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Return to Article: Flight service employees file age discrimination suit

• 9144
  

  Hmmmmm. The average age of the civil service is something over 47 and approximately 50% are retirement eligible....

  Is there ANY possibility that an action, either against or for, regarding a large group of civil service employees WON'T have a disproportionate impact on older workers?

  Ya gotta love the AFGE and what they did to the workforce by ensuring that replacements in large part were replaced and put us in this position...

  Skeptical Posted April 7, 2005 8:14 AM
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  This sounds so familiar. In 2000 the Army privatized its logistics support (LSSC) to a contractor and they have not only not gotten the new and improved logistics system (LMP) in place, they're not even a third of the way there. And now they're laying people off because they've run through the money for the contract. And there's no going back to the government-run system. Most of the highly-skilled people who used to maintain the old system (CCSS) are gone or about to retire. What a way to run a country.

  GovExec.com reader Posted April 1, 2005 1:17 PM
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  FAA spokesman Greg Martin's comments are all too typical in this age of outsourcing. He says that the public-private contest was only about one thing: providing "better service at a better value." While that's a popular marketing slogan for outsourcing, it hardly counts as critical analysis. Let's put the hype aside.

  The FAA, like many government agencies, made the mistake of "boom hiring" decades ago. This is when an agency hires a lot of workers all at once to address a critical labor shortage. The boom is followed by many lean years where very few new people are hired. Boom hiring is a shortsighted management tool. It solves a problem today, but creates many problems tomorrow.

  Boom hiring creates an artificially homogeneous workforce where most workers are in the same age group. In the beginning it's a fantastic deal for the government because the young workforce has a low average salary. Yet, as the workforce ages it naturally becomes more experienced and more expensive. Towards the end of the cycle salary costs rise to a maximum before the retirement wave crisis. This is just simple economics.

  The problem with Mr. Martin's comment is that he is looking at the FAA employees only toward the end of their career cycle. Salary costs are at a maximum and so of course it's difficult to compete against a contractor with a mixed age workforce advantage. Yet, if we looked at the total cost of the FAA workforce over a thirty year period we would certainly find they are the better value.

  Mr. Martin claims the government will save around 2 billion dollars over the next ten years by outsourcing. This savings to the government is questionable at best. If he is simply comparing the cost of an aging workforce to a mix age workforce this only gives an illusion of savings. However, that's just not a realistic model of the workforce over time.

  Ultimately the FAA employees are victims of poor workforce planning. It is certainly not their fault that they are similar in age, more experience, and have higher salaries. Good managers would have taken corrective action years ago. Yet, all FAA management did was propose another hiring boom in response to the retirement wave. In the end they simply waved the magic wand of "privatization" to make their aging workforce disappear. FAA workers have good cause to take action.

  GovExec.com reader Posted April 1, 2005 10:45 AM
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  I cannot understand why these employees would want to stop the contracting out process because it simply reduces their income levels? How do they expect the senior executives at FAA to get decent private sector jobs if they stop contracting out? They cannnot get them running this out of date organization even though it is they that have allowed the equipment to become out of date and expensive and it is they that established the grade structure and number of people in the government staff. And it is they that do not establish efficient work processes for the staff. Hey - maybe they should be contracted out and the staff retained!

  taxpayer Posted April 1, 2005 6:33 AM