarrassing revelation last year that the state’s Math A Regents Exam was flawed and needed to be re-scored. Reacting to that incident, PEF employees researched how many employees they had lost in curriculum in recent years, and got to the root of the problem with the math exam.
“It was not state employees; it was the contractors,” Kent said, explaining outside contractors had been hired to perform many of the jobs previously performed by PEF members. Kent told delegates the recipe for her division’s success in getting additional PEF members hired at SED included: being proactive; persistence in labor-management negotiations; using the media as a tool to get the public involved; and legislative advocacy.
Civil service tips
In the civil service workshop, PEF Director of Civil Service Enforcement Tom Cetrino urged members to turn to the union for help on issues concerning career mobility, agency transfers and job security.
“If human resources is saying something you don’t think is right, get in touch with your field rep and get it clarified,” he said. He also warned members to pay close attention to the state’s language when signing paper work for transfers and reassignments.
“You can sign, ‘I am transferring to another agency under the Civil Service Law,’” he said. “Never use the word ‘resign.’”
In the privatization workshop, Executive Board member Charles Kelefant of Division 177 urged fellow delegates to write to legislators and denounce the common state practice of contracting work out to private consultants.
Rosanne Lewit, from the Office of Temporary Disability Assistance, sounded a rallying cry as she urged fellow PEF members to continue fighting privatization.
“The hiring freeze at the state is what’s making privatization possible,” Lewit said. “If you hire, you don’t have privatization. We have to hammer this message home.”
The
Communicator Dec.04-Jan.05
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