# 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:** 3
**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, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/41 "2010-06-28T16:01:05Z")
> [@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.) No, it’s a Due Process claim. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/42 "2010-06-28T16:34:57Z")
I thought employment in a government job was regarded as a liberty interest not a property interest. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/43 "2010-06-28T17:01:52Z")
The byzantine process is what makes government employees hard to fire. Some employees take advantage of this, most don’t. I know someone who worked at a government office that was having a problem with racial slurs being used in the office. The office head called a meeting and said that it would not be tolerated and that if he found out who it was and they were a contractor they would be out that day and if it was a government employee he would start the process to get them transferred. Starting the process to transfer someone to a different job with the same salary and accrued benefits is probably not the motivator that firing is. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/44 "2010-06-28T18:00:59Z")
Just to toss out a slightly different angle, in a great many gov’t jobs there is extremely limited incentive to work harder than your neighbor. Promotion possibility may be limited/nonexistent, raises are generally according to a strict schedule, and bonuses are generally pretty low. On the last point, my largest bonus in over 2 decades - the largest category available in my very large agency - has been just over 1% of my annual net salary. Sure, I’ll take it, but its not enough to convince me to do twice as much as the guy in the next office over. But I agree with those who have observed that you can get both good and bad service in both public and private settings. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/45 "2010-06-28T18:40:00Z")
I’ve never had huge problems with government service and in fact have found clerks at times to be friendly and helpful. The key, I gather, is to go when the lines are short. > [@JUlrey](#): > > I realize this is all fairly anecdotal, but it’s clearly an observation that many people have made, so if job security is not engendering this I’m wondering what the other explanations are. The “explanation” is that people only remember that one time they got the run-around and forget the ten other times the service ran smoothly, and resist efforts by others to point out this unbalanced ratio, preferring the outrage and its perceived reinforcement of cherished but unsupported beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/46 "2010-06-28T19:00:44Z")
For a few years (before he was a _federal_ employee 😉 ) my husband worked for the state of Maryland. He is a computer engineer. One of his _big_ projects for the state of MD was overseeing and managing the “Y2K Remediation” program. IOW, making sure the state’s computers would still work _after_ Y2K. One of the things _he_ complained about, as a gov’t employee, was this: the government has _no profit motive_. Therefore, a part he could have bought on the open market for $50.00, he was required to go through $300.00 worth of paper work to ‘acquisition’. I don’t think that it’s _so hard_ to fire a gov’t employee, as this problem: no profit motive=no motive to become more efficient. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/47 "2010-06-28T19:33:45Z")
Before we continue to think up reasons for this supposed phenomena, can anyone produce some actual data that the phenomena exists? A comparison between the efficiency and level of service in the average government office and some equivalent private service industry like maybe a bank or insurance company? We seem to be getting a lot of “everybody knows…” and “this happened to me…” here. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/48 "2010-06-28T21:08:03Z")
I work for a city cable channel as a government employee. As with any other job I’ve been in, there are a few lazy employees in the city. However, one of my jobs is the televising of city council meetings, and I can tell you that the mayor has gone into closed executive session with the council to discuss the discipline and firing of employees repeatedly. At least in the city that I work for, the vast majority of employees take their jobs seriously, and there are repercussions for failing at your job. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/49 "2010-06-28T21:30:58Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > Since this is a fairly anonymous board, I’ll speak up. I know that it is tradition around here to disagree with the OP’s assertions, even though most people would agree. > > I am a government contractor and I work with a mixture of government civilians and active duty military. The active duty military guys/gals are great, they bust arse and get the job done. We like working with them because we hold the same values. Since we are contractors (and since most of us are former military), we like to see things get done and accomplished. It also makes us look good in terms of contract renewal. > > 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.” Most of the ones I work with are not terrible, but I’ve seen civilian government employees that would not last one week without being fired in most private sectors. Usually the longer they have worked in the DC federal government, the worse it gets. > > 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. DC gov’t contractor checking in here. I can guarantee you that we’re not concerned with customer satisfaction. We’re concerned with the contract. We’re concerned with getting that contract extended and getting it expanded. That’s our mission in life. That’s how my company makes money. So my goal is to juuuuust barely exceed expectations. We don’t want to push it too far or we might fall short. You want a C+ effort? You’ll get a B-. Sure, I could give you an A but I’m not going to, or you’ll always want an A. Then when I can’t give you A anymore, you’ll cut off my contract. There’s also the element that we’re basically unpunishable. I don’t work hard because my boss doesn’t make me. He doesn’t care because, hey, he’s not working hard himself. Why not? Because his boss isn’t working very hard either. This goes all the way up the chain til you hit the Secretaries and Directors. At that stage, you’ll finally meet someone who cares. And Obama’s not going to up and fire them for silly ol’ reasons like “production”. I’ve actually been a part of meetings where the topic was “How can we burn more cash?” We were performing to par, mind you, but we were doing it too cheaply. We couldn’t have money left over in the coffers or they’d just lower the contract amount when it came time to rebid. The big, big bosses were stressed out over this to an extent you wouldn’t believe. And this whole time, I thought the “burn money so they give us more” thing was a myth. It’s apparently not. So that’s ultimately why we’re lazy. Because customer service, despite the appearance, isn’t our mission. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/50 "2010-06-28T21:44:15Z")
> [@norinew](#): > > no profit motive=no motive to become more efficient. It’s not quite that simple. While there is not necessarily a profit motive, as mentioned above there is almost always a _budget_ motive. Government agencies are frequently under the gun and the pressure can be intense. I work for municipal government which has a guaranteed healthy revenue stream from service fees, which makes us far more secure than local comparable-sized city or county governments. But we’re _still_ under constant downward pressure. And we can’t just raise fees to a level to make ends meet, because we are run by an elected board which frequently functions as a springboard to higher elective office, placing strong electoral pressure not to rock the boat too strongly. Sometimes this results in greater efficiency achieved. But said efficiency, for better or worse, is not generally concerned with better public service ( which usually costs more money ), but rather internal reorganizations designed to streamline expenses. Believe me there has been a MAJOR push to automate systems and thus reduce the number of warm bodies required. And at the end of the day cutting ( or gutting ) capital projects and payroll are the measures that are resorted to. Rarely does his mean layoffs - more often it means hiring freezes which can last many years as the workforce attrits downward. Since I started my job my classification has probably declined in numbers by around 20% and they almost certainly won’t be replaced. In my work unit it is down 30% and was down 40% before we recently had to add a body to help with a major workload expansion. ---
**Author:** ![CateAyo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@CateAyo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CateAyo)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/51 "2010-06-29T00:21:15Z")
The premise of the OP is in error. There is no great difficulty in firing for cause despite unions and/or civil service. One merely has to fire a person the right way which involves progressive discipline in most cases. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/52 "2010-06-29T00:57:05Z")
> [@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. > > 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. This is precisely correct. Speaking as an executive at a large (federal) government contractor, I know that our workerbees work hard (they want to keep their jobs) and the execs work harder. Some govies (mainly at undersec and other high levels, especially SES… but NOT GS 14s and 15s…) also work their butts off, go in on Saturdays, etc. I’ve never seen a reliable survey on who is more ‘efficient’, govies or contractors (and please save yourself the embarassment and don’t quote any A 76 stats to me, as the process is fatally flawed), but anecdotally I can tell you that the contractors have a whole lot more incentive to do well than govies, both carrots and sticks. And people tend to act as they are incentivized to act. Most contracts come up for renewal at the most every 60 months, usually a one year contract w/4 option years so the contractor doesn’t get fat and lazy. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/53 "2010-06-29T02:32:22Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The byzantine process is what makes government employees hard to fire. Some employees take advantage of this, most don’t. I know someone who worked at a government office that was having a problem with racial slurs being used in the office. The office head called a meeting and said that it would not be tolerated and that if he found out who it was and they were a contractor they would be out that day and if it was a government employee he would start the process to get them transferred. Starting the process to transfer someone to a different job with the same salary and accrued benefits is probably not the motivator that firing is. A EEO complaint is one of the few things that can get your ass fired rather quickly in the gov’t. But they can fire you if they want. Here’s what they need to do: 1. Tell you there’s a problem. 2. If problem repeats, write you up. The manager needs to include what specific things must be done to bring the employee back to standards. 3. If problem repeats, write employee up for disciplinary action, like LWOP. 4. Fire employee. Now, here’s one real scenario my Bro told me about. Seems a IRS employee saw his manager shredding certain documents relating to a incident. When Inspection interviewed the employee about the incident, he told them what he saw. They insisted he file a report with the Office of Special Counsel. Not suprisingly, they did not find enough evidence (his word vs hers) to get rid of her, although she was written up. She attempts reprisal, employee complains. Mgr denies reprisal, but suggests employee be transfered. New manager is protege of old manager. They plot to remove employee, including things like writing him up for a voucher where he transposed the last two digits- he was supposed to claim .10 but put down .01. Yes, for a 9 cent error _in the governments favor_, he was written up. They then had IT run his internet surfing records, and he had a lot of personal use. They go to uber-manager who suggests bypassing steps 1-3 as this was “misuse of government property”. Uber-manager does not understand internet, when employee said he kept one personal window open even while working on another- uber-manager actually wrote in his decision “this proves employee is a liar, windows in that building cannot be opened” :eek: Employee is fired. Employee files complaint with Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), they rule in his favor, he opts to take early retirement. In fact, it’s pretty common knowledge that whistleblowers are persecuted. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/54 "2010-06-29T02:37:51Z")
There is now also an active lobby of government contractors that puts pressure on Congress to keep farming work out even in cases when it might make mire sense to have certain tasks done by civil service employees. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/55 "2010-06-29T02:38:45Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > 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) But what do you have beyond the Constitution and legal precedent? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/56 "2010-06-29T02:44:09Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > And that is different than private business how? I would suspect with a profit motive, a private company would have an easier time finding the stones to let someone go. ---
**Author:** ![glrdrexel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/838e76/32.png) [@glrdrexel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glrdrexel)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/57 "2014-03-15T03:17:11Z")
> [@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. :eek::eek::eek::smack:😃 Anyone that has more information on the fifth and fourteenth admendments please update with more posts. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/58 "2014-03-15T03:52:49Z")
> [@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. > [@glrdrexel](#): > > :eek::eek::eek::smack:😃 > Anyone that has more information on the fifth and fourteenth admendments please update with more posts. Thanks All this means is that government supervisors are required to follow proper procedures to terminate an employee for cause. They can’t just fire an employee because they don’t like the color of their shirt that morning, like a private employer can to an “at-will” employee. As for firing employees for cause, it happens a lot more than one might think. My wife works for a government agency. She says that many new employees seem to think that because it’s a government job, they don’t have to work that hard. (According to her, the worst offenders are lawyers, for whatever reason.) Anyway, they are quickly disabused of that notion. Those that don’t get the message get walked out the door, often before their probation period is up. It’s not just new employees, too. Her agency is also going after long-time employees who fail to meet various metrics. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/59 "2014-03-15T04:53:40Z")
> [@JUlrey](#): > > I think you’re on to something there. The places that have the worst customer service are usually the ones where you don’t have much choice but to utilize their product (with flights you have other airlines, sure, but most airlines know it’s safe to bank on the majority of fliers going with the cheapest fare). Where is that monopoly more prevalent than in govt services? Basically there’s no incentive for middle mgmt to crack down on their employees because there’s no fear of customer retention being an issue to begin with. The Post Office has had, and still has, serious trouble with customer retention. It’s common knowledge (I think) that it’s floundering badly. This seems to be _largely_ a result of modern electronic communications (e.g., e-mail) poaching the snail-mail business, with which the P. O. can’t compete. So they try, or _ought to try,_ whatever tricks they can to retain customers, including customer service and customer relations, as well as new products. That said, however: I, being somewhat a Luddite, resisted doing business on-line for a long long time, and still do mostly. It was only recently (circa 2008) that I began to pay some of my bills on-line. And it was _bad customer service_ from the Post Office that drove me to do this. I had moved several times in the prior 10 years, and on three of those moves, I had one trouble or another with the Post Office forwarding my mail. On one of those occasions, they not only got my forwarding address wrong (sending my mail to my parents’ address in another county), but apparently they also provided that wrong new address to the Department of Motor Vehicles, which proceeded to fuck up my vehicle registration records without notice to me, and also the the IRS which fortunately only led to some minor fuckedupness. From that day to this, I’ve never filed change of address documents with the Post Office, choosing instead to carefully notify all my correspondents myself (which I had been doing all along anyway), and I’ve also begun to use on-line services for some of my bill payments. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701/60 "2014-03-15T21:09:18Z")
This was an old thread which has been resurrected. I have not read all the posts, but I did read that some posters claim that the federal government has no union. This is false. The AFGE covers most federal employees. ALJ’s have their own union, and I believe there are a few more for executive employees. When Carter was President, he conferred these unions with great powers, equal to management. Management and the unions must work together on all matters. After an initial one-year probation status, it becomes very difficult to fire an employee. First, the employee must be informed as to wherein his deficits lie, and be given a specific time to address those defects. Then he is given another period to correct his ways (IIRC). Above all, management must document everything. A lack of documentation negates the charge, and, in fact, the manager may be reprimanded for failing to do so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-it-so-hard-to-fire-a-govt-employee/544701.md?page=4)