Federal Pay Retooling Proposed. Unions Critical of White House Plan to Widen Merit System

The administration wants to abolish the General Schedule pay system by 2010 and require that at least part of every pay raise for the government's 1.8 million civilian employees hinge on an annual performance evaluation, President Bush's top management guru said yesterday.

The administration's initiative faces significant hurdles on Capitol Hill. Key lawmakers have said the White House should not consider such sweeping measures until results are in from Homeland Security and Defense. The Government Accountability Office also has said that many agencies are not ready to carry out meaningful evaluations of their employees, a crucial component of the proposed system.

The General Schedule, the decades-old 15-grade pay system, would be replaced by broad salary ranges known as pay bands, making it easier for federal managers to offer higher starting salaries to talented newcomers and to give employees pay raises without necessarily giving them a promotion.

Gone would be within-grade increases and step increases, elements of the current system that move employees up the salary scale the longer they remain in their jobs. That money would be redirected to raises based on annual performance evaluations, but it was unclear how much of an employee's overall pay raise it would account for.

The proposal would retain the Merit Systems Protection Board in hearing employees' appeals of disciplinary actions, and the Federal Labor Relations Authority in resolving labor disputes, but would craft a faster process for both. It also wouldremove requirements that management bargain with unions in preparing for emergencies, making minor changes in working conditions and crafting pay-for-performance rules.

Agencies would have to submit plans for their new personnel systems to the Office of Personnel Management for approval.

Allowing government employees to unionize is a bad idea whose time is long past.

I can understand, though not buy into, the logic of believing that people need labor unions to give them protection against the overwhelming economic and political power of their evil, greedy capitalist overlords.

But even if one buys this argument, that logic breaks down with respect to government employee unions.

I mean, given that government is the source of all good for all the people, what justification is there for believing that government employees would need protection from the power of their benevolent government?

Who are these government employees really bargaining with? The answer is: We the People.

Do these employees need protection from the overwhelming power of We The People? Are WE THE PEOPLE going to screw them over without unions?

Well, I don't know the answer. But I do know that at the negotiating table, right now it's WE THE PEOPLE who are getting it up the tuchus.

Government employees generally have job security, generous and irrevocable benefit packages, enviable vacation allowances, and in many cases are legally exempt from the laws (i.e. Social Security) that the government has imposed on the rest of WE THE PEOPLE.

When it comes to compensation, private sector employees don't do so nearly so well in comparison, mainly because no private commercial enterprise can survive long-term mismanagement and uneconomic cost structures.

But government has no such constraints in a term politically short of ten years, which is to say, from a practical political standpoint, forever.

Moreover, the government employees have practical day to day control of the operational levers that control government power.

The union/government coalition of France is instructive regarding the extent and the tragedy of such power.

So we need to change the template. We need to reframe the proposition that it is the govenrment employees who must be protected from the power of WE THE PEOPLE.

The truth is just the opposite: It is WE THE PEOPLE who need protection from the government employee unions, because THEY are the ones who enjoy the overwhelming economic and political power in our relationship with them.

I am not saying that government employees are not skilled and dedicated people, or that they don't deserve to be fairly compensated for their efforts.

But that is also true of employees in the private sector, and they don't get the same power, perks and job security protections as government employees.

When one looks at the 20th century history of Organized Labor and government, it is clear that government employee unions have successfully exercised often overwhelming influence on the outcomes of elections, and in passing or defeating key legislation outside of their compensation issues.

The power of the NEA to dictate the curriculum in our public schools is Exhibit Numero Uno for my case.

It is time that WE THE PEOPLE begin to reconsider whether government employee unions should enjoy such obvious power and prosperity, or whether we ought not pass legislation to severely limit and eventually eliminate the power of organized labor in government employment.

The transition from what we have now to a union-free government workforce will undoubtedly take a long time and be an incremental process.

But our nation needs to move in this direction, whether in baby steps or giant steps.

Government employee unions are a 20th century relic of a decaying and discredited Progressive era. Their continued operation will not serve well the interests of WE THE PEOPLE in the coming few decades.

Actually, this is not a new idea. In the 1980s Congress authorized merit pay for managers. The system was a complete disaster because Congress never ponied up the money for merit pay raises. As a result those who were rated superior managed to run a bit behind where they would have been had they not been placed into the system. Those rated Superior did not keep up with inflation. Those raded Fully Successful got shafted to the max.

Another worry the unions and non-unionized individuals have is that all too many managers do not have the skills to implement a merit-pay system equitably. You can call it a merit-pay system, but it is likely to be just another way of rewarding the buttlickers.

I think that's why the GS system was originally proposed. It was supposed to fight the spoils system that was rampant in the 1890's.

The GS system has its own set of problems. Managers and supervisors face a true dilemma when they have an unqualified, unmotivated employee holding a slot in their organization.

Do they give up 50% of their time and hurt the organization's mission snuffing the O2 Thief, or do they let this poor employee get entrenched and become an example of how to perpetrate fraud, waste and abuse on the taxpayer.

As someone who works for Sam's Civil Service, I've met at least two people I genuinely believed would have lost their jobs, and would have richly deserved it; had they worked for a corporation, under economically competitive circumstances.

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