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By Root 1114 0

Hamilton spoke of this when interviewed by the State Charter Revision Commission: “The problem in most governments is that the challenge to middle management is greater than other places, because they have to deal with employees over whom they don’t have the usual levers—they can’t fire them, they can’t lower their salaries, they can’t usually do much about their promotion, they can’t do any of the things that a middle manager expects to use as his stock in trade.… Public managers on the whole have to be superb people to really motivate people in a situation like that. Despite this, middle managers in the city have virtually nothing on the other side.… They had no training, they had no sense of being part of a management cadre which was somehow looking over the shoulder of people who did what they did for a long time, and so forth. There is no equivalent to the key to the executive washroom; there is no recognition, no feeling of peergroup identification, none of the things that help turn a person into a manager.”

One reason the management ethos is missing is that many managers identify not with the city but with the union they belong to. Of all the city’s managers and supervisors, only 2,000 don’t belong to a union. In the Fire Department, deputy chiefs, who earn about $40,000 and supervise three to five battalions consisting of five to twelve companies, belong to a union. In all the uniformed services, less than 100 managers don’t belong to a union. In the Housing Authority, housing project managers belong to the same union as the people they are supposed to manage. In the City Comptroller’s Office, the auditors of District Council 37’s Health and Security Plan are members of D.C. 37. In the Offices of Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining, which are supposed to represent management and the public, only nine of ninety-two employees do not belong to a union. “In the Parks Department,” complains Russo, “the only men we have who aren’t union members are the borough park managers. The assistant park manager in each borough—the person responsible for discipline—belongs to Victor Gotbaum’s union, District Council 37. In case of a strike, who opens the door to let in workers who want to work? Who represents us—the people? In Parks, if the borough manager tells his deputy to do something, there is a conflict. He might do it. But he also has in the back of his mind the union identification.” And loyalty.

Managers not only develop conflicting loyalties, they naturally come to view the union as their source of protection, their vehicle to muscle higher salaries, their source of health and welfare benefits. The necessary adversary system between boss and worker breaks down. Union leaders concede, usually privately, that too many managers belong to unions. Publicly, union leaders are more circumscribed. They, too, must worry about the next election. “Union leaders won’t let us sensibly define who is a manager,” says Jack Ukeles, former executive director of the Management Advisory Board. “Ask any private company and they’ll tell you 10 to 15 percent of their employees are managers.”

But it’s too simplistic to blame the unions. In late 1977, many nonunionized managers were clamoring to join a union. “I don’t want them,” declared Victor Gotbaum, understanding both their frustrations and the city’s dismal management. But Gotbaum may have no choice. For years, elected officials feared political reprisal if they raised management salaries. So they did nothing, allowing the salaries of many workers to surpass those of their boss. Managers had no grievance procedure, no weekend premiums, no increments, no night-shift differentials, no shared sense of community and management ethos. This is an invitation for bosses to seek protection by joining unions. When he assumed office, Mayor Koch courageously decided to risk the political heat and grant raises to 2,000 managers. His timing was awful, coming on the eve of citywide labor negotiations. Worse, he granted raises the way Beame cut budgets—across the board. Everyone got a raise, irrespective