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Civil Service Moves Forward with Rule Changes

Chris-ChristieThe Civil Service Commission (CSC) – consisting entirely of Chris Christie appointees – recently passed rule changes eliminating most promotional rights for State Workers. The new rules create a system  called “broad banding” which would allow management to completely control who gets promoted & when, and would largely eliminate any appeal rights. (Please see past issues of this newsletter and communications from Local 1037 describing these rules in more detail.)

Remarkably, the CSC took this action in defiance of the Legislature, which invoked its right under the NJ Constitution to block the agency from adopting the new rules. As you may recall, CWA lobbied successfully to have the Legislature to twice pass what are called Continuing Resolutions, stating that they believe the rule changes are in violation of the law. The effect, under our Constitution, is to block the CSC’s action.

The CSC has since cited some very minor changes they made to the rules as evidence as to why they may proceed. Leaders in the Legislature have not agreed and have sent a letter to the CSC stating that they must not move forward with the rule changes and doing so would prompt the Legislature to go into court. If that happens, CWA will likely join the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the Legislature has moved forward once again with the process to pass further Continuing Resolutions on the “amended” rule changes. These resolutions are making their way through both the Senate and the Assembly. So effectively, even if the court was to agree with the CSC that enough changes were made to nullify the previous resolutions, the new ones would block the latest version of the broad banding rules.

For now, the rule changes have not been implemented. We will keep you posted. Stay tuned!