Forget About Merit (Obama, Democrats move to eliminate pay for performance)

We're starting to understand what labor El Supremo Andy Stern meant when he called the Obama Administration a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to press the union agenda. Last month the Pentagon announced it would "review" a pay-for-performance system that now covers some 200,000 of its civilian employees, delaying any new entrants to the system. In short, merit pay for work well done.

Fugettaboutit. House Democrats are now pushing to freeze pay for performance across the entire federal government.

That's the upshot of a letter sent by eight House Democratic barons to White House budget chief Peter Orszag asking for a halt on expansion of merit pay. "A well-designed performance management system can recognize and reward high performance without a linkage to compensation," they wrote. Gosh, why didn't the private sector think of that?

As the biggest merit plan in the government, the National Security Personnel System has been a prime target of federal employee unions since it was launched in 2006. Originally intended to cover three times as many employees, the merit system was whittled down to exclude blue-collar bargaining-unit workers. For the remaining segment, a nine-union coalition took the issue to court in 2007 arguing that the plan illegally limited collective bargaining. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals gave them no support.

According to figures released by the Pentagon in February, almost all of the employees in the merit system got raises or bonuses in 2009, with the average total reward of 8.35%. That dwarfs the 2.9% to 4.8% hike that most of the federal government's General Schedule employees got for the same time period. Unions prefer a return to a universal General Schedule system, which compensates employees based on time served. This expands the union's power base but also explains why they call them bureaucrats.

Anyone who thinks there's any legitimacy to any US government agency "pay for performance" system is too abysmally ignorant to be allowed unaccompanied crossing the street.

What goes on here is the agencies figured out early that BONUSES are not part of BASE PAY so therefore they need not make the FERS (retirement system) contribution for the amount given in BONUSES.

What they've done is tricked the GS 7 and above employees into believing they've gotten MERIT PAY INCREASES in a PAY FOR PERFORMANCE system ~ but what's really happened is their HIGH 3 (and for Social Security, HIGH 5) income levels have been slashed!

All of the government's internal pay for performance systems are a fraud on the federal workforce.

No one in Congress cares.

It matters not what you do.

It only matters what you tell the media you will do.

Most ignorant Americans will never learn the truth.

When the heii did we hire this mass of incompetent Goobermint eployees? How about we just dump all the employees of the Government, put them on same scales and benefits as the Private Employees have, afterall we would want to be fair.

The government employees tend to be much more loyal then the civilian employees who leave more often. Government Employees also tend to work more hours for free than the civilian population at an embarrassing lower cost. For example, an IT government worker makes about 60K while the civilian counterpart can make 80-90K. The bennies do not outweigh the lower pay regardless of what people claim.

Interestingly enough the government employees would all get a pay raise.

You forgot an important ingredient in the equation ~ the government gets away with slicing employee salaries (and wage rates) a bit tighter than the private sector can by offering a little bit more "job security".

The big difference in average employee pay in a given job (or job category where there's not an exact counterpart) arises out of the use of part time workers. The private sector has proportionately more part timers and that brings in more workers for a given distribution of payroll which yields an apparant lower annual payment per employee. An hourly wage analysis will show the exact opposite outcome.

Virtually all federal jobs are paid at rates arrived out through detailed surveys and analysis of private sector counterpart positions. This is NOT the same process used to come up with "Prevailing Wage" numbers used to inflate government contracts with the private sector.

>>> The government employees tend to be much more loyal then the civilian employees who leave more often. <<<<

Sorry, not accurate.

Most of the people I’ve seen in government employment are there **precisely** for the objective of retirement benefits.

Your letter carrier isn't. He's there for the medical benefits and the opportunity to work outdoors.

Remember, retirement benefits are part of the pay package ~ it's the same for everyone, inside or outside of government.

Some folks think they are ahead of the game by taking more of their pay "cash on the barrelhead" today rather than as a deferred payment in their declining years. The government is definitely not for them.

Other folks are in their mid-30s and go into the government because it provides them with an opportunity for advancement possibly not available in their own industry. I thinking here of FDA ~ at some point you have to become a "political scientist" to get a promotion in a medical or pharmaceutical research organization. You can go into government service with a promotion and continue working in the scientific end supervising contracts, or reviewing research.

So what! That still means they are loyal. Jeese at least you know that the employee will be there in a year so you can actually have long term plans. I can’t imagine trying to run a company today when everyone there only cares about there own needs.

Have any statistics to support your statement that Civil Servants work more hours for free and comparison of total cost of Civil Servants over their lifetime relative to private employees. Another issue is the moral issue of ‘loyalty’, loyalty to whom, the taxpayers or the ever bloating programs that never end? Much less the despicable unionization of Civil Servants (should never been allowed) is only the beginning of the issue of loyalty. The CS’s I know are very unhappy with their jobs and cannot wait to cash out by retiring....
Another consideration is opportunity cost, compare contributions of diverting labor into any bureaucracy....I've noticed your posting and had assumed you are a Civil Service employee from your POV.

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