Part III: People in Government

Organizations

Chapter 8: The Civil Service

Government Civil Service Systems

Civil service system: employment system used
by democratic governments to minimize political
tinkering with the administrative process
Employees are

Hired by merit
Paid according to position
Protected from political interference and dismissal
Obligated to accountability

Public Employment
Size of American bureaucracy is in the
middle of the worlds industrialized nations
Total U.S. government employment at the
national level relatively flat in the past forty
years
Nearly half of all employees work in
education and libraries

Fundamental Elements of the

Civil Service System
Position classification: each position is
identified in terms of the special
knowledge the job requires, its level of
difficulty, and the responsibilities that
come with it.
Staffing
Compensation

Position Classification in the

Civil Service
Positions are defined according to
occupation, degree of difficulty, and
responsibility.
General Schedule (GS level) that governs
most employees includes fifteen grades.
The system attempts to prevent political
interference in the hiring process.

Position Classification Problems

Written descriptions rarely match actual jobs
System creates strong incentives for grade
creep
Grade creep: tendency for agencies to multiply the
number of high administrative positions, shift
professional specialists to administrative roles, or
seek higher classifications for existing positions

Federal workforce has changed; makes it

difficult to keep system up-to-date

Staffing the Civil Service

Hiring process asks that applicants who meet
minimum qualification requirements for whitecollar positions take one of these exams:
Assembled examination: written test administered
usually at a number of cities throughout the country;
used mostly for lower positions
Unassembled examination: candidate submits
comprehensive rsum, detailing education, training,
and experience; more common for higher positions
(GS-9 and up)

Staffing the Civil Service

(continued)
Applicants who pass exam are placed on
register of individuals for hire
Rule of three: the first three names on a
ranked register list eligible for hire

Staffing Preferences
Veterans receive a five-point bonus in the
federal system; if they are disabled they get a
ten-point bonus.
Preference over equally qualified white males is
given to minorities, women, and disabled
applicants.
Those already holding career positions can
advance through promotion or transfer without
competing against external candidates.

Staffing Separations
Average length of service = seventeen
years for full-time, permanent, nonpostal
employees
Hard to remove mediocre employees

Staffing Separations (continued)

Separation by attrition, reductions in force,
and buyouts
Reductions in force (RIFs): governments
reduce their personnel ceilings to
accommodate tight budgets; practiced in early
2000 by state and local governments
Buyouts: government offers cash incentives
to employees who agree to leave government
employment

Compensation in the Civil Service

Federal pay has tended to lag behind what employees
would earn in similar private-sector jobs.
Government tends to provide generous fringe benefits.
Civil service principle: individuals should receive equal
pay for jobs of comparable value.
Comparable worth: many state governments have
conducted these studies and found that sex-based wage
differences and sex-based occupational segregation
exist in their bureaucracies; some reforms have been
based on these results.

Employee Rights and Obligations

Unionization: about 40 percent of
government employees at the federal,
state, and local levels are covered by
unions; rise in unionization of public
employees
Collective bargaining: used to determine
conditions of employment; has increased
in the public sector

Public-Sector Strikes
Governments do not generally concede the right of
their employees to strike against the sovereign
state; public employees do strike but are limited.
Civil service system and budget decisions by
elected policymakers set basic conditions of work.
No executive official can bargain over many of the
issues about which the union is concerned.
Government differs in the scope of issues on
which employees and their unions want to, or are
able to, bargain.

Employees Right to Privacy

President Reagan (1986) required federal
employees to refrain from the use of drugs
and declared those who use illegal drugs
unsuitable for employment.
Employee unions oppose mandatory
testing of urine for evidence of illegal drug
use.
AIDS testing also associated with issue of
privacy.

Employees Political Activity

Hatch Act: Congress in 1939 adopted an
act to prevent pernicious political activities.
Over time, the act has been amended in
numerous ways.
The Hatch Act was amended in 1993 to
allow federal employees to be more
involved in political campaigns.

Patronage Restrictions
Three Supreme Court decisions have
tested the constitutionality of requiring
party membership or support for retention
of government employment:
Elrod v. Burns (1976): The Courts plurality
opinion condemned such patronage
dismissals of noncivil service employees in
nonpolicymaking positions as a violation of
First Amendment rights of freedom of belief
and association.

Patronage Restrictions (continued)

Branit v. Finkel (1980): The Court held that in
this instance party affiliation is not an
appropriate requirement for the effective
performance of the positions duties.
Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois (1990):
The Court dismissed claims that the
patronage practices furthered the
governments interest in securing loyal and
effective employees.

Values in Conflict
Civil service system, collective bargaining
system, and the political system embody
different values.
Governments, unions, and political parties
all vie for the loyalty and service of public
employees.

Conclusion
Civil Service is broken, partisan solutions
to the problem
Obama administration has made hiring
reform a top priority
Got rid of KSA essay (knowledge, skills, abilities)
Just a resume and cover letter, no longer rule of
three
Increased attention to simplicity, flexibility, and
efficiency