State employees may be stripped of employment protections by Utah lawmakers. Robert Gehrke explains why it’s a mistake.
With Utah agencies already struggling to fill jobs, an ideological attack on workers will only make the problem worse.
You see, LaVerl has some cousins in need of a good job.
Every time Utah fares well in national rankings the Utah Legislature nearly sprains an elbow trying to pat themselves on the back.
Really, there are so many other people who deserve the credit — the teachers, the entrepreneurs and, perhaps most of all, the more than 24,000 government employees who keep the state functioning.
A lack of recognition is one thing. Increasingly over the last decade, these men and women have been on the receiving end of contempt and outright hostility from their masters in the Legislature.
Utah haunted house Fear Factory prepares for their nightly haunt during the Halloween season
Now, after years of trying, Republican legislators appear poised to finally achieve a long-sought goal of stripping away the long-standing job security these workers have been given and allowing them to be fired “at-will,” or for any reason at all.
Currently, about 16,000 state employees are part of the “career service” system. It was originally set up to prevent politicians from hiring their friends or firing enemies and over time has protected employees against wrongful termination and provided a grievance process if workers think they are being treated unfairly.
House Bill 412, sponsored by Rep. Kay Christofferson, R-Lehi, would essentially eliminate that system over the next few years. Here’s how: Employees hired after July 1 would not be eligible for the system; current employees now covered by the system would lose that status if they transfer or are promoted to a new position; current employees could voluntarily opt out of the career service system and the bill dangles a $40 million pool of raises to convince employees to do so.
“If there’s some kind of issue, it doesn’t even have to be a disciplinary issue … career service allows [employees] to speak their mind. There’s not going to be any kind of retribution for expressing their concerns,” said Todd Losser, executive director of the Utah Public Employees Association.
They could be reporting malfeasance, voicing concerns about mismanagement or suggesting ways to improve the system. Whatever it is, they can do it without worrying about running afoul of management.
“Taking away that career service system, in my view, makes it so employees don’t feel as safe speaking their mind,” Losser said.
The entire move is purely ideologically driven — following the lead of other bright red Republican states like Florida, Texas, Arkansas and Missouri. The disdain for the government translates into disdain for government workers, who are viewed with distrust rather than being treated as an essential component of serving citizens.
Somewhere there is someone — maybe even you — who will read this and think, “Well, I don’t have any protections against getting fired at my job.” And, in this state, it’s probably true, even if that doesn’t make it right.
But we aren’t going into homes to try to investigate if children are being abused by their parents.
We weren’t trying to provide critical services during a pandemic or helping families overcome language barriers and get health care for their sick kids.
Most of us aren’t caring for our fellow residents suffering from mental health conditions so severe that they will never be able to care for themselves.
Chances are we aren’t getting up before dawn to go plow streets or clean up car crashes so people can get to work.
There are certain things that the state government does solely because it needs to be done and, left to the private sector, would not get done. They aren’t glamorous. Many are downright hard and unpleasant and we shouldn’t resent these people for having some minimal measure of job security.
Also, the change wouldn’t apply to employees like highway patrol troopers and corrections guards, presumably in order to not draw opposition from their influential lobbying arms.
What’s more, the move to chip away at one of the benefits these state workers have could not come at a worse time.
Agencies across the state are struggling to hire and keep workers because, in a state enjoying “full employment,” a lot of these folks could walk out the door and make significantly more money elsewhere. The once-generous state pension system has been diluted. And, let’s face it, the general disdain for government employees from the public and the Legislature doesn’t help.
If these lawmakers think they’re going to shed fat in a bloated state government, they probably need to think again.
Between 2010 and 2021, Utah’s population grew from less than 2.8 million to more than 3.3 million, while the number of people working in state government grew by a grand total of 157.
There isn’t much more efficiency to squeeze out, and that goes for the process of firing state employees, as well. Back in 2010, the state took measures to streamline the career service review process. As a result, the vast majority of grievances are handled at the department level and are never appealed to the Career Service Board.
According to a 2021 state audit, 109 cases made it to the Career Service Board in a two-year span before the changes were made; while just 9 went from 2018 to 2020.
Additional revisions to the system were made last year, making more supervisory positions exempt from the career service system. We don’t know how those changes impacted the system, because they don’t even take effect until July.
But here we are again, with another attack on state workers that, data shows, won’t help to de-flub an already thin government but will punish these thousands of men and women who provide essential services.
It will make it even harder to hire and keep quality workers and, ultimately, it will be the citizens of Utah who will suffer.
