Productivity and Productivity Bargaining in Government: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Poductivity bargaining has been touted as an important means of increasing productivity in government.1 This article suggests that productivity bargaining is likely to yield only minimal impacts on government services, some of these negative, until practitioners and academics better understand the nature of productivity and productivity bargaining in government. Further, this article suggests that the relationship between collective bargaining and the production of services is of greater importance to government officials than the relationship between productivity bargaining and the productivity of services. Productivity is a subtle concept, particularly in the context of public organizations whose primary purpose is to provide services rather than goods. The literature emphasizes that productivity in the public sector is difficult to measure, difficult to conceptualize, and, perhaps most important, difficult to realize.2 The serious problems involved in measuring public sector productivity have been widely and, on balance, satisfactorily examined,3 but this is not true with respect to the conceptual and implementational problems that are the principal concerns of this study. Understanding what productivity is and what it is not represents the first step, a conceptual condition precedent, toward improving productivity in government whatever specific implementing means to that end are chosenproductivity bargaining over work rules or unilateral management changes with respect to capital investment, new technology, and even work rules. * In recent years productivity bargaining has been heralded as a promising means of increasing productivity in government, particularly at state and local levels. However, analysis of the literature and practice of productivity bargaining indicates that certain inherent conceptual and implementational problems have not been adequately recognized by academics and practitioners. The central problem concerns the failure to recognize that productivity gains may be counterproductive if accompanied by excessive unit cost increases. The unit cost problem, in turn, is particularly relevant for productivity bargaining because of the that premium salary increases should accompany (buy) work rule changes promotive of increased productivity. Finally, longitudinal data on the tradeoff between per capita labor costs and government employment in New York City suggest that the relationship between collective bargaining and service production is a more important managerial problem than the relationship between productivity bargaining and service productivity.