WHEREAS, The “Rule of Two” was added to the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter in the 1950s; and
WHEREAS, The original intention of the “Rule of Two” was to promote a merit-based civil service system in Philadelphia; and
WHEREAS, The “Rule of Two” states that “the regulations shall provide for the certification of the two persons standing highest on the appropriate eligible list to fill a vacancy” or in other words, it states that those applying for civil service jobs must complete a civil service examination and the position(s) must be filled by the two applicants with the top two scores; and
WHEREAS, Civil Service jobs make up 92 percent of all City government jobs and include clerks, police, firefighters and construction workers; and
WHEREAS, The City’s breakdown of civil service demographics are 46 percent African-American, 35 percent White, 5 percent Latino and 2 percent Asian, in addition to being 59 percent male; and
WHEREAS, For the 4,000 City employees earning in excess of $70,000, 64 percent are white and 72 percent are male; and
WHEREAS, For the same number of employees earning an annual $35,000 or less, 67 percent are African-American and 55 percent are male; and
WHEREAS, The average salary of a white municipal employee is over $10,000 more than that of the average African-American municipal employee; and
WHEREAS, In 2014, Philadelphia City Council’s Committee on Labor and Civil Service held its first-ever hearings investigating the unmet need for the municipal workforce to keep up with the City’s changing demographics and languages, following a resolution introduced by Councilwoman María Quiñones-Sánchez; and
WHEREAS, New York City, Boston and San Francisco have employed a civil service processes that allows employment selection from a wider candidate pool in order to promote racial and gender diversity in the work place; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That the City Council’s Committee on Labor and Civil Service is hereby authorized to conduct public hearings to examine the Civil Service “Rule of Two” in the City of Philadelphia.
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