Posted on 10/31/2020 5:22:57 AM PDT by be-baw
The Trump administration has issued a new executive order that would fundamentally restructure the federal work force, making it easier for the government to fire thousands of federal workers, while also allowing political and other considerations to affect hiring.
The executive order, issued last week, would affect the professional employees who are in policy-making positions at the very top of the civil service — people like lawyers and scientists who are are not political appointees, but serve from administration to administration regardless of which party controls the White House.
The president's order changes that, creating a new category for them — "Schedule F" — and taking away their civil service protections. In a statement that accompanied the order, the White House took aim at those protections, saying they make it too difficult for agency heads to remove "poor performers." Without the protections, the employees can be more easily replaced.
Rachel Greszler, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, which supports the order, says it's "a common sense change" to address a lack of accountability in the federal government.
"I've talked to managers in the past who say that they want to do the right thing and they want to hold workers accountable," says Greszler. "They want to get rid of the bad apples who are weighing others down and preventing the agency from carrying out its mission. But ultimately, the managers said they often gave up because they had to spend so much time and so much effort that ... it just wasn't worth it. They determined it was better to just keep these people on the payrolls and shift their job responsibilities to others. And that's a big problem."
But public employee unions say it's Trump's order that's the problem. They've said it could have a chilling effect on the more than 2 million people who make up the federal workforce — most of whom are not political appointees.
"It's a huge attack on the apolitical civil service" says Jacqueline Simon, the policy director at the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents federal workers. She says the order could mean these top positions would no longer be filled by people who have been hired through a competitive process.
"If it's implemented broadly, it could create absolute chaos in the agencies. It could be an absolute fiasco," says Simon. "Everyone's seen what happens if this administration tries to politicize scientific work. We've seen it in CDC and we've seen it in the weather service. We've seen it in EPA, we've seen it all across the agencies. Imagine every single agency undermined by political hacks."
President Trump has railed against federal workers since taking office, baselessly charging there is a deep state within the bureaucracy working to thwart his policies.
Paul Light, a professor of public service at NYU, says most recent presidents have tried to reform the federal workforce, but Trump has taken it to a new level.
"We started with a hiring freeze," he says. "We segued into a shutdown. I think the net effect is really on undermining commitment within the federal workforce and just giving feds a good Halloween scare that is likely to be overturned, but they won't forget."
Light says the net result of the order is to make a career in the federal government less appealing, at a time when many government employees are nearing retirement age.
The executive order has already led to one departure: It prompted the resignation of Ron Sanders, the chairman of the Federal Salary Council.
Sanders, a life-long Republican, says he believes the U.S. civil service is the best in the world. He warns the order could strip the government of sorely needed expertise.
"It's absolutely critical because of the complexity of that world — the laws, the rules, the regulations, the scientific theories, all of the things that go into public policy. Somebody has to understand that. You can't look at the Cliffs Notes and get it. You need people with deep technical expertise who are there regardless of party who provide neutral competence to whoever is in power."
The executive order calls on federal agencies to make a list of positions that would be affected by the new classification by January 19th, the day before Inauguration Day.
What happens next depends on who is sworn in on January 20th. It's likely that Democrat Joe Biden would overturn the order if elected. Democrats in Congress say they'll work to nullify the order, and the National Treasury Employees Union has filed a lawsuit to overturn it in court.
Why, pray tell NPR, should incompetent Federal workers not be subject to losing their jobs???
Fed workers and those in Education have been protected for waaaaay too long.This is long overdue.
This is LONG overdue. Lots of Swamp Creatures need to be pushed out.
In addition to being able to remove them, the order did away with the linear succession of federal employees. As it was, if you wanted to get rid of bad actors at the top of the department, you had to go through several layers of firing, which took time.
the laws, the rules, the regulations, the scientific theories, all of the things that go into public policy. Somebody has to understand that.
Do they mean, like, the government mandated gas cans?
Makes Firing Federal Workers Easier
It’s called draining the swamp made easier and faster.
The stage leaves for Deadwood in the morning.
Be on it!
Institutional memory isn’t all that. We finally got rid of a nonperformer who should have been gone years ago. Two offices in my larger group had some underperformers retire. In all cases they all thought they were invaluable due to institutional knowledge. None of them have been missed. In the ten months our great mind has been gone, I have needed one minor piece of “institutional knowledge” and someone else had the information.
So, making the firing of government slackers the same as for civilian slackers is a “huge attack”.
Speaks volumes.
Many Swamp Creatures are small leeches.
Dead Weight of Porn Watchers
Same where I work. The agency went into full LGBTQ overdrive and the LGBTQ people started putting up flags and posters and all other sort of rot. They want someone to complain so they can throw the whole “unsafe” and “threatened” workspace complaints at them.
And just try to fire an LGBTQ or feminist!
“the laws, the rules, the regulations, the scientific theories, all of the things that go into public policy. Somebody has to understand that.”
Only a problem because of the all indecipherable legalese lawyers have created over decades. (To require hiring more lawyers to decipher.)
Who here understands their EULAs for their app’s?
I pray Trump wins.
Got that right, but more at stake than that. All the things that put this cou try on the right path have been due to his E.O.’s. These are not real laws. If that asshole Biden gets in, stroke of the pen and its all gone in 1 Biden E.O.
Finally! Shit can actually be shoveled away now!! Excellent!
The problem is that they think they should be determining policies, not implementing the President’s policies.
You had to have 3 letters of reprimand to even be considered for separation. If you were convicted of child molestation you might have received one letter. If you stole from the government you might have been given another. I do not remembers one person in all my years of service to have been fired. You had to be a brain dead meth head repeat felony offender to be even ‘considered’ for firing. Minorities and women, forget it. Protected for life!
The idea is to do as little work as possible (or nothing) and still get a six figure income, a Cadillac health plan and a golden parachute retirement... and never have to worry about getting fired.
I had the displeasure of working as a contractor for one of the more respected .gov agencies. They've become like new arrogant royal class that's taking over our government and northern Virginia like a fkn cancer.
They need to be stopped.
Looks like a good move to me. I think that the "deep state" problem started with the Clintons.
Pretending that government workers are not apolitical makes no sense given the issues with several government agencies under Obama, and the recent Russia did it hoax.
Schedule F government employees will know their category, and will probably have opportunities to move to another position if they please.
After what I witnessed I firmly believe the government is only 25% inefficie.
Which means they could do twice the work with only half the people.
Welfare is by its own numbers only 30% efficient. So for every 100,000 spent on welfare only 30,000 makes it to a family.
Or to put it another way there is hwin full time government employee making 70K with salary and benefits for each family on welfare.
As for the Deep State Generals and Admirals, you are fired too!
PURGE PURGE PURGE get rid of the scum obama and clinton rats
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