1. How are unionization and collective bargaining different in the public sector than in the private sector? What are some of the creative ways that government employees have shirked on the job in order to send a message to employers? Do you think the current union relationships are working for government employees and employers?

2. What do you think about the requirement that government employees be tested before hired? According to the exact wording of the law, “ . . . open, competitive examinations for testing applicants for appointment in the competitive service which are practical in character and as far as possible related to matters that fairly test the relative capacity and fitness of the applicants for the appointment sought . . . an individual may be appointed in the competitive service only if he has passed an examination or is specifically excepted from examination.” Why do you think this requirement exists? Do you think it is a helpful but necessary requirement or a harmful, irrelevant one? Why?

3. How did the Hatch Act limit political activity for government workers? What are the patronage restrictions for government employment? Are these positions conducive to the needs of employees and employers?

4. How does the government classify positions? What are the benefits of government employment? What are the drawbacks? What categories of people have easier access to government employment?

5. What does total government employment look like in the United States? The majority of government employees work in which areas? Are you surprised by any of this?

6. How are government employees compensated? How does this compensation compare with that in the private sector? How do you define comparable jobs? Do you think government employees are compensated well?

7. The Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883 established several features of the U.S. civil service that remain to this day. The four features outlined by the text are: government hires employees by merit; government pays according to their positions, not their personal characteristics; government workers are protected from political interference and dismissal once in the system; and government workers have an obligation to accountability. What do you think of these four features? Which ones do you think contribute to government efficiency? What about government transparency? Which support democratic values? Do any run contrary to these values? Why do you think they were established, and why do you think they have endured?

8. Comparing bureaucracies around the world, does it strike you as strange that the U.S. bureaucracy, as measured proportionately as government employment as a share of total employment, falls in the middle range of the world’s industrialized nations? Do you find it strange that the U.S. bureaucracy is far smaller than the government bureaucracies of Ireland, France, Finland, Hungary, and Canada and about the same size of bureaucracies as Australia, Portugal, Poland, and Spain? What do you think accounts for large government bureaucracy and our perceptions of them from country to country?

9. The position classification system is perhaps one of the most basic elements of the U.S. government, but it is worth discussing. What do you think about attaching generic grade level qualifications that place certain jobs in the same category? What do you think about a system that can be so generalized such that your grade indicates instantly your salary and your level of education? What are the pluses of such a system and what are the minuses?

10. What do you think about the 1986 executive order signed by President Reagan authorizing agencies to impose mandatory drug testing on newly hired or transferred employees, inclusive or random, despite employee unions’ protestation that this is in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures? The Supreme Court made the decision upholding the order in 1989 that was a 5–4 decision (a split court). What do you think about the need for officials in “sensitive” positions to be drug free? Is this an unjust invasion of privacy or a well-founded safety measure?