REMARKS
Council Member Carmen N. De La Rosa opens hearing on pay disparity in New York City's municipal workforce
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4 min
Council Member Carmen N. De La Rosa opens a hearing on pay disparity in New York City's municipal workforce, joined by the chairs of the Women and Gender Equity Committee and the Civil and Human Rights Committee.
- She outlines the agenda, which includes questioning the administration about findings on pay gaps based on race, ethnicity, gender, and other protected classes
- De La Rosa highlights successes in pay equity within job titles but notes overall gaps for women and racial minorities in lower-paid positions
- She states the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted women of color through headcount reductions
- De La Rosa introduces legislation aimed at improving promotional opportunities and diversifying higher-paid titles
Carmen N. De La Rosa
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Thank you so much.
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Good afternoon.
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I am council member, Carmen Zarzaurosa, Chair of the Committee of Civil Service And Labor, I am joined by my colleagues, Chair Faroe Lewis of the Women And Gender Equity Committee and Chair Natasha Williams of the Civil And Human Rights Committee.
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Today's hearing is a collaborative effort to explore strategies to address paid disparity in our city's municipal workforce.
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Today, we will be questioning the administration about the city council's 3rd round of findings from local law 18 of 2019, which analyzes paid disparities based on race, ethnicity, gender, and other protected classes among uni support employees.
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As the council's data team has noted in their report, City agencies have largely succeeded in ensuring that employees of all genders and races are paid the same similar Saturdays within the same titles.
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But that does not mean that our work is done.
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The analysis conducted by the data team based on it on employee data from 2021 continues to show that overall, the city's workforce still exhibits substantial gaps in pay between men and women and between white and non white employees.
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This is largely caused by a high concentration of women and racial minorities in titles that are lower paid.
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Blum, managerial titles, with better pay have higher concentrations of white and male employees.
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In addition in addition, the data suggests that overall headcount reductions during during and after the height of the COVID 19 pandemic disproportionately affected women of color.
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Agencies with higher concentrations of women and employees of color saw substantial reductions in staff, while agencies with high concentrations of men and why employees saw a relatively stable headcount.
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These findings demonstrate a long stem spending trend of women and nonwhite employees being undervalued and underpaid.
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The council is committed to proving access to opportunities for the recruitment, retention, and promotion of women, and people of color to strengthen our city's diverse workforce and set a high standard for cities across the country.
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In addition to today's oversight topic, we will be hearing the following legislation to enhance promotional opportunities and diversify well paid titles.
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It shows 743 sponsored by myself which would require DCAS to offer career and counseling to long term municipal employees so that they are aware of the many opportunities for upward mobility within civil service.
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Intro 767, sponsored by council member, Crystal Hudson, which would require CCAS to distribute a work a workplace culture survey to all municipal employees and then submit a report that summarizes the findings for each agency so that we can identify issues within workplace cultures that may not otherwise be captured by the data we already collect.
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Intro 809 also sponsored by myself, which would require decast to report on its decision making process for expanding eligibility for promotional exams to fill vacant managerial positions.
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Intro 828, sponsored by chair Lewis, which would require Decast and CUNY to distribute information about the civil service process and related CUNY courses and programs to students.
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Intro 829 also sponsored by chair Lewis, which would require ZECAS to engage in public outreach to promote civil service examinations throughout the city.
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And finally, Resolution 346 a, which is sponsored by myself, which would call Pandik has to consider an employee's participation in agency provided trainings and other extracurricular initiatives when scoring promotional exams.
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I'd like to thank the committee staff for their work in preparing for this hearing, policy analyst Elizabeth Arts, legislative counsel, Ria Ossovara.
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I'd also like to thank my staff, chief of staff, James Burke, Kiana Diaz, and Freinette familiar.
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I would also like to give a special thanks to the council's data team.
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Including Rose Martinez, Ala Mazawi, Melissa Nunez, Eric Kuppke, Riz Hyroda, for all their hard work on this year's paid disparity report.
