Fonctionnaire absentéïste

[Nick de Cusa]

Abuser des arrêts de maladie, c'est la moindre des choses, pas de problème. Mais alors, pour faire bon usage de son temps, pas pour boire du pastis, jouer à la pétanque ou à la belotte.

The Italian public sector

Idlers under attack

Aug 28th 2008 | ROME

From The Economist print edition

A reformer takes on Italy’s bloated public sector

LIKE many an Italian state employee, Walter Schiavi awarded himself extra leisure time by faking an illness. On July 30th he was officially in bed with ’flu. In fact, say the police, he was at his workplace—to rob it. On August 21st they arrested the 29-year-old Milanese postman, claiming he was one of two men who had held up the post office where he worked on a day he was supposedly sick.

His case is exceptional only for its picaresque twist. Absenteeism among public employees in Italy is a plague. According to a recent book*, it is four times higher in the public sector than in private companies. In 2005 state workers took an average of 18 days’ sick leave. In the health service, the figure was almost six weeks. Every Italian has a favourite story: the professor who gave less than 30% of the lectures in his courses; the judge, unable to sit or stand for long periods, found to be ocean-yacht racing. It would be funnier if the inefficiency of Italy’s 3.5m-strong public sector were not such a drag on the economy.

Renato Brunetta, the public-administration minister in Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative government, reckons that reforms to the public sector could add as much as 0.5% a year to economic growth. Unlike many predecessors, he is making changes in defiance of Italy’s trade unions, whose power is rooted in the public sector. “I refuse to believe the trade unions of today’s Italy still want to defend [a] million layabouts against the 60m members of the public who want to see merit rewarded and skivers punished,” he said this month. He has imposed by decree a rule that, after the second absence in any year, only medical certificates issued by the public health service will be acceptable. Now he plans to introduce productivity bonuses based in part on attendance records.

The 58-year-old Mr Brunetta is a rare beast in the colourful menagerie of the government: a committed free-market liberal. Excluded from Mr Berlusconi’s 2001-06 administration, he spent five years grinding his teeth in frustration over its reluctance to pursue structural reforms. In true Thatcherite style, he comes from modest origins (his father was a Venetian souvenir hawker), which makes him a tricky opponent for the unions. “The rich can afford private services,” he said recently. “It is the poor who need efficient state schools and hospitals.”

It will take more than a clampdown on malingering to achieve that. But his new rules on absenteeism were accompanied by 24 other reforms, including scrapping small, uneconomic departments, restrictions on the hiring of consultants and measures to stop public employees doing more than one job. More fundamental changes have been proposed in parliament. The big test will come this autumn, when the new reforms come up for discussion just as the unions press for higher pay in next year’s budget. Over the past six years, wages have risen by 15% more in the public sector than in private firms. This year the government vows to peg the increase to an unrealistically low inflation target. The stage is set for a mighty clash—and the risk is that the government may sacrifice public-sector reform to win concessions from the unions over pay.

For the moment at least, Mr Brunetta can gloat over figures showing that absenteeism among state workers has plummeted. The July figure was 37% down on a year earlier. Appropriately, one of the sharpest falls was at the labour ministry.

* “Fannulloni d’Italia” by Davide Giacalone.

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/disp…ory_id=12009720

[Jeeves]

Abuser des arrêts de maladie, c'est la moindre des choses, pas de problème. Mais alors, pour faire bon usage de son temps, pas pour boire du pastis, jouer à la pétanque ou à la belotte.

The Italian public sector

Idlers under attack

Aug 28th 2008 | ROME

From The Economist print edition

A reformer takes on Italy’s bloated public sector

LIKE many an Italian state employee, Walter Schiavi awarded himself extra leisure time by faking an illness. On July 30th he was officially in bed with ’flu. In fact, say the police, he was at his workplace—to rob it. On August 21st they arrested the 29-year-old Milanese postman, claiming he was one of two men who had held up the post office where he worked on a day he was supposedly sick.

His case is exceptional only for its picaresque twist. Absenteeism among public employees in Italy is a plague. According to a recent book*, it is four times higher in the public sector than in private companies. In 2005 state workers took an average of 18 days’ sick leave. In the health service, the figure was almost six weeks. Every Italian has a favourite story: the professor who gave less than 30% of the lectures in his courses; the judge, unable to sit or stand for long periods, found to be ocean-yacht racing. It would be funnier if the inefficiency of Italy’s 3.5m-strong public sector were not such a drag on the economy.

Renato Brunetta, the public-administration minister in Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative government, reckons that reforms to the public sector could add as much as 0.5% a year to economic growth. Unlike many predecessors, he is making changes in defiance of Italy’s trade unions, whose power is rooted in the public sector. “I refuse to believe the trade unions of today’s Italy still want to defend [a] million layabouts against the 60m members of the public who want to see merit rewarded and skivers punished,” he said this month. He has imposed by decree a rule that, after the second absence in any year, only medical certificates issued by the public health service will be acceptable. Now he plans to introduce productivity bonuses based in part on attendance records.

The 58-year-old Mr Brunetta is a rare beast in the colourful menagerie of the government: a committed free-market liberal. Excluded from Mr Berlusconi’s 2001-06 administration, he spent five years grinding his teeth in frustration over its reluctance to pursue structural reforms. In true Thatcherite style, he comes from modest origins (his father was a Venetian souvenir hawker), which makes him a tricky opponent for the unions. “The rich can afford private services,” he said recently. “It is the poor who need efficient state schools and hospitals.”

It will take more than a clampdown on malingering to achieve that. But his new rules on absenteeism were accompanied by 24 other reforms, including scrapping small, uneconomic departments, restrictions on the hiring of consultants and measures to stop public employees doing more than one job. More fundamental changes have been proposed in parliament. The big test will come this autumn, when the new reforms come up for discussion just as the unions press for higher pay in next year’s budget. Over the past six years, wages have risen by 15% more in the public sector than in private firms. This year the government vows to peg the increase to an unrealistically low inflation target. The stage is set for a mighty clash—and the risk is that the government may sacrifice public-sector reform to win concessions from the unions over pay.

For the moment at least, Mr Brunetta can gloat over figures showing that absenteeism among state workers has plummeted. The July figure was 37% down on a year earlier. Appropriately, one of the sharpest falls was at the labour ministry.

* “Fannulloni d’Italia” by Davide Giacalone.

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/disp…ory_id=12009720

[roubachov]

Faudrait pas aller très loin pour trouver des situations comparables …

[Nick de Cusa]

Faudrait pas aller très loin pour trouver des situations comparables …

Allez, raconte.

[roubachov]

Allez, raconte.

Je pourrais te parler en privé de situations surprenantes …

[0100011]

Je pourrais te parler en privé de situations surprenantes …

Ben quoi on est entre nous non ?

[TeNDRo.]

Je profite de ce fil pour vous faire part d’un article paru vendredi dernier dans le Washington Post. Celui-ci concerne le récent dossier du sénateur Coburn sur l’absentéisme dans le secteur public américain et les réactions que ce rapport suscite chez les différents agents du gouvernement ainsi que chez les syndicats.

Tom Coburn, sénateur républicain d’Oklahoma, a en effet examiné la fréquence des absences chez les employés du gouvernement et le constat est pour le moins surprenant.

Civil servants have been away from their jobs without permission much too often in recent years, Coburn says in a new report. Records from 17 federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service show that workers were absent without leave for 19.6 million hours between 2001 and 2007, the study found.

That's the equivalent of 2.5 million missed days of work, or 316 employees skipping out for entire 30-year careers, says Coburn, the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on federal financial management.

"During my time in Congress, I have met many wonderful people who work for the federal government out of a sense of service to their country," Coburn wrote in a cover letter for the report, released Aug. 21. "Unfortunately, there is also a sizeable and growing number of federal employees who undermine the agencies they serve by failing to show up to work. . . . I believe the American taxpayer deserves better."

But federal employees and their advocates, and a few agency officials, called the report misleading. They said it does not put the numbers in context, omits other figures and unfairly disparages the professionalism of the federal workforce, which averaged about 2.5 million people, including postal employees, during the period Coburn studied.

Looked at another way, for example, Coburn's numbers show that the average federal employee is absent from work without permission for about 67 minutes a year.

Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents more than 150,000 federal workers, said in an e-mail: "The report is little more than a collection of numbers surrounded by innuendoes and loose extrapolations. The problem with doing this kind of misrepresentation is that it tells federal employees their work is not valued and their contributions are not recognized -- making it much harder for agencies to recruit and retain the high-quality employees they need."

In a telephone interview, Coburn said he is bashing not the rank-and-file but rather bosses who do not address the issue. "This isn't about the federal workforce, this is about the management of the federal workforce," he said. "That's what needs to be better."

In the Senate, Coburn is known as "Dr. No," a lawmaker who considers the government too big and wasteful and routinely votes against creating or expanding programs. He asked agencies for data on workers who were AWOL, or absent without leave, between 2001 and 2007. That meant they were late or absent altogether, but not because of vacation, illness, jury duty or other approved leave.

As the report notes, not all agencies define AWOL the same way. Some consider employees AWOL when they are 15 minutes late. Others do so only for lengthier absences. Some agencies provided incomplete data -- Transportation Security Administration figures were only for 2007, for instance. Employees are not supposed to be paid for time they are AWOL.

In Coburn's calculus, the departments of Veterans Affairs and the Treasury were the most absentee-plagued, with employees missing for 8 million and 4 million hours, respectively. Absenteeism matters, he wrote, because less work gets done and agencies may hire more people to compensate, driving up payroll costs.

"It is unreasonable and unfair to expect taxpayers to foot the bill for inefficiencies that federal agencies fail to address," Coburn wrote.

But the full story behind the AWOL numbers is more complicated, according to critics and agency officials.

At VA, the department's 273,000 employees worked about 2.5 billion hours over the period, said spokeswoman Lisette Mondello. The 8 million AWOL hours is a tiny amount in comparison, amounting to one-third of 1 percent of all hours worked, she said. Mondello said the department tracks AWOL hours "meticulously" to let employees know that lateness and unapproved absenteeism won't be tolerated.

The report "gives the impression that employees at the VA are not there and it's the furthest from the truth," she said. "We take accountability very, very seriously."

At Treasury, about 96 percent of the AWOL hours were logged by Internal Revenue Service employees, many of whom are part-time or seasonal workers who have accrued little or no sick leave or vacation time, said spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin.

"This is an important issue, and we at Treasury continue to look for ways to ensure proper identification of employee absences," McLaughlin said. "We work to train employees and management to address these issues."

J. David Cox, the national secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, said some federal workers taking approved leave -- vacation, family and medical leave or leave without pay, for example -- may be marked down temporarily as AWOL until paperwork is completed.

"It's a classic example of how you can pull out numbers if you are trying to prove some point," Cox said.

Andrea Brooks, an AFGE national vice president, said the study would have been more meaningful if it showed disciplinary moves made by agencies. "No agency is going to let employees rack up hundreds of hours of leave without permission without taking some action," she said.

Even public servants with the best of intentions are not always where they are supposed to be. Coburn, for instance, has missed 58 of 1283 votes, or 4.5 percent, during his nearly four years in the Senate, according to congressional records. In six years in the House, he missed 232 of 3741 votes, or 6.2 percent.

Coburn said he missed 40 Senate votes when he was being treated for cancer last year. As for the missed House votes, he said: "It's probably because of the same reasons I miss votes on Monday nights -- because flights get in late."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/28/AR2008082803271.html?nav=rss_politics/fedpage

Il est malheureusement effarant de constater que les problèmes découlant de l’inefficacité des services étatiques, dus à l’absentéisme et aux multiples fraudes, sont identiques en Italie et en France qu’outre-Atlantique.

Renato Brunetta, the public-administration minister in Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative government, reckons that reforms to the public sector could add as much as 0.5% a year to economic growth.

A l’heure où l’OCDE revoit à la baisse sa prévision de croissance pour l’Italie, cette dernière passant d’un 0,5% déjà peu glorieux à un 0,1% sérieusement inquiétant, il est primordial pour l'Italie de prendre conscience de ce que pourrait apporter une telle réforme sur sa situation économique.

[Invité jabial]

Ben quoi on est entre nous non ?

Règle numéro 1 du web : ne dites rien sur le net que vous auriez honte de dire à la télé. Tout reste, et les pseudos sont un anonymat relatif qui peut se percer comme une baudruche.

Sinon concernant l'absentéisme, je préfère que le postier chiant soit pas là plutôt que de devoir me le taper au guichet.

[Jesrad]

Le seul bon fonctionnaire, c'est un fonctionnaire absent