Pay for Performance plan confounds its own goals

Dick Spies GS '72's Feb. 23 opinion piece might have left the erroneous impression that workers at Princeton are satisfied with the University's compensation philosophy which consists of Pay for Performance and salary surveys in lieu of a Cost of Living Adjustment. Each union contract barely passed by a slim margin.

The University coaxed the Princeton University Library Assistants to accept PfP as part of its contract only because it offered an additional half of a percent to accept PfP. The amendment passed only because employees needed that short term gain, and to imply that the members gladly voted it in without deliberation and concern is deceitful.

One of the most obvious and inherent flaws is that since the money pool for PfP is fixed, the more workers that are scored highly by their supervisors, the lower the increase everyone gets. How can a fair philosophy have good work inversely proportional to merit? So in contrast to earlier times — rather than doing a job out of duty and respect — we are pitted against each other, creating a negative environment.

As part of the Labor Management Committee working to implement PfP these past two years, PULA has witnessed hundreds of library hours being spent designing forms, distribution methods and education issues. Despite earlier assurances to the contrary, training supervisors to be impartial and devising mutually satisfactory procedures to resolve grievances as part of the program were conveniently overlooked. Meetings were designed to indoctrinate us, hailing PfP as the greatest thing since sliced bread. That idea went stale very quickly, but we're stuck with it on our plates.

This program is an inefficient and counterproductive business model with such a small merit pool that it hardly justifies the amount of administration needed for it. And the meetings were a tremendous waste of valuable time since the library is generally understaffed and the employees overworked. Instead of increasing staff to reflect the greater needs of the growing University, positions are cut, and work is distributed among those left. Who can meet a job standard consisting of two job descriptions? And after work, many of us need to go to second jobs.

In Spies' fact sheet, the cause of the casual-worker dilemma is partly due to a sharp decrease in the student work force, which is likely to decrease further with student grants replacing loans and an increasing campus population, as noted in the Wythes report. We have reached a crisis point.

Mr. Spies claims that the administration's goal is to "compensate [employees] at or above market rates," artificially determined by the University's own formulas. Nevertheless, fulfillment of that goal is unusual. Ideally, each individual's pay would be brought up to market. Instead, any library worker whose pay is below market — but whose pay grade is at market — is ineligible for an increase. The individual remains below market, lost in the morass of group statistics skewed to make the University look good. More accurately, the University's goal is to seem to compensate employees near market rates, saving the University approximately $300,000. Admirably, while it has recently exhibited much generosity to its community, it remains downright miserly toward its own workers.

With staff reductions, one cannot help having workload increases. Nevertheless, a pillar of this new compensation philosophy is that any employee not doing more than before will not receive any raise in spite of continually increasing costs. A vital missing component is the addition of periodic cost of living adjustments. Rather than attempting to keep them out, COLAs should be a priority. This philosophy seems to have little to do with fairness and respect — or the labor market for that matter. Rather, it is obviously about appearances. And with such blatantly deliberate exploitation, arguably it is also about power. Why else would the University embrace a philosophy that professes to promote teamwork by pitting workers against each other — one that promotes greater job satisfaction with a system that offers less money when more workers are doing excellent jobs and adds to the workplace harmony by creating low morale and bitterness?

It is ironic that as most of New Jersey attempts to remove its nightmarish traffic circles, the University now adds two to its campus. Perhaps in that same spirit Pay for Performance has come to Princeton as other employers discard PfP because it usually doesn't work. Where employers offer substantial raises, PfP does work. But Princeton's view of PfP is that a lousy raise over no raise is a terrific incentive. If this is not about power, then this viewpoint is very naïve, and very few of Princeton's employees share it. Bill Kuntz Firestone Library AFSCME, Local 956