PROMOTING CIVIL SERVICE EMPLOYMENT

WHEREAS, civil service employment was created early in this century to assure the American public that government services would be provided by trained and capable federal, state and local employees, without regard to political allegiance; and

WHEREAS, for many years, civil service employment has served to provide government service of high quality, and it eliminated discriminatory political patronage and favors from government; and

WHEREAS, without adequate safeguards, the privatization of federal, state and local services shall reintroduce the same vices and social costs that were eliminated generations ago by the introduction of uniform civil service employment in government:

RESOLVED, that it is the policy of the American Federation of Teachers to promote and encourage the continuation of civil service employment without threat of political patronage or compromise; and

RESOLVED, that whenever privatization is threatened for a bargaining unit in which members of the American Federation of Teachers are employed, it shall be a mission of the AFT and its affiliates to promote civil service employment as the most reasonable and effective means by which to provide quality government services; and

RESOLVED, that in order to promote civil service employment, the American Federation of Teachers and its affiliates shall insist, whenever privatization is proposed, that government first consider the comparative cost-benefit of civil service employment versus privatization; and

RESOLVED, that whenever privatization is threatened in a public work place, the American Federation of Teachers is commited to insist that government first obtain, for the purpose of public distribution and debate, a professionally authored cost-benefit analysis and that cost-benefit comparison ought to include careful study of at least the following factors:

• the impact of privatization on the economic well-being of the community and its residents;

• the benefit of institutional memory and history in the administration of the social institution(s) that may be affected by privatization;

• the effect of loss of the trained workforce that is to be replaced on the quality of government;

• whether the funds paid out for the service(s) affected shall be retained in the community or disbursed elsewhere;

• the extent to which government infrastructure shall be disassembled or replaced;

• the extent to which any private contractor must invest in or enhance local resources;

• the effect of privatization on minority groups in the community;

• the costs attendant to displacement of the current workforce, including the costs of severance and accrued payments that are contractually due;

• the budget cost of the program as performed by civil service employees as opposed to the government’s direct costs of the program as performed by a private contractor; and

RESOLVED, that whenever privatization is either threatened or implemented in a public workplace, the American Federation of Teachers is commited to insist that government design specific performance standards by which the private contractor’s work shall be measured, performance standards that must reasonably articulate the expectations of the community to be affected by the privatized government service.