Tea-Publican House approves Boss Tweed’s plot to destroy the civil service merit selection system

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Arizona is about to be transported back in time in Mr. Peabody's WABAC time machine to an era when women had no rights, minorities had no rights – and labor had no rights.

Gov. Jan Brewer aka Boss Tweed got approval from the Arizona Tea-Publican House on Wednesday for her plot to destroy the civil service merit selection system and to return to the halceon days of the spoils system of political patronage.

That's right, Boss Tweed wants to be able to fire you from your government job for no reason other than the slacker son or daughter of a major GOP contributor needs a job to get him or her off of mom and dad's couch. Arizona House OKs personnel reform:

State lawmakers advanced sweeping legislation Wednesday that would overhaul the state's personnel system to make it easier to terminate and discipline certain state employees.

The effort is a cornerstone of Gov. Jan Brewer's legislative priorities this session[.]

Brewer, a Republican, has said the changes are necessary to make it easier to get rid of poor-performing employees to make government more efficient and productive.

This is, of course, bullshit. As a lawyer who has practiced labor and employment law in Arizona for more than twenty years, I can assure you it is already easy to get rid of poor-performing employees — and even exceptional-performing employees whom someone in management wants to terminate.

The difference is that government employees have a property interest in their job and are entitled to due process, whereas private sector employees (not under contract) are presumed "at-will," and have no rights at all. It is the "at-will" presumption that is at issue here.

[HB 2571] would make it easier to fire and discipline most state executive-branch employees over time and give the governor more hiring and firing authority over more agency directors.

About three-quarters of the state's non-university workers are covered, meaning they have protections of the state personnel system, such as grievance rights. The legislation would remove those protections over time. The measure would not affect certain sworn law-enforcement officers, but would affect civilians who work for law-enforcement agencies.

The bill also would increase the penalty for employees who knowingly commit a forbidden personnel practice to $10,000, up from $5,000, calls for their termination and would prevent them from future state employment.

And, oh by the way, remember that five percent pay raise bribe offered state employees to forego their civil service protected status under economic duress? Yeah, our Tea-Publican legislature refused to include any funding for pay raises, making this an illusory promise that is unenforceable at law and a fraud (even a "scheme and artifice to defraud" under RICO). Our governor and lawless legislature should be charged and prosecuted for these crimes. House OKs stripping most state workers of job protections:

Brewer's original proposal included a 5 percent pay hike for workers who agree to opt out of merit system, but the version backed by the GOP leadership does not include money for that, although employees can still opt out.

The bill was approved on a straight party line vote, even over objections from public safety unions who have been cozy with Gov. Brewer and Tea-Publican legislators over the years. What did that get them? The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Brewer personnel plan sails through House – Arizona Capitol Times:

Opposition from law enforcement unions didn’t sway any Republican votes, even those of GOP lawmakers who raised concerns in committee. However, Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, the bill’s sponsor, said he made several changes that should alleviate most of the public safety unions’ concerns.

* * *

Olson’s amendment removes a provision eliminating the Law Enforcement Merit System Council, instead expanding it from three members to five. The amendment also keeps officers from the Department of Public Safety in a separate personnel system from the rest of the state.

Both the council and the State Personnel Board will have the ability to recommend modifications to disciplinary actions, though only in situations where the facts and evidence don’t support the punishment. If a department head disagrees with the board’s recommendation, he or she must justify the decision to disregard it.

* * *

In response to law enforcement groups who worried that their agencies’ civilian employees could face pressure from supervisors to provide false testimony or reach erroneous conclusions for political reasons, Olson said he strengthened the state’s whistleblower protection laws. While supervisors currently face steep fines and other penalties, including possible termination, for pressuring employees in such a way, Olson’s amendment would require firing and would prohibit the offending supervisor from working in state government again.

Olson said the whistleblower protection provision was meant to address law enforcement concerns about their civilian employees – though he emphasized that employees of the Auditor General’s Office, Child Protective Services and other agencies could face similar pressures – but the public safety groups didn’t get the change they truly wanted. Public safety unions had sought an amendment that would keep civilian employees at their agencies under merit protection, a change neither Olson nor Brewer are willing to concede.

John Ortolano, a lobbyist for the Arizona Fraternal Order of Police, said his organization will still oppose the bill.

“We’ve basically told them we oppose the bill, but we will work with them to make a bad bill better,” Ortolano told Arizona Capitol Times after the vote. “We don’t think that they would amend it (in a way) that would make it palatable to our membership.”

The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to hear HB2571 on March 20.

The Arizona Republic's E.J. Montini has a good opinion piece today, Making cronyism state's official public policy:

A civil-service system makes sure that good, qualified people are protected from political hacks…

Gov. Brewer and her personal gurus at the Goldwater Institute (who now seem to run the state) do not like this. But rather than take a scalpel to the problem by trying to streamline the disciplinary process, Brewer and the Goldwater gang want to use a hatchet and cut it off completely.

They want government workers to be in the same position as most other workers in Arizona, where a good, hard-working individual can be fired for just about any reason [or no reason at all.]

If the evil bastards at the Goldwater Institute/ALEC and our Tea-Publican legislators want to go back to the 18th Century so badly, maybe we could just load their sorry asses into Mr. Peabody's WABAC time machine and be done with them, forever. Those of us who look forward to the future in the 21st Century would all be the better off for it.