ABSTRACT
Public personnel management, broadly conceived, encompasses all aspects of managing government employees, but it is especially focused on administrative structures and processes associated with employee recruitment, selection, training, development, pay, benefits, performance appraisal, discipline, and union activity. Usually, employees press their interests most effectively through associations or unions, and the relationship between the government and employee organizations, especially public employee unions, is another important dimension of public personnel management. With respect to public personnel administration, the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments are particularly important. Because these issues can arise in the employment context, the Constitution has the effect of limiting what government can do in relation to its employees. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution prohibit government from depriving any person of "life, liberty, or property without due process of law". The Fifth Amendment constrains the federal government and the Fourteenth limits powers of the states and local governments.
