The largest federal employee union argued Thursday that legislation making it easier to fire incompetent or negligent federal workers would lead to “bad government,” and said Congress should instead focus on “the 99% of the workforce who are doing good work.”
“Attacks on government employees and the civil service in general may make for good politics, but they make for bad government,” J. David Cox, Sr., national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told a Senate panel Thursday in his prepared testimony.
Republicans have been drafting bills for the last few years aimed at making it easier to fire federal workers, in the wake of scandals that have not resulted in many firings. But Cox said AFGE opposes these bills, and said they only reduce morale.
“Federal employees know they are punching bags,” he wrote. “Morale plummets as a continuous stream of anti-federal worker proclamations, almost all false or highly exaggerated, emanate from elected or appointed leaders who inevitably complain that the penalty for alleged wrongdoing had not been severe enough.”
“Managers need to focus on the 99% of the workforce who are doing good work, and they must be supported by agency heads and Congress,” he added. But instead, he said Congress is “focusing on how to get rid of the tiny percentage of the workforce that fails to perform or engages in misconduct.”
“So AFGE’s concern is that we are spending too much time and energy focused on less than 1% of the workforce instead of leading and managing the other 99% for success,” he said.
There are more than 4 million federal workers, and 1 percent of that total is 40,000.
Cox added that Congress and the federal government should focus on helping competent workers advance, instead of worrying about how to punish incompetent workers.
“Hiring good employees, giving them good direction and the tools to do their jobs, including a union voice to deal with concerns and provide input, empowers employees to do their job,” he said. “Good managers also need to provide positive motivation and recognition of employees for their contributions.”
He said the failure of federal workers to be fired is never because laws don’t exist allowing them to be fired, but because managers are weak. He said they either “do not want to take the time and effort to properly document poor performance and remove or demote poor performers, or because they lack the knowledge, skills, and ability to do this.”
Cox testified at a subcommittee hearing titled, “Empowering Managers: Ideas for a More Effective Federal Workforce.”
