Civil service changes take back seat to bargaining

The Clinton administration's effort to reform the civil service has taken a back seat to an initiative aimed at getting federal managers to include labor unions in more workplace decisions.

Morley Winograd, director of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, told GovExec.com this week that official discussions on improving the civil service are on hold until a resolution is reached on the contentious labor-management issue.

"We have everyone committed to the need to improve the level of partnership" between unions and management, Winograd said. Clinton administration officials have met with department-level managers, labor unions and other organizations. "Everybody is committed to doing something," Winograd said. "We're just looking for the best methodology to accomplish it."

Since 1993, the administration has urged agencies to include unions in management decisions through the establishment of labor-management partnership councils, which meet to resolve workplace problems. The administration also has asked agencies to put more issues on the bargaining table-particularly so-called "permissive" or (b)(1) issues like the numbers and grades of employees and the technology used to perform work.

But managers have resisted the expansion of bargaining rights, contending that decisions on (b)(1) issues should be reserved for management.

Earlier this year, the administration floated a proposed memorandum that would force agencies to bargain over (b)(1) issues. A majority of agencies objected to the idea, urging the National Partnership for Reinventing Government not to make (b)(1) bargaining mandatory.

At the same time, labor unions have dragged their feet on a Clinton administration effort to reform the civil service. In January, Vice President Al Gore announced a civil service reform plan that included a pay-for-performance proposal for federal executives and managers. The plan also called for greater freedom for agencies from governmentwide civil service rules, revised performance evaluation standards and extended buyout authority.

Winograd said solving the labor-management issue first will make the civil service changes easier.

"We're trying to establish the right atmosphere of trust and commitment with all parties," Winograd said.

Previous attempts at large-scale reform of the civil service system in the 1990s have failed. A 1994-95 effort to simplify the civil service led by Gore's National Performance Review fell by the wayside amid congressional opposition. A 1998 push for about 40 changes to civil service rules generated by the House Government Reform Subcommittee on the Civil Service also failed amid administration and labor union concerns.

Instead, individual agencies, such as the IRS and the Federal Aviation Administration, have won exemptions from from civil service rules from Congress. The Education Department's Office of Student Financial Assistance and several human resources demonstration projects around government have also gained personnel flexibilities.