Wednesday, January 05, 2000
City workers renew bias claims
'Action plan' due, city manager says
BY ROBERT ANGLEN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
An angry contingent of Cincinnati employees said Tuesday that the city is rife with discrimination and that it has lost faith in the administration's ability to cope with it.
“There is no trust between city employees and the city administration,” said municipal sewer employee James Scott. “This isn't just a black thing, it's an unfair thing.”
One after another, several employees spoke before a committee of City Council members about their concerns, alleging a lack of minority promotions, unequal disciplinary actions for blacks and whites, and a lack of African-Americans and women in management.
These were the same issues raised in an October report by the local NAACP, which employees said city officials have ignored even after being asked by the council to respond two months ago.
“One of the things we could have done is just respond,” said City Manager John Shirey. “Frankly, I didn't think that was adequate.”
Acknowledging existing racial problems, Mr. Shirey said he took the report as a mandate to come up with an action plan that will be ready Feb. 1.
“The situation, while I think it has improved, is a long way from where I think it should
be,” he said, adding that he has interviewed employees and is working with the personnel director and equal employment opportunity director to determine the scope of the problem.
The city has about 6,000 full-time employees. The city's affirmative action plan shows 49 percent of the 1998 work force was white males, 19 percent black males, 17 percent white females and 13 percent black females.
In a cover sheet to the affirmative action plan, city officials noted concerns with “the underutilization of females,” saying the number of black and white female employees is below average. It also noted that the number of disciplinary actions for black employees increased in 1998 while it decreased for white employees.
But employees Tuesday weren't just complaining about statistics. They said they are harassed and retaliated against when they file complaints. Repeatedly, they questioned whether the city could be trusted to address problems and asked officials to consider seeking help from the Ohio Civil Rights Commission.
“We need a federal investigation,” said Mr. Scott, who chairs the Metropolitan Sewer District's Race Relations Committee. “The city has done a very poor job in policing itself.”
Councilwoman Alicia Reece, who chairs the Health and Social, Children's Services, Small Business Development, Employment Training Committee, said she was disappointed by Mr. Shirey's response.
Although she did not blame Mr. Shirey for the problems, saying they existed long before he took office in 1993, Ms. Reece said she called for the update on the NAACP report because she feared nothing was getting done.
If Mr. Shirey was working on an action plan, he shouldn't have kept it to himself, she said. “It is my goal that this doesn't sit here any longer,” she said.
“There are racial problems here and you need to find a way to deal with it,” said Milton Hinton, president of the Cincinnati branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “It might be well to consider bringing in outside help.”
Mr. Hinton said the NAACP should not have had to file a report to bring attention to the problems. He said officials should find ways to fix the problem, stop treating it as a statistical issue and realize it is a people problem, and urged the City Council to get involved.
“Sitting behind me are city workers. They're here because it's serious,” Mr. Hinton said. “Let's not play games. Everybody knows there are problems in this city.”
Employee union officials agreed, saying it is not isolated in one or two departments but extends from the finance department to the sewer district.
Calling the situation “abhorrent,” Yodie Mitchell, president of the local federal, state, county and municipal employees union, said repeated attempts to resolve the problem have failed.
Council members said they were committed to fixing problems even if it meant bringing in outside authorities, including the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, to mediate disputes between employees and employers.
Councilwoman Minette Cooper said the problem is deep-rooted and will take a lot of work to correct.
“None of this is new,” she said. “It was true 30 years ago.”
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