"Public employee unions say the compensation gap reflects the increasingly high level of skill and education required for most federal jobs"

Hmm that doesn't sound right ....

"Public employee unions say the compensation gap reflects the increasingly high level of skill involved in negotiating contracts for employees with the minimal skill and education required for most federal jobs"

Fixed!

[Disclaimer: I'm attorney working for the federal government and make far less money than someone of my level working in the private sector.]

Generalizations like this can be tricky because we really don't know what jobs they are talking about. If you have a janitor making $100,000, yes that's a problem. Or some elected official making half a million. But someone with advanced degrees and years of work experience should be compensated appropriately, whether they work at a corporation or for the government. What kind of people would would be attracted to top level jobs otherwise? Do we want bottom of the barrel people running our government agencies? With anything else--and Amy, I think you would agree with this--people deserve appropriate compensation.

Angela, people working anyplace don't "deserve" anything any more than the rest of us. People get paid what a business can afford, it's that simple.

As for attracting quality people to government jobs, I'm afraid most of us tax-payers are not seeing much quality there. Just a lot of deadwood and people that could not get a job or keep one in the private sector.

We're losing our pay raises, losing our pensions, losing our jobs. Yet we have to continue to be soaked to keep these people in comfort.

That's simply disgusting and immoral. I don't care how well educated any given public employee is. They should feel the same risk that the rest of us do.

DragonHawk, that is exactly the generalizations that Angela is talking about. What basis do you use to determine there is "deadwood"?

If you really want to pay an SEC lawyer or FDA scientist paid $50K a year, then you are going to get the horrible serice you deserve.

BTW, people are not paid what the business can afford, they are paid what the market demands.

Angela, unfortunately there are too many "top level jobs" compensated too highly for those of us who pay for them.

When the average Federal employee makes significantly more than those who pay his or her salary, and receives benefits that are only a lingering memory for the rest of us, that is a problem. We are already seeing police and firemen let go because of pension obligations for the retired.

What you deserve matters less than what we can afford. Something will change, because it must. "You have run out of other people's money."

So Scott, exactly what market principles come to bear for government workers? None, which should be the point of the article. The highest skilled government employees and the lowest skilled employees have wage and benefit packages that aren't all that different. By golly ... I think that's the definition of socialism! And as Greece is finding out, completely unsustainable.

I am of two minds about this. As a former federal employee I thought a lot of federal work was overcompensated. This has been caused by a couple of factors. Affirmative action is the first factor. In order to show that the government in general was paying minorities and women just a much as white males, they were forced to overvalue many administrative jobs that are unnecessary and probably in the private sector would only pay maybe 10-12 bucks an hour. Personnel positions, data entry, pay clerks etc. are way over paid. On the other hand in order to keep profgessionals, engineers and scientists and legal professionals they have to pay enough to compete with the private sector. In most cases with engineers they are barely able to do this. Unfortunately most engineers are white males and are not helping their numbers regarding minorities and pay disparity. My husband who is still a federal engineer would at least double his take home pay by working for a contractor in the middle east.
The retirement and benefits are a different story. They are not nearly as generous as many people seem to assume that they are. You have the TSP which is a defined contribution retirement plan (like a 401k) and the government matches the first 5 percent of your contribution. It is NOT a defined benefit plan such as many city and municipal workers and teachers enjoy. If you manage to work for thirty years for the federal government, you will probably take home as a retirement about 20% of your base pay and not the 50,75, 100 percent that many teachers, firefighters, policemen and unionized employees enjoy. In my last federal job there was a high percentage of people with drug, alcohol and psychiatric problems. The biggest problem is that not only were they incompetent no shows, they were also impossible to fire because there is no motive for any of the supervisors to rock the gravy boat. This is what happens in any organization with no bottom line that has to be in the black for the company to remain in business. Isabel

The military was underpaid for years -- and the automatic raises worked because while I made the same as the slacker E-4 -- If his/her performance reports sucked and couldn't test out for promotion -- (s)he would not get promoted. That was the meritocracy of the system.

As for regular fed (or state) employees -- getting them to work is a an exercise in a waste of time.

I was a temp in the Bureau of Workers Comp -- I streamlined some of their procedures in just two months there. Their backlog dropped from three months to two weeks. They then transferred me to another area after the person I was temping for came back from maternity leave.

The six caseworkers I was now working for -- four good the other two were lazy sumbitches. One case worker I forwarded the voice mail from her case for three days. The husband's wheelchair was falling apart. On the fourth day -- I asked her "Why haven't you called back?"

The reply was "She didn't leave her case number."

I went to one of the other caseworkers -- we pulled up the case number in two minutes. I then forwarded the voice mail and handed her a written note of the voice mail including the case number.

Somehow I was no longer a valuable assistant to them a week later and was let go of the temp position. (I was glad to be out of that hell hole anyway.)

I did temp work for about 6-7 years. I did all of them from private companies, government, and government contractors I've also had similar experiences with government contractors and government offices. I was out if I rocked the boat at all for my "superiors".

The civilian companies -- only one didn't regret my departure. That was a company I wasn't a good fit for anyway.

Please be advised that although I am not authorized to speak for my Federal contractor at Savannah River Site, I can say the numbers suggested do not obtain here. We are required to hire locally-obtained and incompetent people to match demographic targets, but positions are compared to those in the public sector and compensation is changed to meet a midpoint of those selected. For existing positions, only inflation raises have occurred at this facility for workers not exempt from the Fair Labor Stardards Act. If you have a complaint, there is not only a Civil Advisory Board but a Department of Energy office to contact about inequities.

So far as "civil servant" positions, these have pay grades which are a matter of public record. Got an offender, you should name them.

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