Temporary Insanity

[March 14th, 2007]

A proposed change to civil service rules in Portland's city charter has up to now focused on whether voters should make it easier to fire more city employees.

But the change on the May 15 ballot also poses an ironic twist that's received little attention. A powerful city union is pushing to preserve a cushy contract for temporary workers that does not benefit its 900 members.

That's because Laborers' Local 483, while it doesn't like the city relying on temps, also doesn't like that the proposed change would remove all limits on the city's use of temps.

The charter now limits total hours a temporary city employee can work to five months, a period that's been defined by a judge as 860 hours. "Temporary appointments shall be used for the purpose of meeting emergency, non-recurring and short-term workload needs of the City," says Section 4-302 of the charter.

Because of the 860-hour cap, the Portland Parks and Recreation Bureau faces a hurdle when it wants to use "temporary" workers year-round at four community centers and particularly at those centers' indoor pools.

Rather than restrict pool hours or lay off workers for good in the middle of teaching programs, the parks bureau has jiggered a solution to clear that hurdle.

It works like this: Parks lays off the workers when they max out their hours. The workers are immediately rehired by Brooks Associates, a temporary staffing agency. The workers then perform the same jobs at the same locations. The only difference is that Brooks, not the city, issues their paychecks. They can remain with Brooks indefinitely.

Brooks, which won the temp contract in a 2004 competitive bidding process, typically supplies the city about 90 workers, records show. The firm gets paid 28 percent of workers' hourly wages, a sum that works out to about $450,000 annually.

Rob Wheaton, a field agent with Laborers' Local 483 representing parks employees, says the city abuses the temporary-worker concept because the jobs it fills with temps are clearly full-time positions. "There's no such thing as a 'permanent' temporary worker," he says.

Wheaton also argues that the payment to Brooks costs the city about the same as paying 90 temporary employees to work full time, with benefits. City Human Resources Director Yvonne Deckard disagrees, saying full-time employees are far more costly. And Wheaton says he's been frustrated in his efforts to deal with the problem in meetings with city officials and representatives of the Charter Review Committee.

Here's where charter review comes in. The proposed civil service change, one of four charter-reform proposals going before voters in May, would eliminate the section of the charter that limits temporary employment.

While Wheaton says that change would eliminate payments to Brooks, it could also widen use of temporary employees in what the union believes should be full-time positions. "We all agree that temporary employment at the city is a problem," he says. "We totally disagree about the solution."

But leaders of the committee that developed the proposals on the May 15 ballot say the 860-hour limit must go. Judy Tuttle, the city's project manager for the Charter Review Committee, says such a limit is too prescriptive for the charter. The charter is supposed to be a broad framework, like a constitution, Tuttle says.

Her committee recommends that a newly devised civil service board formulate new classifications for employees now classified as temporary.

"By leaving the language as is, you have no flexibility," Tuttle says. "Take it out and you have the option to negotiate."

Deckard says bureaus need to retain the ability to hire temps for "casual" or unskilled jobs. "It's just more efficient," Deckard says.