In Bethesda, Hiring Policy, 'Competitive Sourcing' Clash

President Bush's efforts to make government run more like a business collided this month with the reality that, in many ways, government is not a business.

For the past two years, the Navy, as part of the Bush administration's initiative, has been studying whether a private contractor should take over the custodial and food services provided by 21 federal employees at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.

It is just one small example of Bush's "competitive sourcing" initiative, which requires hundreds of thousands of civil servants across the government to prove they can do their work better and more cheaply than a private contractor, or risk seeing the work outsourced.

But in one important way the 21 workers in the hospital scullery are different: All are mentally retarded, beneficiaries of federal policies that promote the employment of people with disabilities.

To their supporters, the administration's requirement that they compete for their jobs misses the point that government employment has always been about more than the bottom line. Through various policies and laws, federal agencies for decades have gone out of their way to hire members of certain populations, from veterans to disabled people to welfare mothers and students.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21575-2003Oct13.html

or did they know that these workers were disabled?

That's what Bush and his kind are known for. They appear strong, but when you look closer, you realize that they didn't put much thought into, nor spent much time on analyzing long-term consequences. I think they learned this in the board room, knowing that they'd be hopping to another company before the shit hit the fan.

"Trent Duffy, an OMB spokesman, said agencies may cancel job competitions that jeopardize protected workers, such as veterans or disabled people."

Then the jobs are safe.....

BUT this could add to the the Vets issues if they start losing jobs over Whistle Ass CEO guidelines.