Federal Agencies Urged to Use Temporary Help

The Reagan Administration, citing “disturbing growth” in the number of career government employees, directed federal agencies Wednesday to hire temporary workers when possible, a move denounced by unions as weakening the quality of government.

Donald J. Devine, director of the Office of Personnel Management, called the use of temporary employees a cost-effective way to deal with workload peaks. Temporary employees get fewer benefits and are easier to dismiss.

Devine said the change that he ordered to increase the government’s hiring of temporary employees is “a simple management decision” to use a tool common in private industry.

Critics of the new policy said it could be abused for political patronage because it allows agencies to keep high-level employees on a temporary basis for four years or more.

The new rules double the length of time for which temporary employees may be hired, permitting renewal of annual appointments up to a maximum of four years.

In filling eligible job slots with temporary employees, the rules allow agencies to bypass lists of job applicants who have been screened by a written test or other evaluation of their education and experience.

Loretta Ucelli, assistant to the president of the 700,000-member American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, said: “The United States government is the largest employer in the free world. Are you going to run that government like a mom-and-pop shop or run it like a model institution with a quality work force that’s trained and dedicated?”

Devine’s letter to heads of departments and independent agencies said: “Recent trends in agency staffing show a disturbing growth in full-time permanent employment at the expense of temporary, part-time and intermittent staffing. Automatically filling every position with a career-conditional employee makes little sense when operations are being cut back.