Abstract: Gotbaum: Well, I don't believe the principles that I spoke about in 1972 have changed over the years. In those years, job dissatisfaction was uppermost on my mind and the minds of our members. Layoffs and cuts in services were not in our consciousness then. Productivity then, as now, was mostly a word hurled against municipal employees as an attack by people who really didn't then and don't today understand anything about the process of motivation and gratification in the workplace to achieve real productivity. My response in 1972 to that attack was to agree that in many cases it is true; civil service does not produce as it should. But the disagreement between employees and management comes in the why. Why don't employees produce as much as they would like to produce? My answer then, as now, is that management must learn to manage before workers can produce effectively on the job. Over the years, while municipal unions have made significant gains in wages and benefits, the place where the Gotbaums and Shankers have failed has been in the most important area of job satisfaction. Public servants take a beating from the press and are held in contempt by their neighbors. To their neighbors and the public, the idea of working for the government has a negative association-as though employees are cheating them either in taking too much of their tax money, or giving too little effort, or both. Yet, on the job, it is difficult for employees to really feel like producers. The bureaucracy is too big. It overwhelms. When employees do good work and make outstanding contributions, they don't know that anyone out there is watching, listening, or even cares. It's tough for our people to identify with their job in any meaningful, gratifying sense. To me, productivity means not only the worker as a producer but a satisfied worker making a valued contribution. That's the part that's been lost and is now lost in the present situation.
Publication Year: 1978
Publication Date: 1978-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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