Pay for performance rules the private sector.
Raises and promotions depend on performance. Generally speaking, Web surfing and paper shuffling earn demotions or pink slips. No whiff of radicalism surrounds the idea.
Suggesting federal employees play by the same rules elicits wails of protest from unions, however. Unsurprising, but disappointing.
Two unions opposed a Senate bill at a hearing last week that would deny annual raises for federal employees who do not meet job standards. The bill would also require that all federal employees receive a written evaluation of his or her work each year.
They say that the bill would undermine the intent of the federal pay scale ? to bring wages to private sector levels.
Last week Colleen Kelley, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in a written statement, “These increases are tied to the position and location ? not to the individual in the position ? [W]ithholding these increases based on the performance of the individual in the position completely drops the goal of comparability.”
First, it?s ludicrous to suggest that all federal employees occupying the same position perform equally. Are all teachers equally good? What about all electricians? Or all surgeons?
Second, why must government salaries match private sector salaries? Government employees often receive better medical and pension benefits, more time off and work shorter days than their private sector counterparts ? and get what resembles a nearly lifetime guarantee of a job. Those benefits give the federal government a competitive advantage. Plus, what ever happened to the idea of public service?
And third, federal employees in Maryland don?t suffer from unfair wages.
They make the most money, on average, of any employee in the state. Federal employees earn $1,468 per week, compared to $886 for private sector employees during the last quarter of 2005, the most recent statistics.
Put another way, less than 5 percent of the state?s work force rakes in more than 8 percent of the wages.
Opponents would argue that federal positions need to be compared against similar private sector jobs. But that argument fails, too.
Only six types of job categories of the 95 identified by the Maryland Office of Labor Market Analysis and Information earn more on average than federal jobs: computer and electronic product manufacturing at $1,663 per week; utilities at $1,576 per week; electronic markets and agents and brokers at $1,594 per week; broadcasting, except Internet, at $1,757 per week; securities, commodity contracts and investments at $3,580 per week; and professional and technical services at $1,500 per week.
Of those jobs, positions in the “professional and technical services” area are likely to most closely match those in the federal work force ? and those wages nearly match federal salaries.
So what?s the beef? Why should federal employees be held less accountable than we the people who pay their wages?
Congress should pass the law. Introducing pay for performance will spur high achievers to do more and weed out those not qualified or motivated to perform their jobs. Period.
