Public employers chose pay and sanctions over restructuring alienating work

Evidence

In general, employers confronted by alienated workers can choose among the following responses in some combination. They can ignore the situation and accept the absenteeism, low morale, poor performance, and other manifestations of worker dissatisfaction. They can restructure the work to make it less alienating. Or they can concentrate on changing the mix of benefits and sanctions that they offer workers outside of working conditions. They can increase pay for work that is less rewarding or improve conditions tangential to the work. Or they can raise the costs of nonproductive behavior. The trends in public employment since, say, 1960 reflect these alternatives. Public service workers have increased their share of national wealth through higher pay and benefit levels, increased their collective bargaining power, and acquiesced in and often encouraged developments such as specialization, computerization, and fragmentation of responsibilities for clients. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 598

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader question of how work structure versus worker discretion is changed, and to two-factor motivation theory (Herzberg) where pay is a hygiene factor. — connects to: Bureaucratization of public service increased worker alienation by eliminating paternalistic rewards. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 595; Personnel power operates through subtle anticipatory sanctions rather than overt dismissal — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 793; Wage-ceiling law alienated workers from the Jacobins (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Wage erosion from budget cuts shifts workers’ motivation from service toward remuneration. #corroborates (0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1271
• Personnel power operates through subtle anticipatory sanctions rather than overt dismissal #corroborates (0.80) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 793
• Bureaucratization of public service increased worker alienation by eliminating paternalistic rewards. #expands (0.75) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 595
• Wage-ceiling law alienated workers from the Jacobins #exemplifies (0.75)