Who does a union represent?
Last week I posed a question to both my union steward and the alternate steward. They agreed that my perspective was correct but we should consult people further up in the union hierarchy to see what, if anything, I might be missing. Since I have not received a satisfactory answer after a week, yesterday I emailed the 9 members of my unionized office hoping to gain any perspective that I am missing.
Knowing that I have a much more diverse group of people who check this blog I have decided to post the email I sent to my fellow AFSCME union members as well. The letter follows…
Since our last union meeting, I have been trying to understand something in regards to the most senior qualified person for a job versus the most qualified person for a job. I am hoping someone can help me. I have discussed this with a couple of people but haven’t really gotten an answer that disagrees with me.
What is wrong with the most qualified person within the office being awarded a position that is up for bid? What incentives are there for anyone to do the best job they can? If the most qualified person is awarded the job, doesn’t that encourage all of us to try to do the best we can and learn as much as we can? It seems to me this would make this a better, more efficient place. The way it is right now, there isn’t much of a reason to do any more that the minimum required.
If I am missing something, please let me know. If you agree with me, we should probably let our union representatives know that too. Thank you for helping me better understand this.
- Adam
I would appreciate any and all perspectives on this situation. I am simply trying to understand why a policy is in place, that from my perspective, isn’t in the best interest of the office, the taxpaying public or even the best interest of the majority of the members of the union.
Leave a comment or feel free to email me. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Adam,
This response is from your father who had been an AFSCME officer at the local, regional, and state levels. As you know, I also spent the latter part of my civil service career in supervision, management, and administration.
1) All jobs in the civil service have a position description AND all have minimum qualifications concerning KSAs, i.e. knowledge, skills, and abilities. Consequently, all persons must be qualified in order to be selected for a position.
2) Seniority in conjunction with meeting the MQs safeguard the employees from management favoritism, nepotism, etc. After all, how is “most qualified” to be determined??? By subjective supervisory judgement?? Performance appraisals are often subjective with little if any real objective benchmarks. Then there are things such as the “halo” or “horn” effects in the performance appraisal process. I could go on and on, but I’ll cut it short on all that.
3) If all things are equal in the area of qualifications, awarding the position by seniority assures that longevity is a valued trait worthy of recognition. The key is minimum MQs must be met.
p.s. It is possible to award a position to a less senior person if the more senior person does not have the KSAs required for the position or if it can be demonstrated that the less senior person has some KSAs and past performance appraisals that exceed that of the more senior person. I know that I had made such decisions in my career and never, ever lost any selection to the grievance process when I was in management.