First, they ask employees to rat on their bosses without whistleblowing legislation to protect them. Yes, this happened, and shows unfathomable cynism on the part of Government with respect to its staff.

Now, they are unwilling to provide normal cost of living increases with salary offers in contract negotiations.

Is this a way to improve relations with employees so that the bureaucracy will continue to stave off political pressures. Or will this type of labour dealing push employees to a situation of : "I don,t really care" demoralization.

Prime Minister Martin speaks with forked tongue when he expounds about needing to create a new culture in government.

What culture is he talking about? The culture of
abandonment, of everyone for himself? Is that supposed to remedy the kind of moral damage created by political manipulation and intimidation?

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Sounds like a good arguement for smaller goverment.

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[ 29 March 2004: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

[ 31 March 2004: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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1) My current employer provided more training than all of my other employers over the last two decades put together;

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That's not saying much about Canadian employers...last I looked at stats on this stuff Canadian employers were among the worst at training their employees. They ranked below even the U.S.

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2) I don't think that enough civil servants really appreciate what a good deal they have;

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Depending on the job category you're in the pay and benefits aren't bad. The thing that drives folks crazy is the bureaucratic bullshit from those in senior managerial positions...and from the politicians.

But I don't think its out of line to get at least a cost of living increase.

Once upon a time it wasn't considered out of line for workers to ask for real pay increases. Now its a battle just to hang on to whatever you have.

It would be much better if we all started calling ourselves CEO's...then we could get humungous pay increases.

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3) Being a term employee...sucks. How the hell is a person supposed to make any long term plans?

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You're right. It does suck royally. But governments have been pulling this kind of crap for years. Hiring folks on temporary contracts and often you don't know till the very last day whether your contract is going to be renewed. Its a way for governments to avoid paying workers benefits.

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4) Even with all sorts of hiring practice guidelines, policies, etc. it seems that the old rules still apply: it's not what you know, it's who you know

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In the federal civil service unions are prohibited by legislation from negotiating staffing procedures. At least they were back a number of years ago. Not sure that its changed at all. Under the law positions are supposed to be staffed on "merit". But yes that's open to all kinds of abuses as we all know.

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Actually, I was noting "Term" employment . . for a specified period of time...after which you are out of work.

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One place where term contracts work well is for supervisory positions, like a school principal or school area superintendent, as a term appointment for, say, three or five years. At the end of the term the person can be dropped back to their previous position without shame, without "cause," and without being able to claim constructive dismissal, if the school board or its Director want someone with a different style.

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Originally posted by radiorahim:

In the federal civil service unions are prohibited by legislation from negotiating staffing procedures. At least they were back a number of years ago. Not sure that its changed at all. Under the law positions are supposed to be staffed on "merit". But yes that's open to all kinds of abuses as we all know.

Seniority doesn't enter into it at all...not even as a "tie-breaker" for two candidates who are deemed to be equally qualified.

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This information is still current, except that things have, quite naturally, gotten worse. The latest "reform" to the public service dilutes the merit principle even further.

In a competition, the managers can now qualify, say, 10 peopls as meeting the standards for positions of a certain level and type. And then cherry pick at whim from among the list of ten, in no particular order whatever. It could be looks, it could be private wealth, it could be golf or poker scores, or access to good dope, whatever the personal likes or dislikes of the manager, whatever they are looking for in their employees.

That old-fashioned party politics won't enter into it in more than a handful of cases is irrelevant. Adminstrative patronage is just as bad for the bureaucracy and the public as party patronage. It's still a case of second-stringers and third-raters being advanced to the head of the class, while those who put their stake in skills and hard work end up the fools on the ship of state, working harder for less.

And no, Martin isn't going to change this. On the contrary, at least one of his bureaucratic appointments and one of his star candidates proves that he, like Chretien, believes in that special eye for talent that mere mortals don't possess.

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Originally posted by weakling willy:
...if there was a secular version of it (stripping out the Christian bit and replacing it with similar secular values etc.) I could see it having a shot. But really, isn't this pastoral power at its most transparent?

It will be interesting to see how this whole Christian management thing goes stateside, because ultimately it is about using religion to better control people in the labour process. In the long run, it may prove highly damaging to the religion's credibility.

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