States are making it easier to fire bad workers, allowing better pay for high performers, and limiting the collective bargaining power of unions.
States are making it easier to fire bad workers, allowing better pay for high performers, and limiting the collective bargaining power of unions.
W e are told today’s political polarization makes it impossible for bipartisan agreement. That may be true for now in Washington, but not so for a few key issues at the state level.
Without much fanfare or furor, in recent years some 20 states have radically reformed their civil service laws governing state employees. Among the changes are steps making it easier to fire bad performers, ensuring that hiring is more flexible, allowing better pay for high performers, and limiting the collective bargaining power of unions.
The reason you haven’t heard about this in the media is that the reforms have been largely successful.
This month, North Carolina became the latest state to implement business-like HR standards. The changes were signed into law by Democratic Governor Josh Stein after passing unanimously in the Republican legislature. Both agreed that a workforce in which only 13 out 70,000 employees were fired last year for poor performance was unacceptable.
So North Carolina will now be more able to fire employees and can better link pay to performance. Fewer jobs will require a four-year university degree, and apprenticeships will count for more in the hiring process.
In West Virginia, GOP Governor Patrick Morrisey confronted a civil service nightmare when he took office last year. It sometimes took months to hire employees, while private employers often would fill positions in days. Managers were limited in their ability to reward high-performing employees, while it was nearly impossible to discipline slackers.
In April, Morrisey was able to convince the legislature to eliminate cumbersome civil service and grievance protections for more than 9,000 state employees, creating a more efficient and accountable system.
The reason so many states are able to reform their civil service workforce is that the public knows change is needed. A national poll conducted by the liberal Searchlight Institute in May found 69 percent agreeing that pay should be based less on seniority and more on performance, with little difference between Democratic and Republican respondents. Two-thirds said government jobs should be like those in the private sector, where better workers get paid more and worse workers can be easily fired or get paid less.
Despite the progress at the state level, there was complete gridlock over federal employee reform until last year when President Trump issued an executive order ending collective bargaining with several federal unions. So far it’s survived court challenges and points the way to where more states should go.
More than one in three government workers in the U.S. belongs to a union. But more than 85 percent of those work at the state and local levels — not in the federal government. Only 17 states prohibit or severely limit collective bargaining for their public sector employees, and they represent the clear majority of states that have enacted civil service reform.
That’s why it’s vital for the states that haven’t reformed to follow the federal government’s lead on scaling back public sector union power. Otherwise, they may never be able to make the changes the public supports.