9
Employees Organizations in the Public Service
The public service, Federal, State and
Municipal, in the post-war period will
be confronted with major problems
brought about by the impact of war
conditions. Orderly transition from war
to a peace economy will require solu
tion of many personnel difficulties
which already profoundly affect the
efficiency and potential costs of gov
ernment.
With this in mind the National Civil
Service League appointed a National
Committee on Post-War Civil Service
Problems to study public employee or
ganizations and other personnel issues.
Following is a review of the report
of the committee. This review is taken
from the bulletin, Employee Organiza
tions in the Public Service which is
distributed by the National Civil Serv
ice League.
The public service is the concrete
everyday expression of our democratic
institutions. Its integrity and its pres
tige are therefore peculiarly important
to the preservation of our way of life.
Conde B. McCullough
This ability to make himself at home
in any group has been instrumental in
maintaining a high level of morale
throughout the organization and his
passing will leave a void which cannot
be filled. When the going appeared the
roughest and it seemed impossible to
meet a dead line, he. would break the
tension with a humorous story, apolo
gize for the interruption and leave
everyone relaxed for another surge for
ward.
As expressed by his associates, "To
you, 'Mac,* a grateful and appreciative
world says thanks for a valuable con
tribution of life’s advancement and en
richment, and from us a prayer of grat
itude for the privilege of calling you
friend.”
It is our common obligation to make
the public service impartial and effi
cient and to provide terms of employ
ment which foster a wholehearted devo
tion to the common good.
Foremost among the problems of
public employment which have recent
ly come to attention is that of group
relationships. For while public authori
ties have been dealing with associations
of workers since the 1830’s, new de
velopments have brought this phase of
public personnel more sharply into fo
cus.
One important reason for this prom
inence is the increase in the number
of persons in government employment,
now perhaps one-ninth of the nation’s
labor force. At the beginning of 1945
the Federal services alone (including
Government corporations), employed
3,375,000, while State and local Gov
ernment staffs, with ranks badly de
pleted by war conditions, numbered an
additional 3,135,000— a combined to
tal of some six and a half million. Some
of the losses in Federal personnel will in
part be balanced by increases in those
of states and municipalities^ so that
the total will remain at a high level
compared to pre-war years.
Other factors have also given an im
petus to growth of’ employee associa
tions— the spirit of the times, the new
industrial types of activities undertaken
by various governments, the difficulties
which many groups of employees have
in maintaining their economic status
in a period of rising prices, the desire of
workers to obtain a brake against pre
cipitous reduction of forces and, es
pecially, intensified organizing activity.
For these reasons, membership in em»-
ployee organizations in the public serv
ice is likely to show even more rapid
strides in the post-war years.
(Continued on Page 25)