City Hall’s “do not hire” policy needs to be fired in its current form.
The underlying concept makes sense. If someone is fired from a city job for some kind of serious malfeasance, that person should not turn up working in another city department where managers are unaware of the transgression. That can happen all too easily in a sprawling government like Chicago’s with more than 40,000 employees.
But in a municipality rife with warring politics, it’s essential the do-not-hire list not be used as a tool of retribution. City Council members who are working on an improved process to mitigate that possibility are on the right track.
The do-not-hire list, which was started after the days of former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Hired Truck scandal and which has been rewritten more than once since then, does more than keep a worker from getting another city job. Because the list is publicly available through Freedom of Information Act requests, a spot on that list can be a millstone that follows a worker seeking a position elsewhere, including among private employers. Outside employers can also learn about the blacklisting when they are checking out a potential employee’s city job background, alderpersons say.
If a worker did indeed engage in nefarious activities, that’s one thing. But if being placed on the do-not-hire list was political payback, that is manifestly unfair.
A drawn-out appeals process
Four former members of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s communications team who were fired and placed on the do-not-hire list believe they were retaliated against by former communications director Ronnie Reese. Reese, who denies the allegations, was fired last month under a cloud of sexual harassment and misogyny allegations.
When some of those who were fired met with Chief of Staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas last year over concerns about Reese, one of the fired employees said, Pacione-Zayas suggested using “peace circles” and “restorative justice” — which hardly seems to be an effective approach.
The workers were taken off the do-not-hire list after appeals, but the process stretched on for more than a year, even with help from two alderpersons.
That’s why it is a sensible notion, as Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) is proposing, to bring in an outside law firm with employment law expertise to write up a best practices policy, with input from appropriate agencies, that eventually would be introduced as an ordinance. Unfairly fired workers would then at least have a better chance to clear their names and get on with their lives.
Under current policy, those on the do-not-hire list can submit a petition to get off the list to the Department of Human Resources by mail or email, but they can’t do it for a year, which is not fair to anyone who was wrongfully put on the list. And the law was quietly rewritten in May to make it tougher on employees, Waguespack said.
Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) told us the reform plan, which has wide support among City Council members, is intended to “put some guardrails on how [do-not-hire] is implemented. It is too vague and allows for too much subjectivity.”
At a news conference last week outside City Hall, as reported by CBS News Chicago, Azhley Rodriguez, one of the employees Reese put on the do-not-hire list, said, “I wanted to grow, and I wanted to be able to improve in my career. … This absolutely stopped me in my tracks.”
Ald. Matt Martin (47th) said he plans to hold a hearing early next year on the do-not-hire policy before the City Council Ethics Committee, which he chairs.
The do-not-hire list, technically known as “Ineligibility for Rehire” is not foolproof. In the past, the Sun-Times has found workers were rehired even after such things as driving a stolen U-Haul truck and sexual harassment allegations.
What’s needed is a policy that is effective and fair to all employees. The City Council should make sure this gets done.
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