BALLOT QUESTION #3: If you're a resident of Johnson City, TN, your August ballot will ask “Shall the Charter of the City of Johnson City, Tennessee, be amended to allow the city manager the right and power, in addition to all other rights and powers, to make temporary appointments of employees for a period to be determined by the appropriate department director and approved by the city manager, or his/her designee?”
Vote NO to Protect City Workers
This proposal changes Section 45.11 of the city Charter to remove protections from city workers, providing the City Manager broad powers to make temporary appointments for an open-ended period of time.
If this referendum passes:
- The City Manager will have the ability to hire temporary city employees “for a period to be determined,” instead of for the 90 days that our Charter currently provides.
The city says they need to do this to reduce the administrative burden of renewing temporary contracts every 90 days. We ask: Why do you need to make so many temporary appointments that it’s a burden worth changing the Charter for? We should keep our Charter protections for city workers.
Vote NO on Ballot Question #3 if You Believe:
- We should carefully weigh the language we add to our city Charter and guard against the potential for future abuses of temporary employment.
- Our city works better when city workers have decent compensation and a voice on the job.
Here Is a Breakdown of the Concerns About Ballot Question 3:
- Excessive Appointment of Temporary Employees May Be Used to Undermine Good Jobs in Our Region
Working conditions in our city government should reflect our goals of having good jobs in our region, but the Commission’s proposal opens the door to removing job security from city workers by allowing indefinite temps. - Temporary Appointees Have Less of a Voice at Work
Temp workers are more vulnerable because the City Manager can simply not renew their contracts. This makes temps less likely to speak up if they see something that could harm the public. - Today’s City Commission Cannot Guarantee What Tomorrow’s City Commission Will Do
The City Commission says they only intend for this new power to be used in very limited ways. However, granting the City Manager “the ability to make temporary appointments of employees for a period to be determined” does not read as very limited. What matters are the words that will be added to the Charter, not the current City Commission’s intentions. Even if the Commission says these changes will be used in a particular way, we need to consider how they might conceivably be used.
A Vision Forward
Qualified, permanent staff are essential for delivering reliable city services.
The best way to ensure that city jobs are good jobs is for city workers to organize with their coworkers and form a union. Just like what matters for this referendum is what the words on the paper say, having a union contract in writing is what matters when it comes to protections for city workers. While there are obstacles to public sector collective bargaining at the state level, City Commissioners should advocate for the rights of city workers.
Addressing the Arguments
The public hearing of this proposal happened during its second read, and it is available here, beginning at around 1:17:30. It contains a number of noteworthy statements from city officials.
They Say: Abuse of Temporary Work Is Not a Problem in the Public Sector
Assistant City Manager Steve Willis introduces the point by saying the intention of this proposal is not to replace permanent workers with temporary workers. He says that public sector rates of temporary employment are lower than private sector rates. While this is true, opening the door to more temporary employment would make it less true.
We need to be moving away from temporary jobs and toward good, permanent employment. Ballot Question #3 takes us in the wrong direction.
They Say: Renewing Key Positions Every 90 Days Is Too Time-Consuming
The main example used by Mr. Willis is that of a Fire Department official who is on extended medical leave. If a particular officer is away, another person needs to be slotted into that position in order for the command hierarchy to function. How often does this situation arise? Are enough high-ranking city employees staying out for over 90 days that we need to change the Charter for it?
Something confusing about the Fire Department example provided by Assistant City Manager Willis is that the City Commission’s proposal would change Section 45 of the City Charter, but Section 165 of the Charter already allows temporary appointments for fire and police officers for longer than 90 days in the case of an emergency. It seems as if the main example Mr. Willis used does not apply. Perhaps this proposal needs more thought before it is added to the Charter.
Of course, if the City Commission or the City Manager wanted to replace the city’s many rank-and-file jobs with temporary appointments, we can see how allowing them to make open-ended temporary appointments would reduce some of their workload–at the same time as it reduced the quality of jobs in our region.
To protect good jobs, we need to look at the whole picture of what Ballot Question #3 could allow.
They Say: We No Longer Need to Worry About Corrupt Hiring and Firing Practices
Commissioner Joe Wise suggests (around 1:32:00) that “this particular idea [of having a 90-day limit to temporary appointments] is a relic of when the Charter was written, to deal with political changes and nepotism and political hires and these sorts of things.” Mr. Wise seems to be suggesting that corruption and misconduct are somehow no longer a temptation for those in power.
While the City of Johnson City is being sued for alleged misconduct by the Johnson City Police Department and city officials, can we really be expected to believe that?
