The
federal government requires structural reform. Because it is very expensive and
time-consuming to fire anyone, bad behavior is not just tolerated but
propagated. Civil Service protections originally intended to guard against a
politicized bureaucracy have now become guarantors of the high-handedness and
lack of accountability we saw with Lois Lerner, now retired with a six-figure
pension after pleading the Fifth Amendment.
Government
employee unions have become a mainstay of the Democratic Party, with employee
dues, harvested from taxpayers via salaries, laundered into the party’s
coffers. So the Democrats will fight like hell, up to and including a
filibuster, mass demonstrations, and possible violence. Donald Trump will
need to persuade the public, and mobilize public opinion against those Democrat
senators who resist the reform movement. There are 23 Democrat senators up for
re-election in 2018, and some of them must be made to get very nervous.
I
would suggest beginning with a bill to fire any federal employee who takes the
Fifth Amendment with regard to behavior related to duties in office. The
Democrats will cry that the Fifth Amendment is a constitutionally guaranteed right,
so no retaliation is possible, of course. But there is a well-known
precedent to the contrary: breath or blood tests for drivers suspected of
driving under the influence. They retain their right to not incriminate
themselves, but in most states they lose their drivers license. That license is
not a right. And neither is a federal job.
Lois
Lerner is the ideal object lesson to close the argument. She persecuted
ordinary Americans and got away with it.
Donald
Trump has pledged not to fire people, but rather rely on attrition with the
federal workforce, but that does not mean tolerating misbehavior. Firing for
cause is always an option. And Trump’s most famous catchphrase used to be
“You’re fired” before it morphed into “Make America Great Again.”
Real
change in the behavior of federal employees will require what organizational
change experts call “unfreezing.” This means that old habits and assumptions
must be broken. Nothing works better than fear.
The Inspectors
General of the various federal bureaucracies are a huge asset, one
that Barack Obama has tried to neutralize. The IG corps ought to be beefed up,
and they need to be given the resources to go after corruption and
incompetence. Armed with the power to fire people, after a few prominent
malefactor bureaucrats lose their sinecures, behavior will start changing.
But
negative incentives like firing are only half the story. They are very useful
for getting people’s attention and willingness to change, but positive
incentives have a large role to play. This will require further re-design of
civil service laws.
While
government bureaucracies don’t have a profit or loss bottom line, they do have
goals to which they can be held accountable. Costs are the obvious place to
start, with incentives for bureaucrats who save money for the taxpayers.
How about cash bonuses for identifying and eliminating waste?
There
are many other sorts of factors that can be quantified and rewarded. But it is
a complicated and risky matter, something not to be enacted without long and
careful thought. As a consultant, I worked with some very large corporations on
the issue of incentives. A direct link between reward and a certain numerical
goal usually means that people will be very creative in getting to that number,
often confounding the intentions of the designer of the rewards. “Be careful
what you measure and reward, because you may not like what you get,” is a
message I have repeated many times.
So,
the initial focus has to be on cost saving. Legislation should be introduced to
authorize cash rewards to federal employees who save money. This would
put Democrats in the position of opposing rewards to those who save taxpayers’
money if they want to fight reform.
Then
there is the nuclear option: de-unionize federal employees.
The
supreme irony of President Obama’s “I’ve got a pen, I’ve got a phone”
exultation of executive orders is that President Trump could ban federal employees
from union membership with an executive order.
No
less than the Federal
Labor Relations Authority reminds us:
…on January 17, 1962, Federal employees first obtained the right
to engage in collective bargaining through labor organizations when President
John F. Kennedy issued Executive
Order 10988, "Employee-Management Cooperation in the Federal Sector." Executive
Order 10988 issued as result of the findings of the Task Force on
Employee-Management Relations in the Federal Service, which was created by
a memorandum issued to all executive department and agency heads by President
Kennedy on June 22, 1961. In this memorandum the President noted that,
"The participation of employees in the formation and implementation of
employee policy and procedures affecting them contributes to the effective
conduct of public business," and that this participation should be
extended to representatives of employees and employee organizations.
Executive
orders giveth, and executive orders taketh away.
Scott
Walker and the GOP-led legislature in Wisconsin enacted limits on collective
bargaining by government employees, survived recalls, and helped Trump take
Wisconsin last night. Civil service reform is popular.
Sure
the Democrats and unions will scream bloody murder, but they can be reminded
that FDR, the founder of the modern Democratic Party, argued
against collective bargaining for government employees. When Scott
Walker enacted limits in Wisconsin, he cited FDR. Politifact examined
his claims and supported them:
The president’s Aug. 16, 1937
correspondence with Luther C. Steward, the president of the National
Federation of Federal Employees, is bluntly worded -- to say the least.
Roosevelt was responding to
an invitation to attend the organization’s 20th jubilee convention.
In the letter, FDR says
groups such as NFFE naturally organize to present their views to supervisors.
Government workers, he observed, want fair pay, safe working conditions and
review of grievances just like private-industry workers.
Organizations of government
employees "have a logical place in Government affairs," he wrote.
But Roosevelt then shifted
gears, emphasizing that "meticulous attention should be paid to the
special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself
and to the Government."
Then, the most-famous line
and the one directly on point to Walker’s comment:
"All Government
employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually
understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," he wrote.
"It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public
personnel management."
Roosevelt didn’t stop there.
"The very nature and
purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to
represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government
employee organizations," he wrote.
When Walker claimed FDR said
"the government is the people," he had Roosevelt’s next line in mind.
"The employer,"
Roosevelt’s letter added, "is the whole people, who speak by means of laws
enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative
officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances
restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel
matters."
Roosevelt concluded with a
strong stance against strikes by unions representing government workers, noting
that NFFE’s bylaws rejected strikes.
The letter, the FDR Presidential
Library site points out, was released publicly by the Roosevelt White
House and became the administration's "official position" on collective
bargaining and federal government employees.
Roosevelt had previously
laid out his views on public-sector unions at a July 9, 1937 news
conference.
His statements there add
more weight to Walker’s claim.
A reporter directly asked
Roosevelt "whether he favored government employees joining unions to the
extent of collective bargaining with the government."
Roosevelt’s response made
clear he thought managers should listen to worker concerns, whether raised by
union representatives or not. Federal workers are free to join "any union
they want," he said.
But he recalled that in
1913, when he was Navy assistant secretary, he told a union official the Navy
would not enter into a contract with the union because it had no discretion
under federal law.
"The pay is fixed by
Congress and the workmen are represented by the members of Congress in the
fixing of Government pay," Roosevelt said.
His thinking then still
applied, Roosevelt told the reporters in 1937.
At the end of news
conference, Roosevelt was asked, after making the point that Congress sets
compensation: "In other words, you would not have the representatives of
the majority as the sole bargaining agents?"
Roosevelt: "Not in the
government, because there is no collective contract. It is a very different
case. There isn’t any bargaining, in other words, with the government,
therefore the question does not arise."
Taken together, the letter
and news conference remarks positioned Roosevelt as deeply skeptical of the
need and wisdom of collective bargaining power for unions in the federal
system.
When he wrote that the
unique circumstances would make it "impossible" for government
officials to make a binding deal on behalf of the government, that didn’t leave
a lot of ambiguity.
This
is a fight worth waging and winning. The public does not like federal
bureaucrats. With thw White House and Congress in GOP hands, now is the time to
make lasting reforms that will, coincidentally, weaken the Demcorats
financially.
