TESTIMONY
Arthur Chilliotis, President Emeritus and Current Business Manager of Local 1180, on Improving Promotional Opportunities and Compensation for Minorities and Women in Civil Service Positions
2:06:53
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3 min
Arthur Chilliotis advocates for measures to address segregated classifications and lack of promotional opportunities for minorities and women in civil service jobs.
- He proposes creating courses to prepare segregated classifications for promotional exams to higher-paying roles.
- He suggests utilizing selective certifications based on language skills to advance candidates higher on lists.
- Chilliotis highlights the positive impact of step plans his union negotiated for increasing pay for minorities and women.
- He calls for frequently holding promotional exams, especially for titles predominantly held by minorities and women.
- Chilliotis recommends creating citywide promotional lists to allow mobility across agencies for career advancement.
Arthur Chilliotis
2:06:53
Yeah.
2:06:54
I I think the issue of targeting segregated classifications and putting in a course of study that allows them to take promotional exams to better paying jobs is a vehicle that can undo a lot of what is going on.
2:07:15
And we have offered with decays in the past Tell us what the agencies want.
2:07:23
Tell us what skill sets you need.
2:07:25
We will work with the university to get those skill sets.
2:07:28
But then give these people a leg up like they did with a promotional exam for police officer.
2:07:35
That's a classic example.
2:07:37
There's also the issue you spoke about earlier about language skills.
2:07:43
There is a system already in place of selective certifications.
2:07:47
But but someone who has scored, let's say 30 on a civil service list.
2:07:53
But if you if you if you are a Spanish speaker, you might be put number 1 on a Spanish speaker selective certification.
2:08:01
Those are all opportunities to to deal with targeted groups.
2:08:09
The other thing I spoke about earlier was step plans.
2:08:13
Our union with our settlement put in the step plans for administrative managers.
2:08:20
Much of what the Decast reported recently about the increase in pay for minorities in women is attributed to that, to our case, not to what they did.
2:08:33
And needs to be made further analyzed.
2:08:36
Because I believe that only by aggressively pursuing them and forcing them to do things Things will get done.
2:08:43
There's also other part of this.
2:08:45
You've gotta fund them.
2:08:47
You've gotta give them the resources.
2:08:49
To do the job.
2:08:51
Just because they they they might have been given the the authority to enforce the laws if they don't have the funding to hold the exams frequently.
2:09:01
But you're not going to achieve what you need to achieve.
2:09:03
And and the classic example of this white male dominated positions usually in the uniformed forces have regular civil service exams.
2:09:13
Meanwhile, job titles, that are held by predominantly by minorities and women, maybe once a decade.
2:09:20
Well, that means your potential to move up the ranks is limited to once every 10 years rather than once every 3 or 4 years.
2:09:29
So holding promotional exams frequently giving a bridge for lower paying jobs to those promotional exams is a white and and and the other aspect of it, is city wide lists.
2:09:44
If you're on a promotional list, you're usually limited to your particular agency.
2:09:49
Which might be a small agency that does not have that many opportunities to move up.
2:09:53
But there might be other agencies that exhaust their promotion list immediately, and then have the right to go to an off competitive list.
2:09:59
Why not having a promotional city wide list so that those people who are blocked in their particular agency had the opportunity to move to another agency and make the higher pay.
2:10:12
Those are all mechanisms clearly available under the current rules of the of the city charter and the personal rules of the city of New York.
2:10:21
And I have appended all those to my testimony that was given out and that I posted on your website.
