The Bamster will only fund them as long as they're useful. After that, it's under the bus. They're trying to save some face, now.
Truly, though, this is big for them. Restricting their negotiations to salary kills most of their ability to negotiate for salary, also. In collective bargaining, once any agreement is made in any area of employment, such as the hiring process, neither side can change any area of that area without agreement from the other side. One of the ways unions increase salary is to demand a percentage increase in salary in exchange for allowing management to make changes to the hiring process. A good union negotiator can destroy management's ability to run an agency at all without paying a salary increase to get the authority to make the change.
Can't say I'm 100% on board with that. Having worked in governmental agencies for around twenty years, it's been obvious to me that management's interest is seldom running a department effectively. When given free reign, department heads create small kingdoms, rewarding cronies and rear end kissers and squandering funds on their pet projects while ignoring core services. Just my experience.
ivory towers
Just my experience.
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Your government agency experience is the norm. Everyone wants to get to a higher G level, which means becoming a ‘supervisor’ of a few other employees, and in having ‘perfect’ performance evaluations. Quality and quantity of production is definitely low on the list of priorities.