3 ms·

In what ways would non-union government employees be better?

zeroonetwothree 3y ago
Presumably the idea is they would be motivated to do a good job or else be fired. Whereas now they are immune from firing unless doing something egregious. I don’t really agree with that though as the real reason is the government has no competition. If McDonalds does a bad job at service you will go to Burger King. But if the DMV does a bad job well tough cookies what are you going to move to Sweden?
- simfree 3y ago
  Even with unions King County already does 3 year "temporary" contract positions for all new hires in some departments, and the City of Seattle is driving a hard line of only a 2% COLA increase in contract negotiations. Outside of the SPD Guild, unions don't have much leverage to retain underperforming employees. Document the failure to perform a handful of times and that employee will be gone, with at most a grievance filed where you get to reiterate how they repeatedly failed to deliver at work.
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  > But if the DMV does a bad job well tough cookies what are you going to move to Sweden? You engage in the democratic processes to effect change, versus the "choice" between what other non-democratic entities are willing to give you.
nebula8804 3y ago
Im not OP but when I think of bad government employees, I think of this jerk at my local post office that has been there for at least 10+ years(I am in the US). Always unhelpful, always making a simple task of sending a package as hard as possible by yelling, complaining about alignment of address labels, providing improper advice on the best way to ship different items causing me to spend a lot more money than I needed to or preventing me from using certain services to ship specific packages that others workers would allow because of his misunderstanding of my package description. My only recourse to alert anybody of this issue is to fill out a survey. I've been filling out that survey for years. There is no feedback loop to enact change. There is no other "manager" there. How would I even find a manager? I could go to a competitor but that would not affect them and there are some services that other competitors are not allowed to perform (USPS is the only one that can perform letter mail service by law and others will just take your letter and put it in a larger parcel). This situation sucks so much that I am reduced to trying to visit the post office at hours that I think he is not there or take a long trip to another town's post office.
- specialist 3y ago
  Agreed, we need flexibility to fire people. And, honestly, I've never been real clear why civil servants, eg admin and staff, are unionized. Unions are not uniquely impotent wrt their "bad apples". Every organization is afflicted. This phenomenon seems to be holding all of society back. Ideas? (FWIW, my main motivation for being pro-union & pro-labor is profit sharing. Corporate welfare and record high profits while most people struggle really pisses me off.)

Presumably the idea is they would be motivated to do a good job or else be fired. Whereas now they are immune from firing unless doing something egregious. I don’t really agree with that though as the real reason is the government has no competition. If McDonalds does a bad job at service you will go to Burger King. But if the DMV does a bad job well tough cookies what are you going to move to Sweden?

simfree 3y ago
Even with unions King County already does 3 year "temporary" contract positions for all new hires in some departments, and the City of Seattle is driving a hard line of only a 2% COLA increase in contract negotiations. Outside of the SPD Guild, unions don't have much leverage to retain underperforming employees. Document the failure to perform a handful of times and that employee will be gone, with at most a grievance filed where you get to reiterate how they repeatedly failed to deliver at work.
heavyset_go 3y ago
> But if the DMV does a bad job well tough cookies what are you going to move to Sweden? You engage in the democratic processes to effect change, versus the "choice" between what other non-democratic entities are willing to give you.

nebula8804 3y ago

Im not OP but when I think of bad government employees, I think of this jerk at my local post office that has been there for at least 10+ years(I am in the US). Always unhelpful, always making a simple task of sending a package as hard as possible by yelling, complaining about alignment of address labels, providing improper advice on the best way to ship different items causing me to spend a lot more money than I needed to or preventing me from using certain services to ship specific packages that others workers would allow because of his misunderstanding of my package description. My only recourse to alert anybody of this issue is to fill out a survey. I've been filling out that survey for years. There is no feedback loop to enact change. There is no other "manager" there. How would I even find a manager? I could go to a competitor but that would not affect them and there are some services that other competitors are not allowed to perform (USPS is the only one that can perform letter mail service by law and others will just take your letter and put it in a larger parcel). This situation sucks so much that I am reduced to trying to visit the post office at hours that I think he is not there or take a long trip to another town's post office.

specialist 3y ago
Agreed, we need flexibility to fire people. And, honestly, I've never been real clear why civil servants, eg admin and staff, are unionized. Unions are not uniquely impotent wrt their "bad apples". Every organization is afflicted. This phenomenon seems to be holding all of society back. Ideas? (FWIW, my main motivation for being pro-union & pro-labor is profit sharing. Corporate welfare and record high profits while most people struggle really pisses me off.)