Letter

In recent years, persistent budget deficits, widespread perceptions of waste and inefficiency, and growing demands for higher-quality public services have given birth to a mass movement for large-scale government reform. Numerous commissions have been formed at all levels of government, charged with finding ways to make the public sector "work better and cost less." Terms such as "reinvent" or "redesign" or "restructure" have become popular buzz words for politicians and public officials. Clearly, the status quo is under attack as the public is demanding lasting change in the way government operates.

The current economic and political environment places public employees in a difficult position. They are often inaccurately portrayed as the problem – the "fat" or "waste" that needs to be cut. Yet nobody is more frustrated with bureaucratic inefficiencies than front-line workers, who know how to improve the delivery of public services and the work they do for the community. In order to tap into their vast knowledge and experience, mechanisms that ensure the participation of front-line workers – and their unions – in the redesign process need to be developed.

The short-term, quick-fix approaches often proposed to "reinvent" government – layoffs or privatization, for example – do not address the underlying problems. Such approaches treat front-line workers as part of the problem when, in fact, they must be part of any viable solution. Truly redesigning government requires policy makers, and the union and its members, to break with the past and work constructively together to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public services.

At our 1994 Convention, AFSCME members called for government redesign built on the following principles:

• worker empowerment based on union representation rights; 
  
  
• investing in worker training to improve the delivery of services and the quality of these services; 
  
  
• a more responsive and efficient bureaucracy with fewer layers between top management and front-line workers; 
  
  
• employment security; and 
  
  
• commitment to the belief that government must serve and be accountable to all the people. 
  
  

Front-line workers and their unions are applying these principles and redesigning state and local governments in countless ways. The methods they use may change over the years, trends may come and go, techniques may be tried out and discarded for newer and better ideas. What remains constant, though, is the need to respond to public demand for top quality government services and the fact that neither labor nor management can respond to that demand alone. Workers cannot deliver high quality services unless management sees it as top priority. Management cannot deliver high quality services to the public without enlisting the support and mining the talents of those who do the work. By the same token, unions cannot contribute to the process of change unless management recognizes the vital role that unions must play.

This guide was developed to help AFSCME councils and locals put our union's principles into practice to build a stronger, more effective public sector.