The records of the Governor's Employment Relations Study Commission document the operations of the full Commission and each of four subcommittees, and consist of notices of meetings, agenda, and minutes; correspondence; financial materials; reports, including progress reports and the final report; Civil Service Employee Survey forms; and staff research materials. The dates of the records span the Commission's life, from the appointment of Commission members in March 1976 to the issuance of its final report at the end of June 1977. Some of the research materials gathered for reference purposes predate the formation of the Commission.
Records documenting the functioning of the full Commission consist of information about the formation of the Commission, including copies of Executive Order No. 33, Governor Lucey's charge to the Commission, and executive appointments of Commission members, with occasional biographical information; notices of meetings, agenda, and minutes; financial materials regarding the Commission's funding; subject correspondence pertaining to some of the Commission's major areas of concern: compensation, recruitment, selection, position analysis, certification, tenure, appeal, and employee development; and records of public hearings held in Eau Claire, Green Bay, Madison, and Milwaukee, including correspondence and copies of presentations made at the hearings. (Although the schedule for public hearings mentioned proposed hearings in Oshkosh and Superior, no paper records of such meetings were transferred with the Commission's files. However, proceedings of the Oshkosh public hearing are available on tape.) Also included are progress reports and the final report.
Each of the four subcommittees had a specific subject focus. Records of each subcommittee consist of notices of meetings and agenda, correspondence, staff papers and reports, and reference materials from other sources. A record of the proceedings of the subcommittees is incorporated into the minutes of the full Commission.
The Civil Service Employee Survey, the most comprehensive of the research gathering surveys undertaken by the Commission, consists of almost 4,000 survey forms received from classified employees and their supervisors detailing employee and supervisor attitudes about the civil service system in general and about their jobs in particular. The blind surveys received from classified employees give the following information: age; sex; race; education; military service; physical disability; time employed in Wisconsin Civil Service; reclassifications, promotions, or demotions; current job classification; bargaining unit; salary; location of job; satisfying and dissatisfying aspects of job; and detailed questions about perceptions of the Wisconsin Civil Service System, the employee's relationship with his supervisor, and suggestions for improvement of job performance and the Civil Service System in general. The blind supervisor surveys, all received from supervisors of classified employees within the University of Wisconsin System, show faculty status; administrative placement; number of classified employees supervised; length of time exercising supervisory responsibilities; assessment of employee morale and causes of satisfaction or dissatisfaction; whether employees should be dismissed or demoted and why, and supervisor's feelings about doing so; assessment of hiring and promotional processes; ways to improve work output of state employees; and comments or suggestions. Some surveys were received by the Commission too late to be included in statistical summaries.
Research materials include the notes of staff researchers, Stephen McDougal, on the history of the civil service system, 1895-1975; copies of relevant statutes; and reference materials gathered in a survey of civil service systems in California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington.
Proceedings of the meetings of the full Commission, the subcommittees, and public hearings in Eau Claire, Green Bay, Madison, Milwaukee, and Oshkosh are available on tape, which is currently unprocessed.
