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http://www.economist.com/node/17849199?story_id=17849199
Re: (Government) workers of the world unite! / Briefing Public-Sector Unions
I was disappointed by your broad brushed picture of the public sector. It lumped together everyone from state workers to the significant Federal government workforce. While an expert could tease out the distinctions, such as whether the public sector can strike (generally there are restrictions against such, and Federal Workers may not strike at all) the lumping together of dissimilar cases detracted from what otherwise have been an informative piece. As a Federal worker, I'm disappointed to see such a poor presentation of facts despite the length of the article.
There has been tremendous discussion in the US regarding public sector pay since the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank (hardly left-leaning as the article describes those who note the education difference alone), published an article on the subject in September 2010 (and it was subsequently copied in cliff-note format by the cartoonish USA Today).
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/09/Federal-Pay-Still-Inflated-After-Accounting-for-Skills
In their analysis, once you controlled for experience and education the "high pay" amounted to 22%. However, in their analysis they admitted that many of the public sector jobs had no private-sector equivalent. Combined with the authors of the study - and the fact the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and other studies have used different methodologies which conclude that public sector employees are underpaid (as did you article, noting "higher-level workers are worse paid)," this is hardly earth-shattering news. Still, your magazine skipped the details to simply conclude public sector employees are paid too much and address proposed solutions.
The US has already chopped layers away and created the problems it now claims it will solve with job and pay cuts. Decades of privatization and outsourcing have stripped almost all blue collar jobs from the public sector and led to the high salaries of the remaining professionals whose function is inappropriate for private companies. Incentive systems have met with limited success - as they do in the private sector - and any system can be gamed and thwarted by unethical social engineering or other techniques. This is a particularly dangerous prospect in such areas as government regulation: Do you pay for more audits, or more violations detected - knowing whichever method you choose you create an incentive to avoid or find violations, respectively?
Missing in the rhetoric lambasting the public sector is the free market arguments made in so many other arenas. If the public sector is paid more, doesn't this create an incentive for the workers to gravitate toward those higher paying jobs? Applicants kvetch how difficult it is to apply for a Federal job, and some critics have accused the application system of keeping out better applicants (those better applicants who are too lazy to perform the difficult application essays). I'm shocked that the ECONOmist would miss these obvious retorts to the concept that somehow incompetent laggards are filling the ranks of the highest paying lowest working jobs in the US. How can you rectify a free-market perspective with the contrary logic of a spoiled public sector while intelligent hard working people suffer in the private domain? Is it possible these same incompetent and lazy bureaucrats are somehow gain political skill and stamina when they emerge as union officials, capable of manipulating elected officials endlessly?
The US has already issued a cost of living adjustment freeze for federal workers despite the numerous measured professions which are paid less in the government than their private sector counterparts. Rather than improve matters, the morale-killing move is only likely to inspire more qualified employees to take the higher salaries available even in these difficult economic times. As the better workers continue to filter out to the private sector, complaints are likely to increase as production suffers the loss of more institutional knowledge and experience. It appears distressingly likely the one-sided analyses such as this article will only serve to exacerbate these problems rather than produce more reasoned approaches.
Thank you, (signed)
Re: (Government) workers of the world unite! / Briefing Public-Sector Unions
I was disappointed by your broad brushed picture of the public sector. It lumped together everyone from state workers to the significant Federal government workforce. While an expert could tease out the distinctions, such as whether the public sector can strike (generally there are restrictions against such, and Federal Workers may not strike at all) the lumping together of dissimilar cases detracted from what otherwise have been an informative piece. As a Federal worker, I'm disappointed to see such a poor presentation of facts despite the length of the article.
There has been tremendous discussion in the US regarding public sector pay since the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank (hardly left-leaning as the article describes those who note the education difference alone), published an article on the subject in September 2010 (and it was subsequently copied in cliff-note format by the cartoonish USA Today).
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/09/Federal-Pay-Still-Inflated-After-Accounting-for-Skills
In their analysis, once you controlled for experience and education the "high pay" amounted to 22%. However, in their analysis they admitted that many of the public sector jobs had no private-sector equivalent. Combined with the authors of the study - and the fact the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and other studies have used different methodologies which conclude that public sector employees are underpaid (as did you article, noting "higher-level workers are worse paid)," this is hardly earth-shattering news. Still, your magazine skipped the details to simply conclude public sector employees are paid too much and address proposed solutions.
The US has already chopped layers away and created the problems it now claims it will solve with job and pay cuts. Decades of privatization and outsourcing have stripped almost all blue collar jobs from the public sector and led to the high salaries of the remaining professionals whose function is inappropriate for private companies. Incentive systems have met with limited success - as they do in the private sector - and any system can be gamed and thwarted by unethical social engineering or other techniques. This is a particularly dangerous prospect in such areas as government regulation: Do you pay for more audits, or more violations detected - knowing whichever method you choose you create an incentive to avoid or find violations, respectively?
Missing in the rhetoric lambasting the public sector is the free market arguments made in so many other arenas. If the public sector is paid more, doesn't this create an incentive for the workers to gravitate toward those higher paying jobs? Applicants kvetch how difficult it is to apply for a Federal job, and some critics have accused the application system of keeping out better applicants (those better applicants who are too lazy to perform the difficult application essays). I'm shocked that the ECONOmist would miss these obvious retorts to the concept that somehow incompetent laggards are filling the ranks of the highest paying lowest working jobs in the US. How can you rectify a free-market perspective with the contrary logic of a spoiled public sector while intelligent hard working people suffer in the private domain? Is it possible these same incompetent and lazy bureaucrats are somehow gain political skill and stamina when they emerge as union officials, capable of manipulating elected officials endlessly?
The US has already issued a cost of living adjustment freeze for federal workers despite the numerous measured professions which are paid less in the government than their private sector counterparts. Rather than improve matters, the morale-killing move is only likely to inspire more qualified employees to take the higher salaries available even in these difficult economic times. As the better workers continue to filter out to the private sector, complaints are likely to increase as production suffers the loss of more institutional knowledge and experience. It appears distressingly likely the one-sided analyses such as this article will only serve to exacerbate these problems rather than produce more reasoned approaches.
Thank you, (signed)
