WASHINGTON D.C. — Today, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, filed suit against the Department of Labor to challenge a new rule that undermines the federal Employment Service (ES) program by allowing the privatization of critical public service jobs that have historically been performed by impartial civil servants to guard against political patronage and corruption.
The rule eliminates a requirement that ES job search assistance and other services be provided by non-partisan, merit staff. The rule puts the jobs of public service workers across the country at risk and opens the door to privatized ES services that are less effective in connecting job seekers with employment opportunities and more vulnerable to interference by outside influence, because the workers providing these essential services would no longer maintain civil service protections.
Created in 1933 to replace an inefficient system rank with political favoritism, the ES program is a federally funded, state-administered program that provides critical job-search and related services to job seekers across the United States. Since the creation of the ES program, the Department of Labor has consistently recognized its authority to require states to staff ES programs with civil servants employed on a merit basis. Studies have repeatedly shown that civil service staff is more effective in delivering services to job-seekers than those used by private contractors. In the new rule however, issued in August, the Department of Labor took the position that it is not allowed to impose a merit-staffing requirement and eliminated it.
For more than ninety years, the ES program has been a cornerstone of the nation’s workforce development system. These critical services that help people find work are now under threat as the administration attempts to privatize the civil service.
“Since 1933, merit staffing protections have helped ensure Employment Services are performed by qualified public service workers,” said AFSCME President Patrick Moran. “Every day, the AFSCME members who provide these services help people in their communities find jobs to support themselves and their families. Now the administration is attempting to roll back these critical civil service protections, opening the door to privatize and outsource public service jobs. Merit system protections were created to avoid corruption and patronage in the administration of essential government programs. Taking away those protections and outsourcing to for-profit contractors will hurt not just the workers but the job seekers who rely on the workers’ expertise and fairness to find employment. We will fight to protect the skilled AFSCME members who have dedicated their careers to serving their communities.”
“In 1933, Congress recognized that people looking for work are best served by a professional civil service. And since then, it has repeatedly endorsed a merit-staffing requirement for the ES program,” said Adam Pulver, attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel for AFSCME. “The Department of Labor’s attempted justification of the privatization of vital services based on a newfound reading of the Wagner-Peyser Act is both ahistorical and atextual.”
Read more about the case here.