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IT Workers Told to Fight
Part of the plan to consolidate the IT workforce in the State calls for employees of the new Department of Technology Services (DTS) to give up merit status (a classic example of new-speak since it has nothing to do with merit) in certain cases. Yesterday, at a lunchtime meeting, the UPEA’s attorney told employees “not to give up their civil service protection until state managers force them to.”
I think this single point is one where the entire consolidation plan rises or falls. If workers remain mostly merit, the new department will be unwieldy and difficult to manage. What’s more, there will be no cost savings to the tax payer and service will be poor. Why? Very simple: the merit system makes it difficult to shape and manage a workforce.
The merit system is an industrial era style of employment that is out of step with how the world, certainly the world of IT, works now. The merit system is at the root of every joke you’ve ever heard about a public employee because it creates a system of entitlement and victimization. Rather than relying on their skills, expertise, and value to the State to maintain their status, merit workers rely on “property rights” and collective bargaining through the UPEA.
UPEA Director Audry Wood said the union plans to meet with state bosses to discuss the workers’ concerns. In the meantime, she urged workers to get political. “The day you hire on as a state employee is the day you become political,” she said. “Legislators determine your benefits and your job description. And this is the most public employee-unfriendly Legislature that I’ve seen.”From Salt Lake Tribune - Utah
Referenced Thu Aug 18 2005 07:06:14 GMT-0600 (MDT)
Ask yourself how you feel about that statement as a taxpayer. There’s no doubt it works. In my experience, most legislators were somewhat afraid of the power of State employees. Still, do you really think that the citizens of the State are best served by State employees exerting political pressure to save their jobs? Is that the way you’d manage your business? I think it’s a poor way to manage and getting rid of the merit system is the way to put an end to it.
Posted by windley on August 18, 2005 06:53 AM
