Public Sector - Alternatives to Unionization?

[Just Me]

In the private sector there is a natural balance between companies and unions. If unions ask for too much, the company eventually goes bankrupt. If the company offers too little, employee's leave. Assuming the government doesn't interfere, for the most part, unions and management will act rationally and negotiate a settlement that is reasonably fair and lies somewhere between these two extremes.

In the public sector, the difficulty is two fold.

First there is no balance against the unions asking for too much, as it is relatively easy for the government t o accommodate the "demands" of the union, via increasing it's debt (or other means that have no short term consequences). Additionally, when a private company is on strike or locked the pain felt by the it's customers is relatively limited as there are typically alternative providers they can turn to for the same service. However with public services, this is not the case, which puts significant pressure for public entities to settle regardless of the cost.

Secondly, the government can avoid negotiation through legislation which allows them to avoid the consequences of poor "management" decisions. This seems to lead to feast / famine cycles in regards to pay/benefit increase in the public sector.

Public sector employees certainly deserve the right to unionize, and negotiate their salaries and benefits. However it seems that an alternative mechanism, that approximates the balance that exists in the private sector would be preferable.

Does anyone have any ideas for fair alternatives?

[Michael Hardner]

I recommend contracting out, so as to remove the political interference to a degree. The union agreements would still be in place, and a private firm would have to manage those agreements.

[Boges]

The big problem with the public sector is they're supposed to serve the public. Obviously they should be compensated fairly but when contract negotiations come up, it's not about the service they provide, it's about how the public can serve them with pay and benefits not seen by that of the general public.

An obvious solution would be to not allow them to strike. There are parts of the public service that can't strike, but they have the be labelled an essential service and that usually comes at a premium, again not ideal of the public.

Public Service Unions have become so powerful they band together and try and sway election results by using fear tactic (see the Ontario election last year). Unless you're politically engaged you probably don't realize how good the public service has it, so you just hear that if X party is elected we'll have anarchy in the streets.

Eroding the power of the public service would be good for Canadians. Their success isn't reflective of the success of the economy and the better they do it's actually a drain on the economy more than it helps. If I had my way I would ban unionization in the public service, they are meant to serve the public and the public's elected representatives should dictate their employment terms.

[eyeball]

What we need is One Big Union.

[Boges]

I recommend contracting out, so as to remove the political interference to a degree. The union agreements would still be in place, and a private firm would have to manage those agreements.

In many cases that does work. Would we contract out police services though? Teachers? Hospital Services?

There's a delicate balance, you have to take into account the private sector's goal to make a profit.

[Just Me]

Contracting out could be the answer but has a couple of challenges:

1) It should be more expensive, as it has to allow for a profit, on top of the overhead of managing a large contract

2) Government is very poor at defining and enforcing service level agreements that ensure that the contractor doesn't increase profit by reducing service.

3) Some services (e.g. police) probably can't be contracted out.

Another alternative is arbitration, but from what I've seen, arbitration tends to compare benefits to the highest public comparator rather than an average comparator in the public or private sector, leading to continually escalating benefits from each arbitration.

[Boges]

Another alternative is arbitration, but from what I've seen, arbitration tends to compare benefits to the highest public comparator rather than an average comparator in the public or private sector, leading to continually escalating benefits from each arbitration.

The biggest change needs to be on the arbitration level. Because, in theory, the government's ability to pay is limitless arbitrators can always offer rulings friendly to the workers.

Do arbitrators even take the electorate into consideration when making their rulings?

[overthere]

Does anyone have any ideas for fair alternatives?

Australia- for example- has the majority of its civil servants under renewable employment contracts of 2 to 5 years. Flushing non performers, or more importantly adapting the civil service to respond to shifting business requirements is far easier.

I can hardly believe that nobody above has addressed the primary problem with the civil service in Canada: lack of accountability. Not just rank and file workers, but more so on managers and polticians. There just aren't many circumstances where job security is directly linked to performance indicators or industry /metrics. Neither success or failure at a job has much relationship to reward or punishment.

[Michael Hardner]

In many cases that does work. Would we contract out police services though? Teachers? Hospital Services?

I don't think teachers, police, or health services would work. I was thinking about the larger federal bureaucracies here. For those groups, I would create a new accountability structure - such as online - to ensure that the public has a direct relationship with the people who are providing these services.

There's a delicate balance, you have to take into account the private sector's goal to make a profit.

Of course/

[overthere]

Contracting out could be the answer but has a couple of challenges:

1) It should be more expensive, as it has to allow for a profit, on top of the overhead of managing a large contract

2) Government is very poor at defining and enforcing service level agreements that ensure that the contractor doesn't increase profit by reducing service.

3) Some services (e.g. police) probably can't be contracted out.

Another alternative is arbitration, but from what I've seen, arbitration tends to compare benefits to the highest public comparator rather than an average comparator in the public or private sector, leading to continually escalating benefits from each arbitration.

There are many examples of successful contracting out of services, and there are Fortune 500 hundred companies doing it for several decades now. Johnson Controls and Honeywell are two examples fo many. There are also many in Canada. They are called 'performance contractors' , which means they get paid from the savings they generate. In general, no savings means no pay.

Loads of corporations avail themselves of these service providers in acknowledgement that the performance contractors are better and cheaper at it. Examples are countless, including all the major banks in Canada and Canada Post.

The feds have dabbled in it and the reason it usually fails with them and with public sector in general is not on your list of three.(though the failure is not universal, for example the federal government contracted out tens of thousands of cleaning and maintenance jobs decades ago).

Thwe reason is that their is classic, systemized resistance not just from front line workers, but from management at every level including to the Deputy Minster level. Everybody pretends otherwise, but every manager in the whole tottering gigantic pyramid of management knows that their job depends on the failure of outspourcing. How do you maintain that direcor or manager pay designation when there is a far small structure beneath you. This is one area where the public sector unions- of course- work hand in glove with their masters to make certain the contract is designed, written, supervised and assessed with failure guaranteed. NObdoy ever adds in the cost of all those manager levels into the service cost either....... Big surprise.

[Just Me]

Overthere,

I don't disagree with your description of the challenges with Canada's public service (most individuals within the public service do there best, but the whole management structure and culture is horribly flawed), but that's for another day and another topic.

In regards to contracting out - I'm not against it (I'm a consultant, so essentially all my work comes from companies contracting out). However in the private sector, everyone has a common motive, profit, that can be used as a measuring stick.

In the public sector, there are goals that are much harder to quantify. For example in health care, if you contract out without somehow quantifying health outcomes, the contractor can trade increased profit (eg less nurses) against lower health care outcomes. If you contract out teaching, the contractor can increase class sizes until education outcomes suffer. The private sector is very creative in increasing profit. It is a challenge when contracting out public services to ensure that creativity doesn't lead to reduce "service" in areas that are difficult to measure, but in practice very real.

I do think a public payor, private delivery system for public services is actually one of the best models in theory, but to put in place without acknowledging its potential downsides, and figuring how to address them would be irresponsible.

[Big Guy]

I suggest that most public unions would like that the people who they represent be declared an essential public service. A failure to reach an agreement would lead to arbitration. The union submits their position and the government submits their position and in the vast majority of cases the union wins - because the comparators are other public service jobs.

For this process to work in favor of the governments, the process of arbitration would have to change. The mandate to the arbitrator would have to include the governments ability to pay. At the moment it does not.

More interesting information can be found at:

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2012/02/28/ontario_municipalitites_struggle_with_cost_of_essential_services.html

Edited May 5, 2015 by Big Guy

[Michael Hardner]

Thwe reason is that their is classic, systemized resistance not just from front line workers, but from management at every level including to the Deputy Minster level. Everybody pretends otherwise, but every manager in the whole tottering gigantic pyramid of management knows that their job depends on the failure of outspourcing. How do you maintain that direcor or manager pay designation when there is a far small structure beneath you. This is one area where the public sector unions- of course- work hand in glove with their masters to make certain the contract is designed, written, supervised and assessed with failure guaranteed. NObdoy ever adds in the cost of all those manager levels into the service cost either....... Big surprise.

I would say, then, that we need to follow Buckminster Fuller's quote:

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

[Michael Hardner]

In the public sector, there are goals that are much harder to quantify. For example in health care, if you contract out without somehow quantifying health outcomes, the contractor can trade increased profit (eg less nurses) against lower health care outcomes. If you contract out teaching, the contractor can increase class sizes until education outcomes suffer. The private sector is very creative in increasing profit. It is a challenge when contracting out public services to ensure that creativity doesn't lead to reduce "service" in areas that are difficult to measure, but in practice very real.

That's why these changes need to take into account services, finances, and workers too. Those are the three pillars of enterprise.

Yes, it's difficult but it's a lot easier than having giant bureaucracies that are walled off from the public they serve, operated by warring political agents who play off their positions through the mass media.

It's awful.

I do think a public payor, private delivery system for public services is actually one of the best models in theory, but to put in place without acknowledging its potential downsides, and figuring how to address them would be irresponsible.

Set up a new model and create an open and directly accountable tripartite group of clients, sponsors and professionals/workers.

edited to add: Wait until newspapers are extinct before doing this.

[overthere]

In the public sector, there are goals that are much harder to quantify.

The goals for workers and managers are very easy to define- maintain their job indefinitely.

It is pretty easy in Canada for the most part.

I do think a public payor, private delivery system for public services is actually one of the best models in theory, but to put in place without acknowledging its potential downsides, and figuring how to address them would be irresponsible.

As long as nothing actually happens, public sector workers and managers (there is no effective difference between those two groups) are willing to talk about this at 'stakeholder' meetings indefinitiely. They know there will be no outcome that threatens their jobs, which are essentially tenured in Canada.

What is irresponsible is continuing the status quo.

It is not that difficult to change, but what it takes is an iron political will that is sustained for a few years. There have been very few politicians with the required spine in the history of Canada.

[Topaz]

Doesn't it depend on the union and the occupation of the workers? I'll take the teachers as a example, it use to be that in Ontario the Counties had more say with the teachers than Toronto , then it got change. I think if the counties had more power to settle the contracts with teachers, the teachers then would have to deal with the taxpayers and parents, in their region, who pay their wages and this could result in less strikes. Also in Ontario right now, the Care Partners are on strike because they are overworked and under paid so they say and the private owner refuses to pay anymore. These are usually women, who look after the older adults and people with disabilities on a daily bases and maybe if the province had a basic rule for business and workers, so that workers aren't losing money working, we wouldn't have so many strikes.

[Boges]

Doesn't it depend on the union and the occupation of the workers? I'll take the teachers as a example, it use to be that in Ontario the Counties had more say with the teachers than Toronto , then it got change. I think if the counties had more power to settle the contracts with teachers, the teachers then would have to deal with the taxpayers and parents, in their region, who pay their wages and this could result in less strikes. Also in Ontario right now, the Care Partners are on strike because they are overworked and under paid so they say and the private owner refuses to pay anymore. These are usually women, who look after the older adults and people with disabilities on a daily bases and maybe if the province had a basic rule for business and workers, so that workers aren't losing money working, we wouldn't have so many strikes.

You know what's going on in Ontario now right? The province has allowed local negotiations on issues and 3 Secondary School Boards are currently on strike for issues that haven't been made officially public.

[dre]

I recommend contracting out, so as to remove the political interference to a degree. The union agreements would still be in place, and a private firm would have to manage those agreements.

Shouldnt we establish that theres a problem to fix first?

And so far I have never seen a major service segment contracted out without a big degredation of service, and in most cases increases in cost. Telus, and BC Ferries are two examples that come to mind lately out my way.

[The_Squid]

Alternatives to Unionization?

Why would public sector workers want an alternative to unionization? It's up to them to decide if they want to belong to a union.

Edited May 6, 2015 by The_Squid

[Guest]

Alternatives to Unionization?

Why would public sector workers want an alternative to unionization? It's up to them to decide if they want to belong to a union.

I'm not absolutely sure it is. I had no choice when I went to work in the BC public Sector. I had to join the BCGEU.

[jacee]

I'm not absolutely sure it is. I had no choice when I went to work in the BC public Sector. I had to join the BCGEU.

:/

It's up to each workplace to vote a union in.

They voted long ago.

.

[Guest]

I was right then. It's not up to public sector workers. Thanks.

[Bryan]

I don't even think that whether the workers want an alternative or not is the issue. More important is do the taxpayers, the ones who have to pay for it, want an alternative?

The public sector is simply not the same as the private sector, the same union rules and/or laws should not apply. Maybe if the two sides are at an impasse, instead of arbitration, it could go to a referendum.

[The_Squid]

I'm not absolutely sure it is. I had no choice when I went to work in the BC public Sector. I had to join the BCGEU.

Workers can de-certify.

I don't even think that whether the workers want an alternative or not is the issue. More important is do the taxpayers, the ones who have to pay for it, want an alternative?

The public sector is simply not the same as the private sector, the same union rules and/or laws should not apply. Maybe if the two sides are at an impasse, instead of arbitration, it could go to a referendum.

The same Union rules do apply, so says the courts. You don't lose your Constitutional rights just because you work for the government.

[Bryan]

You don't lose your Constitutional rights just because you work for the government.

You should.