A portend of what’s to come can be seen in France today. There, public workers are causing mayhem over a proposed overhaul of the pension system. There are no details and the effort so far was to look at the system of 42 different pensions that, among other financial shortcomings, call for retirement at age 62. The system eats up 14% of the country’s GDP already and growing.
The National Federation of Federal Employees and the American Federation of Government employees together represent over 800,000 workers of the approximately 2,250,000 total federal employees*. If they and the other representing unions feel threatened, despite murky language that denies strikes, these employees know only too well that they can cripple the country just like in France. Given the gargantuan costs of the federal bureaucracy, the time for making reasonable adjustments to compensation and working conditions is now. Unfortunately, we have the very people negotiating those terms pandering to the workers for their votes. The majority of the “deep state” has as its clarion call not, “Get Trump” but rather, “Get mine”.
When you see the number of associates, secretaries, undersecretaries, assistants, advisors, et al, many with large staffs, changing work conditions will be a rallying call for these behemoth labor groups. Eliminating positions in the federal government is akin to firing the Pope and changing job descriptions just adds another compensation step or pay grade. The number of government employees has grown but more insidious is how work has been farmed out to state government and non-governmental organizations. The employee count masks the dollar growth of the bureaucracy. Any threat to moving work back to federal employees will likely be met with demands and/or obstinance.
Now is the time to have serious discussions on how to rein in the astronomical growth of the federal government before we end up with a France like situation. One where we are being held hostage and the only thing between us and the employees are those aligned with them.
Current Day Publius 