Declassification of professional social workers: A personnel issue facing the human services
The author discusses the issue of declassification of professional social work positions within public service agencies. The manner in which declassification is occurring, the reasons for it, and some strategies to block the trend are presented. An underlying theme of the paper is that the core issue in declassificalion of professional social work positions is the profession's inability to define clearly its domain of expertise. From a personnel standpoint this relates to issues of job analysis and evaluation and the inability of professionals to establish the fact that their contribution to a social service agency is unique, and by implication superior, to that offered by individuals possessing different qualifications and/or experience.
Labor Relations and the Unionization Of Professional Social Workers: A Neglected Area in Social Work Education
Abstract As unionization of professional social workers increases, so will the demand to better prepare social work students for their roles as managers and employees in the collective bargaining process. This paper explores labor relations developments as they apply to the unionization of social work personnel. Current research is reviewed, and labor contracts representing personnel in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan are examined in order to identify typical contract clauses. Areas of needed research are outlined. Suggestions are made for introducing labor relations studies into the social work curriculum and a course taught at the University of Illinois is offered as an example.
Changing Patterns in the Philosophy of Management
W T HETHER he recognizes it or not, every manager has a philosophy on which he relies in doing his job. It is rarely systematic or integrated. Typically, it is contradictory and inconsistent. If he expresses it in words, the description is likely to diverge to some degree from the philosophy he reveals in practice. A moment's reflection should make clear why these things are true. Managers deal with complex problems in complex settings. As Herbert Simon points out, they cannot be objectively rational about their decisions because they cannot satisfy all of the conditions of rationality. They cannot know all of the facts about the situations they face. They cannot comprehend all of the implications of the alternatives before them, nor are they aware of the full range of possible alternatives. Their knowledge of the goals that should be served is limited and their ignorance of the full significance of these goals is manifold. If the manager is to deal at all with the problems before him, he must simplify them, put them in a context he understands, relate them to some system, however imperfect, over which he has a command. He must analyze them in terms of ideas that have meaning to him and of values that he believes in and that