# Why is it so hard to fire a govt employee? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 27, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701 "2010-06-27T19:22:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/21 "2010-06-28T01:45:09Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > And if it is true that they can be easily fired, why is the federal government willing to spend more money on contractors than the equivalent number federal workers? Because if that program gets canceled, they can just drop the contractor. Well, if federal employees are just as easy to hire and fire, why can’t they just do that? The answer is, that it is not as easy to hire and fire federal employees. Because hiring contractors lets the government claim to be cutting positions and saving money, even though contractors actually cost more than federal workers and are less efficient, while at the same time destroying the institutional history of the federal agencies, and because of the stereotype that the private sector is always more efficient than the government. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/22 "2010-06-28T02:16:25Z")
From what I’ve seen, the problem with firing a government employee is managers don’t have the balls to make the decision to fire people. Firing requires documentation and accountability, and it’s simply much easier to look the other way. The only time I’ve seen people fired is when they threatened someone physically. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/23 "2010-06-28T02:51:45Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Government workers are protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which forbid the government’s depriving any person of “life, liberty or property” without due process of law. Since an employee has a “property interest,” in his job, due process concerns place limits on dismissals of any kind. > > So, legally, there is a difference betwen the “at will” employment of a private employer and the employment by the government. I don’t think so. Any “property interest” in employment is exactly the same for a private as for a public employee. Has any court ever ruled otherwise? ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/24 "2010-06-28T03:31:03Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I don’t think so. Any “property interest” in employment is exactly the same for a private as for a public employee. Has any court ever ruled otherwise? You may be right. I suspect **Bricker** ’s point was that the US Constitution only relevantly protects people from _government_ deprivation of property, so the issue only arises when it is the government who is the employer. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/25 "2010-06-28T03:48:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > How about this fact: in absolute terms, the procedures required to fire a private employee for cause are not typically onerous. Different companies may have different policies, but in general, there is not a huge amount of documentation required, and no “appeal” process after the firing. > > In the government world, there is a somewhat lengthier process. Government workers are protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which forbid the government’s depriving any person of “life, liberty or property” without due process of law. Since an employee has a “property interest,” in his job, due process concerns place limits on dismissals of any kind. > > So, legally, there is a difference betwen the “at will” employment of a private employer and the employment by the government. If an employment contract is the same as a property interest, then a private sector boss who terminates that contract is also depriving the employee of his property interest (private citizens aren’t allowed to violate each other’s property rights)\*. So the private sector boss shouldn’t be able to do it either. It should be nigh impossible for the private sector to do that, anymore than it’s easy for private citizens to deprive others of their lives or their liberty. Those amendments give extraordinary powers to the State while placing limits on how those powers may be utilised. They shouldn’t be interpreted to mean : “Everyone can do this, except that the State must use this procedure” but rather “Only the State may do this, using this procedure”. That bit about depriving people of property doesn’t concern employment contracts but is put there to curtail abuses linked to expropriation (e.g.: eminent domain). It would be very surprising if a judicial or quasi-judicial process were required to fire every employee. \*Here, I’m excluding the necessity defense and other rare exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/26 "2010-06-28T03:56:52Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Because hiring contractors lets the government claim to be cutting positions and saving money, even though contractors actually cost more than federal workers and are less efficient, while at the same time destroying the institutional history of the federal agencies, and because of the stereotype that the private sector is always more efficient than the government. As always, anecdotes are not data, and I know every gov’t agency is different and every contractor is different. But ON AVERAGE, the contractors I know work harder (in most cases much harder) than their gov’t civilian coutnerparts. The news stories where a slimy contractor bilked millions from the government and produced very little makes great news stories. The news stories of dozens of gov’t workers sitting around on their butts all day does not make catchy newspaper headlines. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/27 "2010-06-28T04:43:43Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > As always, anecdotes are not data, and I know every gov’t agency is different and every contractor is different. But ON AVERAGE, the contractors I know work harder (in most cases much harder) than their gov’t civilian coutnerparts. Since we’re sharing anecdotes, I know that, dealing with the agency that I dealt with most, the FCC, I found that on average, contractors had less autonomy and less knowledge of procedures and history, and also, since contracts were always being relet every few years, it was hard to develop and maintain relationships with contractors. You’d get to know somebody, you’d get a contact, and then there’d be a new contractor for the service, and you’d have to learn a whole new set of procedures and get to know a whole new person. So it might be that contractors work harder, but in my experience, civil service employees work smarter. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/28 "2010-06-28T04:53:34Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > There sort of are. There are a few primary government unions: The American Federation of Government Employees, which has about 600,000 members, the American Federation of State, Municipal, and County Employees, which has about 1.4 million employees, , and two teachers unions, the National Education Association (3.2 million people, but not all are gov’t employees), and the American Federation of Teachers (856,000 members, not all gov’t employees). There are also some smaller ones, like the California School Employees Association (230,000 people, all in CA), the American Postal Workers Union (330,000 people), the International Association of Fire Fighters (280,000 in the US and Canada), the National Association of Letter Carriers (300,000 people), the National Postal Mail Handlers Association (50,000 people), The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (15,000), the National Treasury Employees Union, 150,000 people), and a few other unions. > > So the government is pretty well unionized. But by-and-large those “Unions” really aren’t Unions as we think of them, the employees can’t strike etc. My Bro was with the Nat’l Treasury Employees Union, and basicly it could not do anything at all if a employee was fired or otherwise mistreated. Gov’t employees need a form of tenure, otherwise you’d have firing for political reasons. If the GOP gets in, anyone who donated to the Dems or anything could just be fired. or the other way around. Note that generally, in the USA (ianal, ymmv) you can be fired without cause, in other words, other than for a few non-nos (race, sex, religion, etc) they can fire you for no reason. It’s been my experience that the gov’t is just a very very large company, and as companies get larger, you find more slow rude or bad employees. What’s your service been like from the Phone company or the Utility co? Or WalMart? Or- a perfect example, the Cable company.:mad: ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/29 "2010-06-28T04:57:51Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > And government management doesn’t have any concept of profit to lose. They only have payroll costs. From their management perspective, the right number of employees is the quantity that just barely keeps some customer from opening fire in frustration in the lobby every day. So understaffing to the point of delivering crap service is the optimal thing to do. > > So that’s what they do. The same logic works all the way up the chain. > . Not really, governments work just like large companies. As companies get larger it is true that individual customer service gets less and less important. But what both the execs for large companies and govt managers want is less complaints. So they provide just enough service to keep the complaints to a acceptable level. However, yes, it is true that if you don;t like Burger King you can switch to McD’s. It gets harder to do that with utilities, however. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/30 "2010-06-28T05:05:23Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > The “civil servants” that we interact with definitely operate under the premise that the more meetings we have the better. The motto is “CYA” and “indecisiveness never got anyone fired.” > I’m under the assumption that they can be this way because of the OP’s premise- that they won’t be fired. Why this is, I do not know. I do get the impression that in the federal government, you do not get a lot of incentive for working really hard or getting a lot done. Because of this, why should you work hard if the slob next door gets the same promotions as you will? > > And if it is true that they can be easily fired, why is the federal government willing to spend more money on contractors than the equivalent number federal workers? Because if that program gets canceled, they can just drop the contractor. Well, if federal employees are just as easy to hire and fire, why can’t they just do that? The answer is, that it is not as easy to hire and fire federal employees. Not true, see although it is hard to fire a gov’t employee, it’s not hard to give them a ration of shit, keep them from being promoted, etc. You don;t get rewarded for good work so much as you get in trouble for fucking up. Thus, you don’t want to fuck up. As you get larger and larger in a company (see Dilbert for examples) meetings become a way of deferring or spreading any blame if things go wrong. Some politicians prefer contractors to civil servants as you can get companies like Blackwater and Haliburton to donate huge sums for your re-election coffers and also offer you a cushy job if you get voted out. It has almost nothing to do with getting better service done cheaper, it’s almost entirely patronage and corruption. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/31 "2010-06-28T06:34:58Z")
> [@JUlrey](#): > > I didn’t think there were. And I appreciate the depth of your comments, but essentially what I’m trying to ascertain is: exactly why are govt employees so slow and inept? Y… you walk into a post office - doesn’t matter which one, or in what city - the line always seems to exist precisely BECAUSE of the clerk’s shiftlessness. Utter bullshit. My local post office is terrific. My local DMV runs just fine. I was in and out of there the other day in 1/2 hour when I needed to replace my license. Private businesses are not better run, and they have different goals than government. When dealing with customer service in private business they seem to have the philosophy that if they make it difficult enough you might just give up. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/32 "2010-06-28T06:37:31Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > From what I’ve seen, the problem with firing a government employee is managers don’t have the balls to make the decision to fire people. Firing requires documentation and accountability, and it’s simply much easier to look the other way. The only time I’ve seen people fired is when they threatened someone physically. And that is different than private business how? ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/33 "2010-06-28T06:46:26Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > How about this fact: in absolute terms, the procedures required to fire a private employee for cause are not typically onerous. Different companies may have different policies, but in general, there is not a huge amount of documentation required, and no “appeal” process after the firing. > > In the government world, there is a somewhat lengthier process. Government workers are protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which forbid the government’s depriving any person of “life, liberty or property” without due process of law. Since an employee has a “property interest,” in his job, due process concerns place limits on dismissals of any kind. > > So, legally, there is a difference betwen the “at will” employment of a private employer and the employment by the government. This sounds absolutely moronic. Do you have anything at all to back this up? And, BTW, large companies _do_ require a huge amount of documentation to fire someone, and they often do have an “appeal” process after the firing. Companies fear wrongful termination suits and are very careful to make sure that promotions, hiring, and firing are not biased against women, minorities, and the disabled. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/34 "2010-06-28T13:28:33Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > This sounds absolutely moronic. Do you have anything at all to back this up? [http://www.lectlaw.com/files/emp08.htm](http://www.lectlaw.com/files/emp08.htm) From ACLU Briefing Paper 12: > [@](#): > > The vast majority of American employees, of whom there are 100 million in all, are governed by a doctrine called “employment at will.” This doctrine, a relic of 19th century anti-labor laws, gives employers the unfettered right to fire workers at any time, for any reason, whether grave or frivolous. Indeed, one can be fired for no reason at all. An estimated 200,000 employees at least, are unjustly fired in the United States each year. . . . > > Does the employment-at-will doctrine apply to all employees? > > No. There are three broad categories of employees who are not governed by employment at-will: > > Government employees: Federal, state and local government workers are protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which prohibit the government from depriving any person of “life, liberty or property” without due process of law. These employees are considered to have a property interest in their jobs, and the right to due process places significant restrictions on arbitrary dismissals unrelated to job performance. Some additional protection is provided by federal, state and local civil service laws. > > Union members . . . . > > Contract employees . . . ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/35 "2010-06-28T13:35:27Z")
> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#): > > You may be right. I suspect **Bricker** ’s point was that the US Constitution only relevantly protects people from _government_ deprivation of property, so the issue only arises when it is the government who is the employer. That would make it an eminent-domain question, and I’ve never heard of a civil servant raising an eminent-domain defense to being fired. (If it **did** apply, that would raise the question of how large the severance package would have to be, to constitute “just compensation” under the Fifth Amendment.) ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/36 "2010-06-28T13:55:33Z")
My quick, reasonably informed opinion: It really is harder in general to fire government employees (and more so as you go up the chain from local to state to federal). The system is designed this way to prevent patronage hires and politically motivated firings; generally works pretty well for the latter and somewhat for the former. What adds to this effect is that government agencies rarely go through the same kinds of contractions that private businesses do – a store or division gets closed down and the best employees are offered jobs elsewhere in the company while the weaker employees are just laid off. This doesn’t happen in government. And it’s true that government employees are really rewarded more for not screwing up than for being quick and efficient (at the cost of occasional mistakes). Blame yourself as much as anyone else – unless of course you’ve written or spoken to your newspaper or elected representative defending a government agency for making a minor mistake, explicitly saying that it’s worth it to you as a taxpayer to get occasional mistakes as a cost of efficiency. Private boards of directors generally see that view, but the board of directors of the government (that’s you the voter) rarely express it. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/37 "2010-06-28T14:52:02Z")
> [@JUlrey](#): > > And I appreciate the depth of your comments, but essentially what I’m trying to ascertain is: exactly why are govt employees so slow and inept? You walk into a gas station and there’s a line, the clerk is typically trying to speed things along as fast as he/she is able; you walk into a post office - doesn’t matter which one, or in what city - the line always seems to exist precisely BECAUSE of the clerk’s shiftlessness. I, too, disagree with your premise here. Our local post office, for example, goes out of their way to be helpful, and clerks will buzz for someone to open a window as soon as there are three people in line. The back room is filled with “best service in the region” banners, and the employees take pride in the office. This may be because it’s a small town and they know most of the customers. It may be because the post office is competing hard against UPS, FedEx, and their ilk. I don’t know why it is, but I have no complaints about them. Compare with the clerk at the gas station where I stopped the other day. Pulling minimum wage while shopping for a better job. She couldn’t care less about her job, and it showed. The plural of anecdote isn’t data, so my experiences mean no more than yours, but I would say that in my experience government workers care no more or less than private sector workers about their jobs. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/38 "2010-06-28T15:02:23Z")
One thing sort of glossed over in this thread is that there are many categories of government employees, so when making a certain point it helps to be specific about the government service you’re talking about: [ul] [li]Local, state, or federal government?[/li][li]Customer-service government service, behind-the-scenes government office staff, or something else?[/li][li]Is there necessarily an adversarial relationship between the government worker in question and the “customer” (e.g. OSHA inspectors)?[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/39 "2010-06-28T15:09:10Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That would make it an eminent-domain question, and I’ve never heard of a civil servant raising an eminent-domain defense to being fired. (If it **did** apply, that would raise the question of how large the severance package would have to be, to constitute “just compensation” under the Fifth Amendment.) It’s not that part of the fifth amendment. It’s “No person . . . shall. . .be deprived of . . . property without due process of law.”, not the eminent domain clause. See Cleveland Board of Education v Loudermill. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/40 "2010-06-28T15:59:20Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > This sounds absolutely moronic. Do you have anything at all to back this up? Assuming my post isn’t acceptable as my cite? Is **Captain Amazing** ’s post acceptable? If not, I could point you to _Cleveland Bd. of Ed. v. Loudermill_, 470 US 532 (1985): \* > [@Supreme Court](#): > > The right to due process “is conferred, not by legislative grace, but by constitutional guarantee. While the legislature may elect not to confer a property interest in [public] employment, it may not constitutionally authorize the deprivation of such an interest, once conferred, without appropriate procedural safeguards.” Good discussions also in _Board of Regents v. Roth_, 408 U. S. 564 (1972), and Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593 (1972). - ETA – I see **Captain Amazing** has also cited this case. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701.md?page=3)