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Washington, D.C.--The president of the nation's largest independent union of federal employees said today he would welcome working with the administration to more closely link pay with performance--provided federal employees are given the training, technology and opportunity they need from managers to perform more effectively.

"Federal employees are skilled men and women, confident in their abilities and willing to put their performance up for review by managers and the public alike," said President Robert M. Tobias of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). "They need to believe that performance evaluations are fair. They do not today. That can only be achieved by their involvement in the setting and implementation of performance measures," Tobias said.

He added that employees "dews r a supportive management that understands the critical responsibility it has to help create a Workplace environment where employees can use their skills. That's when it will be most appropriate to link pay with performance."

Tobias was commenting on administration ideas for changes in the civil service system, announced by Vice President Gore. and including pay-for-performance affecting both front-line employees and supervisors.

"Everyone agrees that government must have a customer service focus," Tobias said.

"The key to the successful delivery of first-class customer service is to have supervisors who understand their vital role in helping create an environment where that can occur."

Providing that kind of workplace "will go a long way" toward achieving the goal of attracting and keeping skilled and dedicated employees. "Working people have choices today," he said, "and if we want to attract and retain the best of them in the federal sector, we've got to make it a first-class work place."

NTEU, which represents more than 155,000 federal employees in 20 agencies and departments, is a leader in federal sector labor-management partnership efforts, particularly in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), where it is working with the agency on major restructuring.

Part of the IRS reform effort is a new set of "balanced measures" of agency performance, calling for ongoing reviews of customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and business results. Vice President Gore used similar language in opening a two-day international conference on reinventing government, calling for a "balanced set of measures," with respect to agency evaluation of managers, including those in the Senior Executive Service.

Tobias said the proposed IRS measures, which will generate customer and employee surveys and both qualitative and quantitative business results data, "could well serve as a model" for the changes in civil service under discussion within the administration, particularly in addressing the concerns of employees.

At the same time, he said, listening to those concerns is only one part of the equation. "For there to be meaningful change in the quality and delivery of governmental services, there must be a systematic way for managers not just to listen, but to be held accountable for implementing change and fostering the kind of work environment that is essential to this goal."