Union tries to nibble at Jeb Bush's Service First

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070917/COLUMNIST03/709170301/1010/NEWS01

By Bill Cotterell
NOTEBOOK

Watching labor negotiations between the state of Florida and its employee unions is usually like staring at tropical fish - momentarily interesting, although you know what they're going to do because they can't really do anything else.

But the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees came up with something different in talks at the Department of Management Services last week. AFSCME, which represents tens of thousands of state office workers and laborers, sought to find out if Gov. Charlie Crist is willing to touch part of ex-Gov. Jeb Bush's legacy.

A little more than a year ago, Crist and then-Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher were competing to see who could convince Republican primary voters that he was more like Jeb. When asked in candidate forums to name a Bush policy they would change, both men would smile and say they'd just have to get in there and learn even more than they'd already gleaned while basking in the great man's shadow at Cabinet meetings.

Or words to that effect.

They certainly didn't indicate any desire to tamper with Service First, Bush's sweeping revision of the state personnel system. Most people remember that 2001 law for moving 16,400 Career Service employees into the Selected Exempt Service, where they could be more easily reassigned or fired, but it made a whole host of other changes.

AFSCME, which futilely fought Bush from the start, sees no harm in asking Crist to undo some of what Bush did.

FULL story at link.