Teamsters Local 237 officials and several school safety agents joined Councilmember Joseph Addabbo Jr. and other members of the New York City Council on the steps of City Hall Sept. 13, to announce that the union’s approximately 4,000 school safety agents have been granted civil service status and their title has been reclassified from non-competitive to competitive.


At the microphone, Secretary-Treasurer Gregory Floyd is flanked by Councilman Joseph Addabbo Jr., right, and Recording Secretary Patricia Stryker, while Local 237 officials and school safety agents look on.

Secretary-Treasurer Gregory Floyd and Political and Legislative Director Patricia Stryker were on hand at the press conference, where Floyd said he was grateful to Councilmember Addabbo and the City Council for “understanding the need to reclassify school safety agents” from the former non-competitive title of school guard. Floyd also thanked Commissioner Martha Hirst of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) for “working expeditiously on this issue.”

Only 10 months ago, at a hearing held Dec. 14, 2005, before the Committee on Civil Service and Labor chaired by Councilmember Addabbo, Floyd, along with Stryker and several school safety agents, testified on the merits of placing the title - which is plagued by a high turnover rate and low morale - in the competitive classes. Recently, DCAS amended the city’s code to grant competitive status. “This is the fastest I’ve seen the city work on something,” said Floyd.

“It gives me great pleasure to know I had a role in the Local 237 effort, led by President Carl Haynes, to have New York City classify 4,300 school safety agents into competitive civil service status,” said Addabbo. “This decision is of great importance to the workers who serve one million students” in public schools throughout the city. It provides “fairness, recognition and respect to the only peace officer group that did not have civil service status,” noted Addabbo.

Addabbo also announced the filing period for the first school safety agents’ civil service exam is Feb. 7 to 27. The exam is May 26, 2007.

The reclassification is “a major morale booster,” said Floyd, noting that the civil service competitive class title provides the formerly non-competitive employees with many of the same protections and benefits that other peace officer titles enjoy. School safety agents are frequently exposed to dangerous and violent conditions while providing security at the city’s 1,000-plus public schools and are the city’s third largest peace officer group, with the power to carry out several law enforcement responsibilities, including making arrests, conducting searches and confiscating weapons.

“When school safety first originated in the 1970s it was on a very small scale,” said Stryker. “It’s become a huge law-enforcement group and I’m delighted that our members are getting the recognition they deserve.”

Among the protections provided by civil service status are equal opportunities for promotions, instead of arbitrary ones, and disciplinary hearings instead of firings at the will of management. “We’ve worked on the recruitment issue,” said Floyd, “Now we need retention.”