Mayor Faulted for Crisis at Public Employee Board
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
Labor strongly objected to three last-minute nominees to the District’s
Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) in testimony last Friday before the DC
City Council’s Committee On Workforce Development And Government Operations.
“We are objecting strongly to the process of appointments as well as, at this
point, to the nominees themselves,” testified Metro Washington Council
President Jos Williams, noting that Mayor Adrian Fenty has created a crisis at
the PERB – which makes critical decisions about organizing drives,
arbitrations, unfair labor practice charges and so on –by failing to appoint
members which prevents resolving the backlog of cases, “adversely impacting
employees, unions and the City.” After failing to consult on PERB appointments
with labor as promised last year after one of his earlier nominees turned out to
be ineligible to serve, Fenty abruptly submitted three new nominees to PERB last
week with no notice. “We have reviewed the resumes of the three proposed
appointees and not one of them appears to have any demonstrated labor-management
or public sector experience,” said Williams, who joined leaders of the AFSCME
Council 20 and the Fraternal Order of Police in asking the Committee not to take
action on the nominees until labor’s concerns are resolved. Click
here for Williams’ testimony.