Survey: Half of Feds Support White House Attempts to Ease Firing Process

A slim majority of federal civilian employees support the Trump administration’s efforts to make it easier to fire people, according to a new poll, but the employee groups that oppose the firing initiative also have strong backing.

A flash poll conducted by the Government Business Council, the research arm of Government Executive Media Group, found that 51 percent of federal workers support or strongly support making it easier to remove poorly performing or malfeasant employees. Another 24 percent oppose such efforts, while 24 percent said they were neutral or didn’t know about the changes.

Last month, President Trump signed a series of executive orders aimed at civil service reform, which streamline the firing process across government, remove firings and adverse personnel actions from eligibility for grievance and appeal processes, and seek to curb federal employee unions’ ability to negotiate with agency leadership or represent workers.

The edicts drew swift opposition from federal employee groups. Since Trump signed the orders nearly two weeks ago, two lawsuits have been filed to prevent their implementation, and more could be on the way. Outside observers have given the changes mixed reviews, questioning whether the firing order would be effective in improving performance management across government and arguing that pairing it with the changes to labor-management relations could prevent a consensus from emerging on broad civil service reform.