Abstract
The past five years have been a difficult economic time for the United States, particularly for the public-sector employees who have endured pension cuts, downsizing, pay freezes, and the like. Given that the recent growth in union membership has largely been in the public sector, this set of articles on such diverse topics as pay, pensions, restructuring, privatization, and many other factors affecting public employees is very timely.
The authors note that about 64% of public-sector workers are in the local government sector, with 23% in state government and admittedly only 13% in the federal sector. Still, as a representative of federal-sector workers, I was disappointed that the selection of articles was limited to state and local government workers. As shown by the recent sequestration and then government shutdown, federal workers are likewise not immune to the effects of the great recession.
This slim volume is extremely useful as a primer for refuting many of the arguments hurled at public-sector employees. For example, while the U.S. population has increased over the past 20 years, the number of government employees has remained static, thus indicating that the ratio of government workers per population has decreased, not increased, as is often argued. Moreover, while some statistics have shown that the average government worker makes more than the average private-sector worker, this is due in large part to the fact that in general, the public-sector workforce is more highly educated and professional. A more appropriate comparison, a number of the authors suggest, would be to evaluate position by position, for example, junior accountants to junior accountants. A problem with this, of course, is that there are no firefighters in the private sector. Multiple reviews have shown that for the professional, administrative, technical, and clerical jobs, private-sector pay was higher while blue-collar pay was more mixed.
The other issue that is often in dispute is benefits, particularly pension and health care. The public sector is one of the last bastions of defined benefit pension (where a portion of the final pay is paid for the retiree’s life) as compared to a defined contribution plan (similar to a 401[k] plan). A defined benefit plan, besides being an excellent recruiting tool, also serves to keep well-trained employees from moving as they might with a defined contribution plan. The use of health care benefits serves the same purpose.
The authors note that many states have looked to privatization as the solution to growing public-sector employment costs. However, the authors correctly conclude that the case for privatization is not proven. Many of the reviews of privatization initiatives are conducted by those who have a stake in its success and do not use statistical analysis to demonstrate that services are provided better or cheaper with the privatization model. Even assuming that the costs could be lowered through privatization, any reduction in costs is usually the result of bringing in cheaper, nonunion labor. Additionally, privatization brings in the profit motive for government services.
Public Jobs and Political Agendas provides a broad overview of the actions taken at the state and local levels as a result of the Great Recession and offers counterarguments to recent trends in states such as Wisconsin and Ohio. Hopefully, information on the federal government sector will be material included in a future volume.