ALBANY — Assembly Democrats have quietly advanced sweeping legislation — already being called the “Rubber Rooms for All Act” — to extend tenure-like job protection to all public workers, countering efforts to roll back rigid regulations like those that keep hundreds of failed teachers on the city payroll.
The bill, introduced by Governmental Employees Chairman Peter Abbate Jr. (D-Brooklyn) — who proudly proclaims himself “the unions’ bulldog” — would nix in-house disciplinary proceedings for all state civil servants accused of wrongdoing by their employers.
Instead, workers would be entitled to a binding ruling by an “independent” arbitrator approved by both the employer and the employee.
The bill makes no provision to break a stalemate, suggesting a dispute could drag on indefinitely.
The legislation would also ban state and local governments from suspending workers without pay while the arbitration process plays out. An exception would be made only for those accused of sale or possession of drugs.
The provisions mirror the state’s “rubber room” law, which makes it nearly impossible to fire tenured teachers and has led the Department of Education to warehouse some 675 unwanted teachers in so-called reassignment centers daily at a cost of $40.5 million last year.
“By protecting civil-service employees from being suspended without pay during such procedures, this bill conforms [to] disciplinary hearing procedures brought against tenured teachers . . . thus ensuring the same due process for civil-service employees,” reads Abbate’s official explanation of the bill.
Critics fear the Abbate measure could prevent municipalities from purging untold numbers of problem workers from the payroll — effectively creating “rubber rooms” across all sectors of government.
“There’s already due process in all union negotiations and disciplinary procedures,” said Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn).
“You can’t just create another set of layers that forces the city taxpayer to pay people while they lay around and do nothing.”
The bill, Abbate said, is intended to close a “loophole” that lets unscrupulous managers in small, local governments suspend workers without pay, even though they lack evidence to win during a hearing.
“That’s the way they get their revenge out,” Abbate said. “We’re getting a lot of complaints on it.”