Civil service rules make firing so costly that incompetents are retained, lowering service quality
Evidence
The costs of firing or demoting workers tend to be so great under civil service regulations that managers often prefer to retain workers than to endure a prolonged period of arbitration while the post in dispute remains unfilled, or worse, remains filled by the accused incompetent. This practice results in a mediocre standard of public service performance. Public employee unions in some cases have increased worker protection by building additional safeguards to capricious management decisions into the collective bargaining process. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 219
Categorization
- CANDY: Bright, quotable paradox: the tenure designed to protect workers protects incompetents, because arbitration over a disputed post outlasts tolerating the bad hire.
- XREF: connects to: Accountability controls on discretionary workers can degrade service quality. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1152; Civil service protections and tenure-based benefits trap discontented bureaucrats in their jobs. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1059; Accountability reforms degrade service quality where frontline discretion is unavoidable. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1167
Broader Connections
- Accountability controls on discretionary workers can degrade service quality.
#corroborates(0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1152 - Civil service protections and tenure-based benefits trap discontented bureaucrats in their jobs.
#expands(0.80) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1059 - Accountability reforms degrade service quality where frontline discretion is unavoidable.
#qualifies(0.75) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1167