Personnel Policies GOVT 2305, Module 14 We designed this template so that each member of the project team has a set of slides with its own theme. Members, here’s how you add a new slide to just your set: Mark where you want to add the slide: Select an existing one in the Thumbnails pane, click the New Slide button, then choose a layout. The new slide gets the same theme as the other slides in your set. Careful! Don’t annoy your fellow presenters by accidentally changing their themes. That can happen if you choose a different theme from the Design tab, which changes all of the slides in the presentation to that look. GOVT 2305, Module 14

What attitude does the cartoonist have about government employees? Federal Personnel The size of the federal civilian bureaucracy has grown dramatically since the early days of the nation. In 1800, only about 3,000 persons worked for the U.S. government. That figure grew to 95,000 by 1881 and half a million in 1925. Today, 2.7 million civilian employees are stationed in every state and city in the country and almost every nation in the world. What attitude does the cartoonist have about government employees?

Number of Federal Employees Why does the number of federal workers periodically spike? (Hint: Look at the dates of the spikes.) Census workers

True size of the bureaucracy Political scientist Paul C. Light estimates that the true size of the federal civilian workforce is 14.6 million employees instead of the 2.7 million on the official payroll. Congress and the president are playing a shell game to disguise the size of the federal government. Contract workers State and local government employees working on federally funded programs Federal grant beneficiaries at colleges and universities

Spoils system The method of hiring government employees from among the friends, relatives, and supporters of elected officeholders was known as the spoils system. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the spoils system? The spoils system is great if you control the spoils because you can hire your friends, relatives, and supporters. From a good policy perspective, it is bad because many of these people may be unqualified. The spoils system is associated with President Andrew Jackson.

Pendleton Act When a disgruntled office seeker assassinated President James Garfield in 1881, Congress passed and the president signed the Pendleton Act. It created a Civil Service Commission to establish a hiring system based on competitive examinations and protect federal workers from dismissal for political reasons.

Hatch act In 1939, Congress enacted another reform, the Hatch Act, which was a measure designed to restrict the political activities of federal employees to voting and the private expression of views. Who was the Hatch Act designed to protect? It was designed to protect workers from being forced to perform political work for their bosses.

Criticisms of the civil service system Inflexible Fails to reward merit Fails to punish poor performance Too difficult to transfer workers from agency to agency What does the cartoonist think about government employees?

Senior executive service (SES) In 1978, Congress and the president responded to complaints against the civil service system by establishing a Senior Executive Service (SES) composed of approximately 8,000 top civil servants who would be eligible for substantial merit bonuses but who could be transferred, demoted, or fired more easily than other federal employees.

Collective bargaining Congress and the president have given federal employees limited rights to organize. Federal workers have the right to bargain collectively over a limited set of issues but not pay and benefits. Collective bargaining is a negotiation between an employer and a union representing employees over the terms and conditions of employment.

Democrats and Republicans Democratic administrations have a positive relationship with federal worker unions. Clinton ordered agencies to develop partnership councils with employee unions. Republican administrations have a hostile relationship with federal worker unions. They favor pay-for-performance and want to make it easier to fire employees for poor performance. Republican members of Congress want to cut spending by reducing the pay and benefits of federal workers.

What You Have Learned What is the size of the federal bureaucracy? Why does Professor Light think that the official number is misleading? What was the spoils system? With which president is it most closely associated? How did the Pendleton Act reform the spoils system? What is the Hatch Act? What are the major criticisms of the civil service system? What is the senior executive service (SES)?