<p>And at this point, this thread is pretty much officially off topic.</p>
<p>Maybe all those private sector employees would like to have the same job security as many government employees <a href=“http://chiefhro.com/2014/06/25/youre-fired-and-other-federal-management-fantasies/”>http://chiefhro.com/2014/06/25/youre-fired-and-other-federal-management-fantasies/</a></p>
<p>Did you even read your own link? I have no idea who that blogger is, but s/he argues that making it easier to fire government workers would not solve any problems. So I guess that means that you think job security is a bad thing and everyone should live in perpetual fear of losing their job for no reason?</p>
<p>Government workers are easy scapegoats, but if you have a problem with the way public agencies are run, you need to go to the top to try to fix that. And guess what: since they are public agencies, you actually have the right and the power to do that! Isn’t accountability an amazing thing?</p>
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<p>And there’s a catch-22 involved as if there weren’t great pension plans and benefits offered to compensate for the lower than what some professionals could get in the private sector or providing a higher overall salary to compete with the private sector, then you end up with the self-fulfilling prophesy that only the mediocre job applicants/professionals would go for civil service jobs.</p>
<p>Going back to the thread topic, the bashing of public sector workers, especially those in the civil service and K-12 teachers was already pretty bad when I was going through junior high/high school as I witnessed firsthand while volunteering as a translator for parent-teacher conferences in junior high/high school in the late '80s-early-mid '90s. </p>
<p>The parents who were the most vociferous in criticizing teachers and putting them down tended to be professionals like medical doctors, corporate executives, lawyers, etc…and they were quite proud to trump their “I’m a [“better” professional/person] than you” by virtue of their profession in a very pompous tone during those conferences. </p>
<p>Most of my HS classmates…especially those who were in the top half or more of the class saw or heard about all of this and concluded the following. If this is the amount of disrespectful BS we’d have to put up with from parents…especially those from “higher professions” like medicine, law, or business after college and grad school, no thank you. The few exceptions I know of are made of far sterner stuff than most, especially some of those very same peanut gallery folks on this very thread. </p>
<p>In short, heavy criticism to the point of bashing certain class of professionals does have an influence on how students in HS/college perceive and consider possible career paths…or whether they’d even pursue them. </p>
<p>It also influences whether some stay in such professions after a few years. One factor I’ve heard for many teachers leaving before their first five years was the negative working conditions such as frequent public criticism of their entire profession by politicians, MSM, and parents like the ones I saw at the parent-teacher conferences. </p>
<p>That link talked about how hard it is to fire incompetent federal employees., with specific reference to the VA fiasco. There are plenty of other articles on how hard it is to get rid of government workers. That said, its getting harder for corporate america to get rid of some problem employees. Despite volumes of documentation of unacceptable performance and HR intervention and action plans and such of truly subpar employees, some of these employees claim discrimination or hostile workplace environment or what have you to push back and hang on. What happened to work ethic… sigh. </p>
<p>No, that link talked about how the fact that it’s hard to fire federal employees is not actually the problem that you think it is. </p>
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<p>And the reason for all those regulations in the first place is because some employers in the past have discriminated against certain employees and deliberately created hostile work environments to discourage advancement or to create a plausible justifiable pretext for terminating them and precedent were set by cases where courts found those accusations were warranted and proven. </p>
<p>When labor lawsuits occur, courts do need to ascertain whether it was really the employee who was totally responsible for sub-par performance or whether the employer contributed to it in whole or even in part due to deliberate policies/actions/omissions or even non-deliberate ones if there’s negligence or there’s demonstrated evidence of disparate impact against certain groups. </p>
<p>“If a private industry company wants to give their employees massive pensions, create mounds of busy work, be inefficient, earn salaries not commensurate with their work, it doesn’t affect the consumer too much.”</p>
<p>Sorry, bus, respectfully disagree!!! When private co’s compensate their workforce, it comes out of their bottom line, and if the price elasticity allows it, it gets passed onto the consumer. It is one thing to pay $500 for a phone, it is totally another to pay nosebleeding electricity bills because of the Enron’s shenanigans!</p>
<p>Well thats obvious (post 106). There are surely legitimate complaints. But there are also many cases of abuse of the system and HR departments who dont want to deal with time and hassle of lawsuits or EEOC complaints, no matter how frivolous they may be, and the departments are strongly encouraged to just put up with the deadwood.</p>
<p>Do you prefer this reference, dusty <a href=“Firing Government Employees Is Too Hard; the Constitution Intended for It to Be Easier - Competitive Enterprise Institute”>http://cei.org/blog/firing-government-employees-too-hard-constitution-intended-it-be-easier</a> </p>
<p>or this one <a href=“http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-low-performing-government-employee-20130524”>http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-low-performing-government-employee-20130524</a> </p>
<p>or this one <a href=“Some federal workers more likely to die than lose jobs - USATODAY.com”>http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-07-18-fderal-job-security_n.htm</a> these are but a few</p>
<p>if first link does not work try this <a href=“Firing Government Employees Is Too Hard; the Constitution Intended for It to Be Easier - Competitive Enterprise Institute”>http://cei.org/blog/firing-government-employees-too-hard-constitution-intended-it-be-easier</a></p>
<p>jym, it is not a piece of cake to fire a deadweight employee at a private company, either, especially when the times are good. My friend can tell horror stories of what it takes to get rid of some unfortunate hires (nope, none are bound by a contract, all at will). BTW, I have not stepped into a DMV in ages, are they still as bad as they used to be?</p>
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<p>Or the deadweight employee is highly favored by the owner/senior management for personal/social reasons…such as being the idiot nephew/niece of the owner or one of the favored senior execs or a favored golfing buddy of them. </p>
<p>No cobrat. Maybe thats true for you and your many cousins, but in my and BB’s example the employee is dead wood and a useless employee that is not favored by anyone. He is a drain and a waste of airspace. </p>
<p>Agree BB Its getting really hard to get rid of problem employees. That said, at some places here, there have become standard weekly layoffs. </p>
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<p>Presumably because the employer was afraid of a lawsuit claiming that the reason for termination was an illegal one?</p>
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<p>BB was citing how it’s just as hard to fire deadweight employees in private companies…especially in good times. </p>
<p>I was just adding another well-known factor to reinforce her/his point. And that factor is actually much easier to carry out in privately owned firms as the owners aren’t as accountable to outside accountability from say…investors in publicly traded firms or civil service rules. </p>
<p>Ucb, there are many reasons employers pause before firing someone. Possibility of a (meritless) lawsuit, leakage of confidential info, fear of retaliation, etc. Chances are slim that the lawsuit would have any merits, but it is a lawsuit nonetheless and can drain more resources than the dead wood employee…</p>
<p>And I’ve seen a fair share of cousins/golf buddies/bed buddies kept employed, as cobrat mentioned. :)</p>
<p>“Sorry, bus, respectfully disagree!!! When private co’s compensate their workforce, it comes out of their bottom line, and if the price elasticity allows it, it gets passed onto the consumer. It is one thing to pay $500 for a phone, it is totally another to pay nosebleeding electricity bills because of the Enron’s shenanigans!”</p>
<p>That’s true, Bunsen. I think I did say somewhere that the customer and the shareholders pay for it. Though you can choose to not buy their product or use their services. And that includes electricity, too. I say that in all seriousness. My parents pay for minimal electricity, and knowing them, if they really wanted…could do without that too. They have not had heat (nor air conditioning, of course) throughout their house for over 50 years. In Seattle. They did, however, put a water heater in a couple of rooms, finally. Though my Dad won’t use them. But I refuse to do that, and I certainly don’t recommend it for anyone else!</p>
<p>There are certainly businesses that do seem so entangled with government, that they seem like another arm of it (like utility companies). And tax breaks galore for the favored business,</p>
<p>Just one example of how hard it is to fire a govt employee–when I was in the Air Force, the commanders secretary only showed up about half of her shifts, and sometimes she was stoned. It made things so difficult for the office, because someone else would have to fill in and not do their job, not knowing what she had done the day prior. This went on for YEARS. The commander said he had to have years of documentation, and he obviously could not stand her, but by the time I left, she still hadn’t been fired. He was a tough guy and would have done it if he could. Any of us in the military would have been in Ft Leavenworth (prison) for this, years prior. I understand private companies being afraid of lawsuits, but there’s a difference between being unable to fire someone for any possible offense, and being afraid to.</p>
<p>“BTW, I have not stepped into a DMV in ages, are they still as bad as they used to be”</p>
<p>It depends. I maintain a car in a different state than where I live, in the mid South, and it was awful. They finally started allowing out of state residents to renew online, thankfully. Every year I’d go to the DMV, and sit in the lobby for hours, while the women who worked there chatted with each other, laughing and having a great time, while ignoring the customers. Then when they’d eventually take a customer, they were clueless and worked very slowly, talking to you in a sullen manner, being annoyed that they’re actually having to work.</p>
<p>But in the Seattle area DMVs I’ve been to, it was crowded, you had to wait a long time, but they were polite and working hard. The last couple of years I’ve been into DMV for whatever reason, they were trying to get people through quickly. I am impressed with their efficiency.</p>
<p>I think when people use a govt service that they’re forced to use, and people are sullen and incompetent, barely willing to do their job, they are annoyed. We are very happy (and surprised) when the service is good. I have been pleased with every govt employee I have dealt with in this state. They seem to care, and they work very hard and have pride in what they do.</p>
<p>The VA with which I am personally familiar is a total mess. As a nurse, trying to get help from aides who had no desire to help you, and told you so to your face, was extremely frustrating. They would laugh and everyone would put up with it, because it was almost impossible to get them fired. They spent more time in the cafeteria than all the nurses on General Hospital combined in any given hour. </p>
<p>Now, I can say the above without meaning that all government employees are awful or that all of them should be fired, or that all government entities are full of lazy miscreants. </p>
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Follow jym’s advice and try to dial back your persecution complex. </p>