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security is given these employees in their
jobs. It is recognized also that their
wages do not fluctuate as much as do
those in private employ in periods of
falling prices or in depressions. But
there are occasions when they believe
that their plight exists chiefly because
of neglect.
Particularly exasperating are situa
tions when an acknowledged injustice
in the public service is so enveloped in
politics or multiple authority that the
means of effecting a desirable change
seem hopeless and elusive. The adminis
trative officer may pass the buck to
the budget director and the latter may
plead that the necessary relief is within
the province of the legislative body.
When the final authority is cornered,
the legislature may adjourn or a wholly
new agency come into power. The in
dividual employee in such cases feels
powerless to obtain elemental justice.
Some employees, especially t h o s e
omitted from any sort of State or local
system, as they are from the Federal So
cial Security Act, regard association as
indispensable if certain common objec
tives such as adequate retirement plans
are to be inaugurated, or if other plans
affecting workers, even though on a
voluntary non-legislative basis, are to
be introduced. The history of our public
service has been a story of struggle for
the impartial and effective administra
tion of the public business. It has been
one of continued defense against pres
sure groups usually operating through
political channels. No small part of this
struggle, so far as public employees
themselves have been concerned, has
been to free their own jobs from such
influences.
But whatever their reasons, tangible
or sentimental, practical or idealistic,
worthy or unworthy, public employees
are reacting to normal motives in asso
ciating themselves for common action.
Whatever the personal views a legisla
tor or official may have concerning
such activity, his public policy must be
based on principles which meet present-
day tests of validity.
Should Public Employees be allowed
to organize?
The question presented under this
heading would at first hardly appear to
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McCREDIE
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