Monday, October 12, 2009

Racism at City Hall ?

A rambling media release from the Cincinnati NAACP charges elected officials & the City Manager with racial bias & "institutionalized racism" concerning the recent layoffs of city workers. Many of the workers were union members who, in fact, voted for unemployment over furloughs. However the media release cites that 74/78% of those laid off were people "of color" and implies an agenda of the Mayor and City Council to purge the ranks of city workers of the colored people.
With a city manager form of government, elected officials are kept out of the hiring and firing process for precisely this reason - that is, to prevent political favoritism. The city manager oversees the hiring and firing process but it is the department heads & human resource folks who do the actual one on one hiring and firing conforming to the collectively bargained rules of negotiated contracts. When grandstanding, it's better to go after names people know, however. The media release cites correctly that with the union contracts determining layoffs is essentially a decision of "last hired - first fired". This brings up a question that the NAACP seems to ignore, though. Why has recent hiring at city hall been so heavily weighted against white people ?

More on the details from Miss Jane

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