Des Plaines mulls abolishing civil service commission

The Des Plaines city council has deferred a decision to dissolve the 48-year-old Civil Service Commission, whose role is to address issues related to the hiring, discipline and firing of employees.

Since its inception, the commission has helped resolve personnel issues involving non-police and fire union employees. However, the commission has not met since 2002 and the terms of its members expired a few years ago.

“The legislative intent of the Civil Service Commission when it was created in 1963 was to protect the rights and interests and promote the welfare of employees working for the city,” said Michael Earl, city director of human resources.

The need for it has lessened with the introduction of the right of employees to collectively bargain in the mid-1980s, Earl said.

“Today we have five unions that represent 86 percent of the city’s employees,” he said.

Earl said he contacted the leadership for the three impacted unions and no one voiced any objections over dissolving the commission.

The commission does not oversee department heads or management personnel. That leaves roughly 40 people, including some clerical workers and executive secretaries, whose rights theoretically are protected by the commission.

“It has not been called upon to act for almost 10 years now,” Earl said. “We have modern personnel policies in place so if a nonunion employee does have a workplace concern, there are procedural rights within our personnel manual that allow them to grieve that complaint and have it heard by different management levels in the department and within the organization itself.”

However, that number of nonunion employees is significant enough that the commission should not be disbanded, 5th Ward Alderman James Brookman said.

“I look at this as a very significant change,” Brookman said. “I am very concerned that some employees may be left unprotected. There is a lot of material here to go through and analyze. Why wasn’t this referred to committee? A commission of this significance, protecting employee rights, talking about hiring, promotion, discharge, those are serious issues. And there’s certainly no particular rush to do this.”

Brookman said he viewed the commission’s role as an independent body valuable.

“I think it was established to keep politics out of things,” Brookman said.

Earl said the last step of the employee grievance process is handled by an outside arbitrator.

“I think there are checks there and protections for employees who do feel they were wronged,” Earl said.

Ward 6 Alderman Mark Walsten asked whether employees were made aware of the commission’s existence upon being hired, to which Earl responded that it was unlikely.

“I kind of like the idea that these 40 people could possibly have something to lean back on,” Walsten said. “Maybe people don’t know about it enough.”

The city council voted unanimously to refer the matter to the finance and administration committee for further review.