Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 150,000 workers in 31 government agencies, takes to the editorial page of the Washington Post today to argue:
The federal pay system aims to find a balance between offering a fair and competitive wage, a secure retirement and a satisfying work environment for those who believe in public service. Especially for the most educated, highly skilled and highly compensated federal employees, the importance of the mission, the challenge of the work and the commitment to public service provide non-monetary incentives.
It is clear that the public and its representatives in Congress do not support compensating even the most educated and skilled employees at the level they could attain in the private sector. Nor would these employees ever see the kinds of monetary and non-monetary perks their counterparts in the private sector receive, such as paid sabbaticals, 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, bonuses, stock options, on-site spas and more.
What it seems almost no one in the federal workforce recognizes is that those generous perks in the private sector are largely, if not entirely, contingent upon the performance of the private company. A corporation that spends all of its (after-tax!) earnings on an on-site spa will likely go out of business.
A lot of factors go into the performance of a private company, but one that is almost impossible to ignore is service to the customer. If the customers don’t like the quality of the service or good, they can take their business elsewhere.
The federal government has a monopoly, unless citizens want to renounce their citizenship and immigrate elsewhere. Whether the public is pleased, displeased, or irate about the level of “service” they’re getting from the federal government, they pay their taxes year in and year out. There are few, if any, financial consequences for bad service to the citizenry. Considering the rarity of firings in the public-sector workforce (“Federal employees’ job security is so great that workers in many agencies are more likely to die of natural causes than get laid off or fired, a USA TODAY analysis finds“), it could be argued we’re witnessing a whine about a lack of sabbaticals from representatives of government workers who already enjoy effective “tenure.”
Finally, after four years of recession, on a day we’re allegedly supposed to be celebrating that unemployment is all the way down to 8.3 percent, doesn’t it seem extraordinarily tone-deaf for the head of a public-sector union to lament publicly that highly skilled government workers are undercompensated because they don’t get paid sabbaticals, bonuses, stock options, and on-site spas?
Why, it’s almost enough to make you want a president who likes being able to fire people who provide services to us.
I'm pretty sick of hearing government workers describe themselves as engaged in "public service". They work for a paycheck, just like everyone else.
And as far as "on-site spas", you have GOT to be kidding me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWord. Public Service my posterior.
If it's such a sweat shop laboring to implement His Serene Majesty's vision, get out.
If they have it so good in the private sector, then go to work in the private sector!! (P.S. Good Luck!) The difference between the "public servant" working as a printer at the U.S. Treasury and the guy that owns the Kinko's is about $80K a year and a guaranteed pension. And the guy that owns the Kinko's has to go out and FIND work every week instead of just showing up and collecting a check! What are the chances that he gets hired at Treasury if he's a white male? Slim, and none. And Slim just got on the high speed rail out of town.
"I've worked in the private sector. They expect results."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDr. Raymond Stantz,
Ghost Busters
You must love the January jobs report.
Private sector sector jobs: +257,000
Government jobs: -14,000
I presume you'll now be voting for Obama?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow many of those government employees were from the federal government? The trend of the last couple years was the numbers of federal employees kept growing while state and local governments made cuts.
Since Obama can't stop expanding the federal government while hurting efforts to add private sector jobs (Keystone XL.), that there is any growth in the private sector came despite of Obama's best efforts, not because of them. Actions like that should be rewarded with unemployment, even if its the president.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis was an article on a Fed government worker - the ones losing their jobs are State government workers. The Feds quit "stimulating" them and when the money dried up from Uncle Sam, they had to actually cut some jobs to balance a budget.
And in case you couldn't tell, I will vote for AnybodyButtObama.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWaaa! Waaa!
Oooohhh, Po' baby. De po' widdle govuhmint wuhkeh doesn't wike his pay....
Well, then go get a job in the private sector, dumb***. (Excuse my "French".) But she won't. Why? Because the complaint is a sham. Government workers are paid excessively for low-productivity, even understood merely within the confines of their own bureaucracy - a bureaucracy that hinders the work of its members as much as, if not more than, that of the citizenry upon which it is imposed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe the only private sector employees these folks meet are investment bankers, college professors and lobbyists. I have certainly never worked for a private company that provided spas, sabbaticals and 12 weeks paid maternity leave. They don't even provide guaranteed pensions or retirement health benefits.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe the only private sector employees these folks meet are investment bankers, college professors and lobbyists. I have certainly never worked for a private company that provided spas, sabbaticals and 12 weeks paid maternity leave. They don't even provide guaranteed pensions or retirement health benefits.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDoes Ms. Kelley understand anything? Or is she that dumb? I am an attorney. I spent 3 years working as a law clerk to a federal judge. I was paid on the regular GS scale for the DC area, and made far less than I could in the private sector. I also worked exactly 8 hours a day, rarely had to stay at the office past 5:30 (and rarely got in before 9). I got 2.5 weeks vacation and an equal amount of sick time. It was a pretty "cushy" existence. I am now in the private sector. And while I get a lot of perks and a much higher salary, I am expected to bill about 2000 hours a year - which means I usually don't leave the office until at least 7 and often later. And yes I get more vacation and paid leave, but when you're expected to work as much as a private sector attorney, you rarely can afford to take it all. I also have far less "job security" than even the highly educated types who work for the federal government.
So those "perks" are there to compensate for the work. If Ms. Kelley wants those "most educated, highly skilled" employees to get those kind of perks, maybe she should offer to have her members work as much as the private sector employees who get them and be willing to allow the government the flexibility to only give those perks to people who are able to produce at a high level. To give that kind of pay/perks for the amount of work that most federal employees do is simply untenable, especially when those who can't cut it can't be removed from the payroll.
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