Some thoughts on the slashing of the federal workforce

Lost in all the discussion about President Trump’s downsizing of the federal workforce is this reality: The administration is cutting that workforce in mostly the same ways private employers downsize theirs

This reality doesn’t speak one way or the other to the wisdom of slashing the federal workforce, a topic I won’t address here. But it shows that, for the most part, the administration isn’t being arbitrary and capricious and that, for the most part, it’s not being vindictive or politically partisan.

In my experience, mass layoffs in the private sector often are preceded by buy-out offers. Employees are offered financial incentives to move on. This enables employers to reduce the number of workers it will have to fire. (The disadvantage is that the employer loses control over who stays and who goes.)

After the workforce thins out voluntarily, employers typically start the layoff process with the most junior employees. Workers who have only probationary status will usually be the first to go.

Employees deemed non-essential also are vulnerable to private sector layoffs. Other things being roughly equal, the more important one’s job, the more likely one is to keep it during a reduction-in-force.

As far as I can tell, the administration has proceeded largely along these lines. There was that early offer that allowed employees who were willing to leave to receive compensation for many months.

Then, there was the firing of probation employees. In addition, employees deemed non-essential have been let go at some agencies.

Soliciting voluntary quits and firing probationary employees are politically neutral methods of reducing a workforce. So is firing non-essential employees, assuming this criterion is applied honestly and consistently. The discharge selections are based on willingness to leave in the first case, on employment status in the second, and on job duties in the third.

In government force reductions, all three methods will affect mostly Democrats. But that’s only because the vast majority of federal workers are Dems. In all likelihood, the percentage of Dems who leave or lose their job will be comparable to the percentage of Dems in the workforce. If not, this will likely be by accident, not design.

Some federal employees have lost their jobs because they were singled out — either as poor performers (another criterion nearly all employers use) or as perceived political enemies. The firing of prosecutors who participated in the Trump prosecutions and of FBI agents who investigated Trump fits the second of these categories, and might well be problematic.

But by and large, the Trump team is downsizing the federal workforce in the ways a normal private employer would proceed. And by and large, it is not basing discharge decisions on partisan political considerations.

I have lots of sympathy for those who lose their federal jobs. They have rent or a mortgage to pay. Many have children to feed.

But this is true of private sector layoffs, too. The fact that those layoffs have been fairly common while government workers have been almost entirely immune from reductions-in-force doesn’t make government workers more sympathetic than their private sector counterparts.

In court challenges to the Trump reductions, plaintiffs have argued that the cuts could wipe out an unprecedented 20 to 25 percent of the federal workforce. If true — I don’t know whether it is — that’s a massive reduction.

It might be too massive in some agencies. But force reductions of that magnitude are not unprecedented in the private sector. And in most of the government offices I worked in, the loss of 20 to 25 percent of the employees wouldn’t have harmed the operation, assuming the brightest and hardest working employees were retained.

Speaking of court challenges, a federal judge in Massachusetts appointed by Bill Clinton, after pausing the deferred resignation program, has allowed it to resume. And today, a federal judge in Washington D.C. appointed by Barack Obama declined to issue a temporary restraining order pausing Trump’s moves to fire thousands of employees who are on probationary status or deemed nonessential.

The basis for today’s ruling is that the unions challenging the firings must make that challenge before the Federal Labor Relations Authority, a panel of presidential appointees that hears labor disputes. Unions can then challenge the board’s decisions in federal appellate court.

This ruling seems clearly correct.

I’ll conclude by mentioning one of the argument’s made by the unions challenging the firings. According to the Washington Post:

The unions argued that Trump’s wholesale staff reductions would be an unconstitutional violation of Congress’s domain over how to staff, fund and set priorities for federal agencies. . . .The administration’s actions are an illegal end-run on Congress, which has the sole power to create and oversee federal agencies and their important missions regarding public health and safety, national security, economic growth and stability, and consumer protection.

The Justice Department countered:

The President is charged with directing the Executive Branch workforce, and he has determined that the politically accountable heads of his agencies should take steps to streamline and modernize the workforce through measures including voluntary deferred resignations [and] removal of certain probationary employees.

I think the Justice Department has the better argument. The Trump administration may have acted unwisely in making force reductions decisions, but as a general matter the decisions are its to make.

In any case, as the district court ruled today, whatever grievances particular discharged employees have must be heard administratively before they can be heard on the merits in court.