OPPOSITION TO PAY FOR PERFORMANCE FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEES

WHEREAS, pay for performance in the public sector is incompatible with quality services that depend on taxpayer money in contrast to the private sector where, as a management tool, it is often used as an incentive to create higher corporate profits; and

WHEREAS, research indicates that pay-for-performance schemes in the public sector have failed because they are unfunded or underfunded, the process is highly political and cumbersome, and the concept is consistently rejected by employees because it is perceived as unfair; and

WHEREAS, there is evidence to show that pay for performance damages the workplace atmosphere and quality of services as good co-worker relationships become casualties of the scramble for merit; and

WHEREAS, research literature further provides that pay for performance undermines initiative, interest and creativity, masks more urgent organizational problems, fosters suspiciousness and resentment, and reduces motivation among more senior staff; and

WHEREAS, most public employees have insufficient control over their work and output to hold them responsible for less than superior performance when, in reality, they are working with systemic factors that are beyond their control:

RESOLVED, that the AFT champion adequate and fair base compensation for public employees and adequate funding of public services; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT apply adequate resources to research and maintain a repository of current resource materials relative to public employee classifications, compensation packages including benefits and retirement, and practices involving pay for performance or other incentive/bonus programs, broadbanding, variable and differential pay, and plans for backfilling positions in state and local government that will be vacated as the aging workforce retires; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT work to fight all attempts to further erode the principles of equal pay, fair and adequate base compensation in the public sector and to expose the impact of such schemes as pay for performance to decision makers and the public; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT work to proactively promote a public sector workplace that motivates employees because their supervisors and managers treat them in a fair and dignified manner to bring about heightened organizational function and effectiveness.