The Senate Candidate @JamesDitomosso has brought up a topic in his campaign speech I’ve always thought about in FS. Should government employees have certain rights when it comes to dismissals, suspensions, and so on? I would like to present some points on the issue for when the day comes that these may exist. Firstly, I have always stuck by the rule of, “a department can fire you for any reason they please,” but I’ll be as unbiased as possible here.
I could see and support some basic rules, like you can’t fire someone for their race, sexual orientation, sex, etc. or protecting whistle blowers. But my main fear is regulations on, besides the above, why a person can be fired. I’d like to bring up a great example of what happens when these rules get put in place: the City of Norfolk. I served about four terms worth of time as the NC City Attorney. Norfolk has extensive employee rights legislation. Pretty much the only reasons you could fire a person for were: criminal activity, corruption, abuse, or being inactive for half a month. The result this had is that all City services became god awful, because you basically had to try to get fired. I’m talking disrespect, refusal to follow chain of command, negligence, lack of knowledge of rights and law, general insolence, and so on. And this was in all services from main ones like police and fire, to the DOT. Because even if someone was awful at their job and a squeaker, you couldn’t fire them. This could easily destroy the State. I will say that instating light regulations and allowing for discretion by regulating bodies (DPS, the Governors, etc.) could make it work. But yeah, this is my take on the matter. Vote on this nifty poll below:
- Instate basic employee rights (no race discrimination and so on)
- Instate heavy employee rights (very specific instances when employees may be disciplined)
- Keep things as is
0 voters
