By Brian Friel
The phrase "pay for performance" gets civil servants hot under the collar these days, as government leaders grapple with the perception that all members of the federal workforce receive the same treatment, regardless of their level of effort.
The 1883 Pendleton Act launched the current civil service system. That law's basic tenets of merit-based hiring and firing, free of partisan meddling, remain the foundation of the system 125 years later. Looking back at the debates raging in Washington in the early 1880s, one can understand why the system ended up putting so much emphasis on equal treatment.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0408/041608mm.htm
