Attention mail carriers: Bob Good wants the right to get you fired for “no cause at all”
Last week, Virginia’s Representative Bob Good joined four other members of Congress’ most radical right to introduce a bill to make all federal employees – right down to your mail carrier – “at will” employees. What does “at will” mean? The bill says that they can be fired for “good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all”! (read the actual bill here)
Why would Good and his friends want to do this? Because they want absolute loyalty from federal employees. Not loyalty to the American people who pay their salaries – but to the politicians and the political party in power.
What would it mean to be fired for “no cause at all”? Just that. Perhaps Bob Good, or a fellow politician, is angry that you haven’t contributed to his political campaign. You’re fired. Perhaps you won’t give his mail priority over other people’s. You’re fired. Perhaps he just has a friend he wants to give your job to. You’re fired. Or perhaps you have a job that gives you access to confidential, personal information and you won’t give it to him. (Never mind that that would be illegal). You’re fired.
So who wins from turning our mail carriers and other federal workers into political pawns? Politicians like Bob Good of course. Of course, as a Congressman, he could not directly hire and fire federal employees. But in return for his support and votes, he and other politicians sure could demand a lot of influence over who gets a federal job in his district. And what they have to do in order to keep that job.
Perhaps that sounds unlikely to you. After all, Americans are so used to our professional and non-political federal employee system that it is hard to imagine anything else. The truth is, however, in the !9th century our government services used to run as a political spoils system. When a new president was elected, and you were of a different party or maybe just hadn’t supported his campaign enough, you got fired! It didn’t matter how competent you were, nor whether the person replacing you was qualified. Loyalty and money were all that mattered.
Eventually, of course Americans figured out that the spoils system was not just unfair to ordinary workers, it also led to remarkably poor government service. And the non-political civil service was created.
Bob Good and his friends want to take us back to those days. Of course, they won’t say that. They will claim they only want to make employees more accountable. But the bill is very clear: anyone can get fired for any reason.
For the moment, the bill’s sponsors include only a small number of the radical right in Congress. However, if the Republicans win back Congress, it is a safe bet that this kind of legislation will jump up the priority list. And if Donald Trump is reelected in 2024, we can be sure that he will support it big-time. In fact, he already tried to use his presidential powers back in 2020 to turn 50,000 non-political federal workers into political appointees, loyal only to him!
So when you go to the polls in November, it is worth thinking about the stakes involved. Do we want our federal government employees to be forced to pledge loyalty to politicians rather than to the people who actually pay their salaries with their tax dollars?
https://roy.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/roy.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Roy%20Public%20Service%20Reform%20Act%20Text%20-%20FINAL.pdf
