The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, (October 13, 1978, Pub.L. 95–454, 92 Stat. 1111) (CSRA), reformed the civil service of the United States federal government, partly in response to the

Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...

. The Act abolished the

U.S. Civil Service Commission The United States Civil Service Commission was a government agency of the federal government of the United States and was created to select employees of federal government on merit rather than relationships. In 1979, it was dissolved as part of ...

and distributed its functions primarily among three new agencies: the

Office of Personnel Management An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific duti ...

(OPM), the

Merit Systems Protection Board The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) is an independent quasi-judicial agency established in 1979 to protect federal merit systems against partisan political and other prohibited personnel practices and to ensure adequate protection for federa ...

(MSPB), and the

Federal Labor Relations Authority The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) is an independent agency of the United States government that governs labor relations between the federal government and its employees. Created by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, it is a quasi- ...

(FLRA).

History

The original legislation allowing federal employees to organize together and protect rights was the

Lloyd–La Follette Act The Lloyd–La Follette Act of 1912 began the process of protecting civil servants in the United States from unwarranted or abusive removal by codifying "just cause" standards previously embodied in presidential orders. It defines "just causes" as ...

in 1912. However this act only allowed for employees to unionize together and petition the government, but gave them no real bargaining power. The Act was amended by both President Kennedy (

Executive Order 10988 Executive Order 10988 is a United States presidential executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy on January 17, 1962 that granted federal employees the right to collective bargaining Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation be ...

) and President Nixon (Executive Order 11491), but neither executive orders truly fixed the problems with the original act. By the time President Carter took office in 1977, the Lloyd-LaFollette Act was perceived as entirely obsolete and forced the necessity of legislative reform. With the American public wary of the organization of government following

Watergate The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...

and the OPEC embargo, President Carter's time in office coincided with a period in which bureaucratic organization was open to "reexamination". Carter ran his campaign promising to "strengthen presidential control over federal services", and once in office created the CSRA. Carter intended for the act to create more bureaucratic officials involved with policy making (rather than administration) and that were more closely politically controlled by the presidency. The CSRA arose from a growing wariness of the United States Government by the general American population. Preceding the Act in 1978 was nearly a decade of major blunders committed by the White House. In short, the federal government had "widely over-promised and woefully underperformed". Incidents like the Watergate scandal coupled with the consensus public opinion of the Vietnam War being a complete failure led the push for reform. The CSRA sought to fix common problems across the public sector such as eliminating manipulation of the merit system without inhibiting the entire structure, how to both invest authority in managers while simultaneously protecting employee from said authority, limit unnecessary or excessive spending, and make the federal work force mirror the American people more closely.

Drafting process

The CSRA was the first federally passed comprehensive civil service reform since the

Pendleton Act The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act is a United States federal law passed by the 47th United States Congress and signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur on January 16, 1883. The act mandates that most positions within the federal gover ...

of 1883. Leading up to the passing of the CSRA, the federal government grew in both size and complexity, causing the public to question the government’s cost and blame policy failures on the bureaucrats. In March, President Jimmy Carter sent a proposal to Congress to bring about civil service reform in order to “bring efficiency and accountability to the Federal Government.” Congress spent 7 months forming and enacting the legislation and in August 1978, Congress approved the plan that restructured federal personnel management.

Description

The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 created rules and procedures for federal civilian employees. There were two parts to the reform; The Reorganization Plan and the Civil Service Reform Act. The Reorganization Plan divided the

Civil Service Commission A civil service commission is a government agency that is constituted by legislature to regulate the employment and working conditions of civil servants, oversee hiring and promotions, and promote the values of the public service. Its role is rou ...

(CSC) into the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). Additionally, the Federal Labor Regulations Authority (FLRA) was created. Responsibilities are as follows: * OPM provides management guidance to agencies of the executive branch and issues regulations that control federal human resources. * The MSPB conducts studies of the federal civil service and hears appeals of federal employees who have been disciplined or otherwise separated from their positions. Personnel actions which discriminate among employees based on marital status, political activity, or political affiliation are prohibited by the CSRA. Federal employees may file complaints regarding possible violations of this rule with the Office of Special Counsel, which was created as a subunit of the MSPB. * FLRA oversees the rights of federal employees to form collective bargaining units (unions) to bargain with agencies. The CSRA imposes standards on the officers of those unions which are enforced by the Office of Labor-Management Standards in the U.S. Department of Labor. In addition to the creation of new agencies, a new grade classification for the government’s top managers was created - the Senior Executive Service (SES). These managers were strategically positioned throughout the government and were rewarded via bonuses based on merit. Middle managers were now paid and rewarded based on evaluations and merit only. The act also created processes for firing employees found to be incompetent and provided protection for "whistleblowers".

Effects

The CSRA was one of the largest reforms in Federal personnel regulations since the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 and is one of the Carter Administration's major domestic achievements. However, the long lasting effects and the legacy of the CSRA are widely disputed. Some claim that the CSRA has accomplished virtually nothing. Others claim that the CSRA has accomplished quite a bit. On one side of the argument, it is claimed that the CSRA has not affected unequal hiring methods, has not formed a division of experienced administrators that it was supposed to, and has been ignored by certain agencies. Others claim that the CSRA was a pervasive attempt to reform and restrain a large government bureaucracy in the United States. On the other side of the argument, it is claimed that many provisions in the CSRA have spread globally and that the CSRA has had a serious impact on public administration systems all over the world. It is also claimed that the CSRA has incorporated “long-lasting strategies based on improved responsiveness and competitiveness of federal employees" and that the CSRA has moderately improved employee attitudes in the workplace.

Sources

"Fired Federal Employees Have Limited Route for Challenging Dismissals"
by: Robert Barnes * ''The Future of Merit: Twenty Years After the Civil Service Reform Act'' by: J.P. Pfiffner & D.A. Brooks * "Political Scientists See Little Impact of 1978 Civil Service Law" by: Adam Clymer * "The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act: Post-Mortem or Rebirth?" by: Gregory D. Foster * "The Promise and Paradox of Civil Service Reform" by: P. W. Ingraham and D. H. Rosenbloom * "Bureaucratic Response to Civil Service Reform" by: Naomi Lynn and Richard E. Vaden

References