ISSA, CHAFFETZ TARGET VETS FOR TERMINATION

House leaders just announced that they are coming after veterans, including those with injuries, by making it easier to fire them and deny them other rights.  Yup! God’s honest truth.  Today’s e-media carried a story about how eager House leaders like Chaffetz of Utah are to make it easier to fire federal employees.  Chaffetz, apparently ignorant of the MSPB statistics showing that more than 70% of the time a federal agency fires an employee the firing is upheld even upon an appeal and the fact that employees terminated in their probationary period are almost never reinstated—a 100% success termination rate for agencies, told the media, “It is almost impossible to fire somebody,” in the federal government.

However, what Chaffetz and the media failed to bring out is that thanks to President Obama’s program to promote the hiring of veterans, 44% of federal employees are now veterans. The Air Force alone filled 62% of its non-seasonal permanent vacancies in FY 2015 with veterans. Consequently, when Chaffetz launches his legislative armada to expose federal employees to whimsical terminations he is actually putting a bulls eye on the back of veterans almost 50% of the time.

Hopefully, some federal union will figure out how to build a “fight-back” campaign around this link to protecting veterans.  While the unions certainly need to work together to defend federal employee rights, we are keeping our fingers crossed that they enlist the various veteran groups, maybe even form an on-going alliance with them, to drive home the point that contempt for federal employees is largely contempt for veterans.  It is hard enough for a veteran, especially an injured veteran, to get a job upon leaving the uniformed service.  It is downright cruel to usher them into a federal job and simultaneously make it easier to wipe a huge black smear across their future job prospects by removing or reducing their due process protections.

About AdminUN

FEDSMILL staff has over 40 years of federal sector labor relations experience on the union as well as management side of the table and even some time as a neutral.
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6 Responses to

  1. Scott Brush says:

    It will be a fine day when the Legislative and Executive branches are required by Law to use the V.A. for all of their and their families medical care……..no outside insurance!

  2. Eileen Smith says:

    The elections are over and where are the politicians now? A vet may be hired yet the probationary period leaves them vulnerable and exposed who protects the vet the 1% of our population that put their life on the line now (frequently) working for a manager who never served in uniform. E. Smith RN

    • Ningauble3020 says:

      There are bad workers. its a tragic fact. Progressive discipline is tough and totally misunderstood by most Agency managers.
      Probationary periods are a stupid idea that encourages an intimidation mindset of bullying and fear. That some Unions who see themselves as partners with management and not separate bodies with competing interests bothers me deeply. The fox is in bed with the hens. Probation suggests criminality among the workers and ignorant incompetence among hiring officials. why dont we abolish proby periods?

      • J. Sisk says:

        You are correct and IRS is the worst cesspool for this very behavior. New hires off the street immediately face incompetent managers who constantly remind them they are probationary and even inaccurately assert they have no rights, etc. There is simply no reason for it and it defies the clear need to attract and retain good qualified employees in our governmental agencies.

  3. MD Hooker, MD says:

    BRAVO, Fedsmill, for bringing to light a VERY IMPORTANT issue for Veterans, an issue that has been an ongoing battle for Veterans working in the Department of Veterans Affairs, of all places, where the percentage of employed Veterans is not even 40%.

  4. ningauble3020 says:

    This is the kind of article that makes FEDSMILL such a good steward of the federal worker. Feds are Vets a lot of the time. “We love Veterans” said every politician forever. Then when it is time to help the Vet, many of them just were lying about caring for Vets. The Big Lie Theory still works. The Big Truth works better, though.

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