Bureaucrats have a bad reputation. In the West, 40% of citizens distrust higher level civil servants to do what is right for the country and globally, just short of 50% have no confidence in their civil service, according to World Values Survey. Eventually, anti-bureaucrat sentiments may hurt the public’s faith in government, the morale of employees who remain, and the prospects that a new generation will enter public service.

In this paper, we study to what extent unions representing bureaucrats are able to counter this deep skepticism. Specifically, we implement a field experiment in Denmark, ranked in the top-2% on government effectiveness by the World Bank and the least corrupt bureaucracy according to Transparency International. Despite this, one-in-three Danes distrust civil servants to do what is best for the country; a number that has increased 60% between 2006 and 2016. First, we show experimental effects of antibureaucratic sentiment on the motivation of current, and selection into civil service for future, bureaucrats. Second, on this backdrop, we conduct a field experiment investigating to what extent a union campaign can improve the public reputation of bureaucrats. In collaboration with Djøf, the main union for bureaucrats in Denmark, we randomize the implementation of (thus, exposure to) a flyer information campaign, called "More In Common", to be rolled out across Denmark in February 2022 and illustrating the tasks of bureaucrats. We measure outcomes in a separate household survey. A pilot survey experiment (n=2,065), suggests that the lack of personal experience with bureaucrats drives dissatisfaction.