TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

City's Ax Aims At Minorities

ADVERTISEMENT

By ELLEN GEDALIUS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 19, 2007

TAMPA - Councilman John Dingfelder's analysis of city employees who might face layoffs next year shows more than 70 percent of the workers affected are either black or Hispanic.

The results of his analysis come two days before the issue is scheduled for discussion at the Tampa City Council and heated up simmering tensions between the city council and the mayor's office over the issue of layoffs.

Local workers and community leaders plan to protest the layoffs outside City Hall before the start of Thursday's council meeting. Also Tuesday, the city attorney wrote a letter to the council saying Dingfelder's communications with workers might have violated the city's collective bargaining agreement.

In November, Mayor Pam Iorio announced 100 people likely would lose their jobs next year when the city privatizes some services. About 50 security officers and 38 janitors are among those targeted.

Dingfelder and his aides spent several days combing through personnel files to find demographic information on the employees, including their gender and race. They also looked to see how many dependents each had on the city's health care plan.

"It appears to me that the people being targeted are the ones who can afford it the least," Dingfelder said. "It's an economic issue. These people are at the bottom of the rung at city government."

As for his findings on the racial breakdown, he said: "It speaks for itself."

The names of the people who will be laid off have not been finalized. Dingfelder therefore identified 51 security officers and 73 janitors who could lose their jobs.

He found about 73 percent of the security officers and 77 percent of the janitors who might be laid off are minorities. Dingfelder also found many of the employees live in East Tampa, an area Iorio is trying to redevelop.

"Going down this path is contrary to those goals," Dingfelder said.

Iorio said her "administration has never and will never make a layoff decision based on race, gender, ethnicity or any other personal information."

She also said it would be inappropriate for any council member or member of her administration to make a decision on layoffs based on personal or demographic information.

Layoffs, Iorio has said, are necessary as the city figures out how to cut costs in light of state-mandated property tax cuts.

Dingfelder asked the administration to provide him the demographic information at Thursday's council meeting. A few weeks ago, however, City Attorney David Smith said compiling such a list could put the city at legal risk. That left Dingfelder and his staff to compile the information.

Dingfelder then wrote letters to the affected employees, encouraging them to attend Thursday's council meeting.

That, too, drew a response from Smith. By Tuesday afternoon, Smith fired off a letter to the council in which he said Dingfelder's communication with the employees can be "characterized as direct negotiations" with union members.

"Communicating directly with city employees about employment matters and soliciting their involvement in an effort to prevent the executive branch from considering personnel options ... may violate existing collecting bargaining requirements," Smith wrote.

Dingfelder said writing to the employees is no different from writing to other constituents about matters that affect them.

"Just because they're an employee doesn't mean they have less rights than anyone else who wants to come before council," Dingfelder said.

A notice about the Thursday morning protest was issued by the West Central Florida Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO Central Labor Council.

"These decisions are made without consulting the employees or the union," Martha Stevens, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, said in a statement.

Amalgamated Transit represents more than 2,000 city employees.

Reporter Ellen Gedalius can be reached at (813) 259-7679 or egedalius@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT