As we reported in Fizz this morning, more than 140 city City Light strategic advisors and managers have filed an intent to unionize with the state’s Public Employees Relation Commission (PERC) in response to Mayor Mike McGinn’s proposal to cut 200 strategic advisor and “senior-level” positions.
More than 70 percent of employees in four job classifications have signed on to the union petition, which went to PERC late last month. (The city will provide the names of the people who are in the organizing unit to PERC on Monday).
David Bracilano, director of the city’s labor relations division, says that once PERC confirms that 70 percent of employees in a bargaining unit have signed union cards, the agency will certify their union without an election. Although the city could theoretically force an election at that point, Bracilano says that it has typically opted to “voluntarily recognize” city unions, which it can do once 65 percent of employees have signed cards. Seventy-six percent of city employees belong to unions.
Sandi Fukumoto, a business unit administrator at City Light whose job classification is Strategic Advisor II, says City Light employees decided to organize in response to “the giant target that the mayor put on our backs.’” (Fukumoto called me on her personal cell phone, not her city line.) Unionizing, she says, “gives us a voice at the table. If they’re going to come after us for arbitrary purposes—because of our job classifications, not because of the quality of our work—we have a way to mitigate the impacts.”
City Light staffers have been especially outspoken against McGinn’s proposal to cut 200 strategic advisor and management positions; at a Civil Service Commission meeting last month, more than a dozen City Light employees, including Fukimoto, spoke out angrily against McGinn’s proposed cuts. I have calls in to several more City Light employees who spoke at the meeting to find out more about the move to unionize.
Employees at the Seattle Department of Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities are reportedly also discussing plans to unionize.
Yesterday, McGinn confirmed his intention to eliminate 200 strategic-advisor and management positions, but said he would stretch the cuts out over a longer period than the year he originally proposed. And he confirmed that he plans to propose cuts at City Light, which is currently facing a $70 million shortfall due to declining wholesale power sales.
Fukumoto says that “If [the mayor] wants to go through the budget and legitimately say, ‘We can’t afford this job function anymore,’ that’s fine. We can respect that we have huge budget issues. But if they’re going to say, ‘We’re going to get rid of you because you’re a political [appointee], we have a problem with that.”
I have a call in to McGinn’s office to find out his reaction to the City Light employees’ move to unionize.
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Bring it on! Now let's get the City Attorneys and City of Seattle employees to Union Up. You go!
This is quite the accomplishment for the McGinn administration. Not quite 3 months into the game and the management personnel of the City unionize.
Well, if anyone thinks that the union will rescue their jobs, they are highly mistaken. Union will get their dues until last day of their job, and then point them to the unemployment office. So the best thing to do is– just work with the city and the mayor. Do not antagonize the mayor. Some of the so-called stratigic advisors have a lot of connections and will not have a problem landing decent jobs elsewhere. but many people including myself, don't have that apportunity. So don;t drag us into this convertation with the mayor. There are a few people stirring this. We will publish your name, if you don't stop putting our job at risk
Unionize???? What have they been doing before? It seems that the stratigic advisors are using the union for their own selfish purpose.
I guess anybosy who is offering money can join the union.
Call 111 if you want to join the union. No question asked
What's the old business school line…. people only start unions in a low morale and unhappy workplace with usually poor management. Good job McGinn keep it up, the whole city will be unionized within 3 years.
Well, I suppose the deputy city attorneys could unionize, but it wouldn’t protect their jobs. Under the city charter they are at-will employees.
Here’s the cite and the quote: (SCC Art. 8, Sec. 1) “The Law Department shall consist of a City Attorney who shall appoint the Assistant City Attorneys and City Prosecutors, who may be removed at will.”
I'm not anti union whatsoever. But these “strategic advisors” are political advisors. Sandi Fukumoto was Joel Horn's right hand assistant at the monorail agency, until the last mayor gave her a cushy job at taxpayer expense. 200 of them.
More than 700 city employees are paid over $100,000 annually. Those 700 folks cost you and me well over $70 million, not including a comprehensive and substantial benefits package. Meanwhile, the City didn't get the housing funds it needs for homeless and low income people, and GAU funding is still on the chopping block.
Sorry to sound so harsh, but those 200 employees McGinn has targeted do not necessarily deserve a job for life. Get a real job and then cry me a river.
Chump Change, please don't do what McGinn has been doing and lump all SAs together. Some may have been political appointees, but not all. And I'm sure there are actual “political appointees” who happen to be in position titles other than SA.
I say this as an SA who makes well less than $100,000 and absolutely was not hired because of political reasons. I don't know for certain, but I'm pretty sure several of my coworkers (in various depts.) who are also in the SA classification do not make over $100,000 either.
And, I would be interested to see the position title list of the 700 employees you say make that much. I guarantee there are many other titles on that list like engineers, IT jobs, attorneys, etc. I'm not trying to say what anyone is worth, but I'm really tired of hearing about how we're ALL overpaid political appointees.
Oh, and I am not in City Light and not part of any group trying to join a union.
To set the record straight, Ms. Fukumoto is not a political advisor by any stretch of the imagination. She did not obtain her position through a mayoral appointment. She was selected for her position after going through a competitive hiring process. Ms. Fukumoto is a respected, hard-working employee who provides valued service to City Light and City Light’s ratepayers.
Most people would agree with your statement that the 200 executives, managers and strategic advisors being targeted by the Mayor “do not necessarily deserve a job for life”. However, as Councilmember Sally Clark has eloquently stated, budget shortfalls should be addressed by “…reviewing priorities and making decisions by programs and departments, rather than by targeting individuals or job titles…in a smart, systematic way that maintains basic services, matches our values as a community, and respects the good work of city employees.”
A couple of points in reply to Chump Change and Cosmopolis.
(1) A review of the salary paid to Seattle City employees in 2007 did not reveal any SAs in the top 200 paid positions. The first Strategic Advisor came in at #642. (See http://lbloom.net/xsea07.html).
Also, a review of 2010 City positions would reveal that a limited few workers with a “Strategic Advisor” classification are politically appointed. Almost all individuals in these positions were either (1) hired competitively under merit principles embodied in the tenets of Seattle’s charter-based Civil Service System as the candidate with the highest qualifications and experience or (2) reclassified based on extensive independent review of their prior position by the City Personnel Department due to increased job responsibilities, broader scope of work, or changing business needs.
Very simply put, most of these employees are not hand picked political hacks and cronies or worse left over from a prior administration, as the Mayor wanted audiences to believe during the campaign. Folks in strategic advisor classifications carry out variety of distinct, hands on jobs across City Departments to maintain and enhance the level and quality of Seattle’s services and programs, and to keep the City running. Their roles are varied and many, and include scientists, engineers, major project/program managers, and technical & subject matter experts, and so on.
These employees (like “cosmopolis”) — who by just plain “bad luck of the draw” find themselves in this particular targeted civil service classifications — have now been “politicized” by the Mayor in the campaign, and are now easily demonized in the public eye (as Chump Change comments would attest) as the Mayor and Council look to address very severe, real budget deficits over the next few years.
Given that environment, it is very understandable why any city worker in these targeted positions would seek all protections available including organizing, as the Mayor has made it very clear that he is coming after you.
“So the best thing to do is– just work with the city and the mayor. Do not antagonize the mayor.”
Pussy.
I have no one who has demonized those “highly paid” advisers has ever given your readers a job description of what one of the Stratiegic Advisers does on a day to day basis; or even what the expectation is or the level of experience, education or specialization. For instance: buying and selling electricity – forecasting what will be surplus and what the best rate of sale will be how long that will last – what the fluctuation in the market are likely to be – all are skills possessed by managers/strategic advisers who deal with selling and buying energy for the City. These aren't “yahoos” as some have said in other media stories….
There have been positions that the City can't fill that are really necessary – why aren't they being filled – sure budget is part of it – but some of it is if you have the necessary skills you can make 3x the amount the City will pay for example – working for an energy company. You know what, it is just so much more complicated than the Mayor and those “dump the bums they make too much” kind of writers are letting on – I'm all for the employees unionizing if they think it will help them win support nd educate the Mayor and his staff. -
Well, I am pro-Union, but, I want to make very clear that the current economic condition in the City Hall demands some changes. The mayor is not going to pay the 50 million budget shortfall from his pocket to balance the book. We need to make smart choices. And if the answer is to cut the staff level then we should live with it. I fully sympathize those who may lose their jobs, but the fact of the matter is the mayor has no choice but to act.
City Light employees are unionized, to the best of my limited knowledge. Can the title be changed to City Light Managers plan to unionize?
Citylight is on track. These SA's who are assuming they are all considered political appointees are wrong. This is the result of fear over knowledge. The initial reaction to McGinn's first statements about this, as well as now, should have been educational instead of confrontational. They are assuming the worst, and reacting in a manner that might certainly jepordize their jobs, union or not. The union will give no more cover than your current civil service rank when all is said and done.
They took a statement of “200 new positions” without ANY qualifications of that statement (nor did they ask for one), and assumed they were all being “unfairly targeted.” I guess if you don't ask questions, you can get away with assuming the worst, and you can whine to everyone about it.
I don't think the Mayor is as stupid and draconian as you fear he is, and you are not a smart as you think you are. I don't have much sympathy for those who seem to reinforce the belief that SOME of you could be let go, since you are not confident enough in your value in your current position to prove it. Instead, you go on the offensive even before it starts.
as a city employee you can look up any job's salary on the inweb.
but you knew that, didn't you?
“However, as Councilmember Sally Clark has eloquently stated, budget shortfalls should be addressed by “…reviewing priorities and making decisions by programs and departments, rather than by targeting individuals or job titles…in a smart, systematic way that maintains basic services, matches our values as a community, and respects the good work of city employees.”
Has Sally ever filled out a job application? Has she been given every job she's had? And where is the talk about our ( highest paid in the country ) city council taking a pay cut to help out the city? What a joke to quote social service Sally who has been handed job after job.
The “200″ number and the broad brush label of City strategic advisors as political appointees came directly from the McGinn campaign in August of 2009 (http://mcginnformayor.com/issues/budget/). Under he specific bullet point 'Rollback the politicization of city government' the Mayor indicates he “…can eliminate 200 of THESE POLITICAL APPOINTEE POSITIONS by rolling back the number of strategic advisors to 2001 levels.” While this language was an effective sound bite during the campaign, it was also an enormously unfair, untrue characterization of the City employees in these positions. And the Mayor could have easily checked this out himself in August via a review of readily assessable data that would have reviewed that only a very few City Strategic Advisors — most of which are in the Mayor's office — are politically appointed. In fact, most Strategic Advisors — those in Civil Service and those who are exempt from Civil Service — achieved their positions through open, competitive, merit based hiring processes, or job reclassifications based increased job responsibilities, broader scope of work, or changing business needs.
When the mayor launched the initiative in January to carry out his campaign promise, he did nothing the correct the misinformation/mischaracterizations he initially put forth in August 2009, as I suspect it continued to serve him well to have an easy mark in the public eye to go forward with what everyone knows will be hard, difficult staff cuts in 2010, 2011 and beyond.
So, what is one to think regarding the Mayor in this case. Perhaps he is not as “stupid and draconian” as it sometimes appears to me. But, he also appears to me to me woefully ill informed – purposely or not – at a time when informed, impartial, and level head leadership is acutely needed if we (City of Seattle) are to overcome very dire economic challenges to be able to sustain basic City services and uphold our values as a community.
Interesting approach. To avoid the potential wrath of intimidating and threatening mayor, employ intimidation and threats against those employees who are fighting back against that same Mayor who has put a bulls eye on the backs of every Strategic Advisor or Manager in the City and unfairly branded them all as political appointees, hacks, or worse. That's rich.
Chump Change–Please get your facts straight before you throw out false accusations. Sandi Fukumoto was not given a “cushy job” by Mayor Nickels. She wasn't even hired into City Light as a Strategic Advisor. She competed and was hired for a Senior Executive Assistant position and later reclassified (based on the nature and complexity of her body of work and of those similarly situated) to a Strategic Advisor position. Notably, both positions that she has held at City Light are Civil Service positions, which means that she could not have been politically appointed for those positions.
So she was hired on as a secretary and was instantly promoted to a “strategic adviser”? Was she that good at bringing coffee?
I am aware of where the sound bite originated. It does not change the fact that no one in the “targeted” group tried to educate the mayor before they attacked, and now unionized.
Maybe they see unionization as a form of “education?” I still see a lot of assumptions that may or may not be true here regarding SA's. Especially in light of the fact that McGinn has NOT made any decisions yet, and is in fact still gathering information about all of this. Not too mention that some of these SA's may NOT lose their jobs, but would be reclassified. Seems to me, if certain of them are really that valuable, they might get re-classed into more appropriate postitions in recognition of their value.
It certainly is an equal possibility, based upon what anyone actually knows, but not if one shoots oneself in the foot first.
These are interesting points, and I like that they speak to the complexity of the issues. In the same respect, I believe a thorough review of the manager/strategic advisor positions is long overdue. Some of these positions may well be essential, and if that's the case, then it's also time to take a hard look at the credentials–or lack thereof–of the incumbents. And maybe unionizing will help restore credibility to the hiring process.
That bullseye is in the mindseye of the beholder. Is it justifiable fear? Maybe. Would you prefer the rank and file and the lineworkers be targeted instead? They have already taken their share, and are not immune to more. A lot of SA's are spreadsheet jockeys, don't manage anyone (it's classed as a non-supervisory management position), and have higher pay than the rank and file.
Some SA's do contribute in proportion. Some do not. To assume they ALL are equal, is equally as rich.