the New Sincerity

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Mon Sep 27 12:49:12 PDT 1999


An EPI study by Dale Belman (UWI/Milwaukee) found basic parity between public and private pay, once you control for the type of job. If you don't, you end up comparing cops with retail clerks.

OTOH, as could be expected, wages do tend to fall when something is moved from public to private sector.

mbs


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
. . . Contemporary free-market/privatizing critics charge that civil service rules make personnel management difficult (Richard Eling found that fewer than 2% of state and local workers are dismissed each year). They also complain that public employees on average have higher incomes than do private sector workers (Eling found that lower-paid public workers do receive higher pay than private sector counterparts, but mid-level, professional, and upper-level people do better in private sector).

Significantly, cuts in social service programs are not only attacks on poor but also on minorities and women who comprise a larger share of 'middle-strata' employment in public sector than in private.

As for unions, 45% of all government workers are represented with collective bargaining highest among firefighters, sanitations workers, and teachers (most are prohibited from striking.

Provision of collective bargaining that most conflicts with civil service is the seniority provision. Michael Hoover



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