By Bob Walsh
Pretty much all of the civil service of the formerly
great state of California has been unionized since the early 1980s.
Including lawyers. The lawyers union just won a hearing before an ALJ
(administrative law judge) relating to this issue.
State
law only allows state agencies to hire outside lawyers under limited
situations, such as if adequate, competent staffing is not promptly
available within the state civil service system. It seems that the
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCr) has been cheating more than a little bit on this. (They have priors
for being very flexible in how they interpret state law and regulation,
they always have been.)
The
ALJ has just ordered the state to cancel nine contracts for legal
services for the CDCr being provided by non-civil service employees. It
seems that the "problem" is that there is about a 25% vacancy rate
within the state civil service ranks for lawyers and the Employment and
Management Section of the Dept. of General Services ahs been more than a
little casual in filling them. This creates the staff shortage which
causes the lack of available staff to semi-justify the hiring of outside
counsel. The state union filed the legal action.
The
State Personnel Board ALJ found that CDCr did not make "reasonable
efforts" to do the job properly within the state system. A lot of the
problem seems to be (depending on who you ask) that the state pay levels
are woefully inadequate.
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