Milwaukee Layoffs Overturned

Some of you may recall our earlier coverage of the workers in Milwaukee who were fighting back against their layoffs in court. For those of you who happened to miss it, here is a look at some of that earlier coverage:

“For most of us when a layoff comes there is little that can be done about it. You simply have to take the hit, learn to stretch your savings and move onto the job application lines in hopes of finding something suitable that will allow you to pay your bills and stay in your home.

Well, apparently 40 members of the Milwaukee County sheriff’s office that is not the case. They are not taking this job loss lying down. They took their future, and their jobs, into their own hands and went to court in order to save their jobs and get themselves back on the payroll.

40 deputies were able to get an 11^th hour stay of layoff when their union was granted a temporary injunction of the layoffs, which were slated to happen on the 31^st of December. So while their jobs may be safe, for the time being the temporary nature of the injunction means that they could find themselves in a similar spot in the near future. At the very least these law enforcement professionals will have their jobs for another month.

The injunction was granted to the union by Milwaukee County Circuit Judge William Pocan. After the end of the month there will be some hearings held by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission and the county Civil Service
Commission to decide on the legitimacy of the layoffs in relation to the union contract.”

Well, it looks like that court action has saved some jobs for the workers who were going to be out of a job.  The layoff of three of the captains, who were put out of a job under the watch of Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., was overturned on Thursday by the county Civil Service Commission, who decided that the layoffs were, in fact, a violation of the county rules.

Sheriff  Clarke made the argument that the three officers were let go because their jobs have been cut from the 2012 budget for the department. The commission sided with the three officers, Kerri McKenzie, Darlene Goodlette and Michael Rewolinski, that there was no reason given for the cuts that was in compliance with the county rules. According to the rules for non-union workers in  Milwaukee County cutting jobs must be justified by issues with their job performance, a lack of the correct skills, problems with the employees attendance or budget matters. The positions being eliminated were simply not enough of a reason to put them out of their jobs.

At this moment it is the belief the Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. created his own artificial budget crisis by promoting several of his deputies to captain, which called for a pay raise for each of them, leaving less money for the workers who remained at the deputy level, and creating the need for layoffs.