Throughout the promotions crisis in the St. Louis Fire Department, the Slay administration relentlessly has used the top-down management rhetoric of corporate bureaucracy. “Everybody has a boss,” the mayor said repeatedly, in various ways. The message was simple: “Sherman George has a boss, and he is not doing what his boss told him to do.” That explains and justifies George’s demotion, according to the mayor.
Throughout the process, George took a different stance. He stood on the authority of the City Charter, which grants some independence for civil servants. He stood on a court ruling that had interpreted the Charter as saying it is the fire chief’s constitutional authority to promote, or not promote, within the fire department. He trusted his own proven expertise in the fire service over the pressure of his boss, who has no training whatsoever in evaluating the leadership abilities of firefighters.
Now that George has filed suit against the mayor, claiming racial discrimination and illegal disciplinary action, a judge will decide if Slay’s top-down corporate model of City leadership trumps George’s vision of a separation of powers protected by the City Charter.
Slay held to his bureaucratic rhetoric even in responding to the announcement of George’s suit. George pointed out that in demoting him, Slay put him under the direction of a former deputy chief, Steve Kotraba, whom George had disciplined and who is the subject of investigations started under George’s command. George’s suit claims this created a hostile work environment designed to force his resignation.
Slay’s response was amazing to us. He told one news network that “the deputy chief is being insubordinate and forgetting that he has a boss.” The deputy chief, in this startling statement, is former Chief George and his boss is acting Chief Kotraba. For Slay, even when filing suit against your employer in three jurisdictions – city, state and federal – one is expected to obediently remember who is the boss.
But leadership of a diverse and racially divided city must include tactics less confrontational and more subtle and inclusive than playing a strong-armed boss. There must be significant power-sharing with the African-American community if St. Louis is to maintain the cohesion needed to move forward and compete for businesses, highly-sought-after talent and residents. Slay’s leadership failure has shattered this delicate but essential cohesion.
Slay now has lost the faith of the black community, which forms the majority of the city’s population. Because of past apathy and political disorganization, the black majority in the city has not voted its full strength. Slay’s top-down approach to the George demotion already has done much to energize the black community to organize against him. A rally in front of City Hall at 3 p.m. Sunday may be the genesis of a wide-ranging opposition to the Slay administration. This newly energized African-American movement may force a new, more fair and inclusive way of doing business in City Hall – or, even, a new boss there.