Trump's Orders

I noticed President Trump did three things yesterday, which should have been on President Bush and President Obama's list.  All had to do with government employees.

The first episode....he issued an executive order to make it easier to 'let go' (fire) poor performing government employees.  The second episode creates a federal labor relations working board to review union contracts with the federal government. The wording would make it hard for federal unions to appeal firings and to lobby Congress.  The third?  It's an executive order that says you were hired to do a job, and if you are some union chief or union boss...you can only spend 25-percent of your time in that function.  The rest must be regular work.  Part of this order also says that unions existing in federal office spaces....need to pay for it.

All will be challenged in court, but likely to stand.

As I came into the Air Force in 1977.....one of the things you noticed after a year of activity was that some civilians that were employed by the Air Force....were losers.  Unlike the military where you could discharge them or punish them in some way.....you were limited in your actions.

Toward the end of my career with the military, we had this vacancy in a civilian slot that had to be filled within the organization.  They brought this gal in from the states to fill the job.  Within 90 days, it became obvious that she had an attitude problem and refused to take on any new work. Trying to change her job description?  It was next to impossible and the union folks continually pushed back.  I sat and watched her boss try to understand this behavior because they hadn't ever had a 'loser'.   Over the course of three years, in terms of productive work?  I'd take a guess that she never did more than 400 man-hours a year of anything productive.  That means nine months of an average year were just fake work, or unproductive. 

How many poor performers exist within the federal government?  I would take a guess that more than 100,000 individuals exist.  The Trump order?  I might take a guess that within the next year.....at least 2,000 of such individuals will be brought in and the Trump-order will be used to force them out.  As you get into 2020....you might actually see ten-thousand individuals shown the front door.  In some ways, it might change the landscape. 

The problem I see is that it'll all be forced back into court action....but if the government wins 90-percent of their cases....eventually the loser crowd will give up on legal challenges.

The other problem is....if you got fired by the US government, it's a bit hard to find anyone wanting to hire you.  You might actually push yourself into a burger-flipper career.