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Deep Stasis: The Rubber Room
I assume that everyone here has heard about the Rubber Room policy in the New York City schools. This policy, is designed to deal with teachers who, frequently for reasons of criminal behavior, cannot be put in a classroom. Union regulations prevent the schools from doing the obviously sensible thing and firing them, so they warehouse them, having them come to a room every day and just sit there, in exchange for their salary and benefits, and if they stay around long enough, their pension. The last time I heard, there are 3,000 of them.
It occurred to me that the same type of strategy might be very effective in helping the Trump administration deal with the problem of politically motivated leaks, and other resistance to the implementation of his policies, the issue that is being called the Deep State. I propose that Trump set up a Rubber Room for each department and agency within the federal government.
There are thousands of federally owned office buildings that are sitting empty right now. Start transferring people and filling them up. This can be done on the cheap. No phones, no internet, just whatever furniture is already there in the building. Give them someplace to sit, with a desk or table surface. Let them read the racing form, or run a home business or play Angry Birds on their phone all day; the same kinds of things that the teachers do. Therefore, since this new department would have no mandate and no budget, the only costs incurred by this program would be the building maintenance and the human resources costs, both of which they are already paying,
As to who we send over to the new Division of Nothing, I would start by firing any political appointee that is still left over from the last administration. Trump can do that today, and those people are just gone. Next, I would look at all the people who started out as political appointees but then became career civil servants. Apparently, there are a lot of them, including people like Lois Lerner, who was originally appointed by Clinton. Any appointed by Clinton or Obama get a golden ticket to the rubber room.
Additionally, any truly useless people should be sent as well. The guy caught watching porn 6 hours a day, the admin who has been passed around more times than a joint at a Grateful Dead concert because she is just so completely useless. Anyone who interferes with the efficient operation of those departments.
Bring the lawyers in to make sure they don’t violate any union or civil service regulations. But I don’t see any reason the basic idea isn’t workable. They are simply being transferred from one group to another within the same department or agency. They will still have the same classification, the same salary and benefits, they will just report to a different office every morning. I don’t think they will have standing for any kind of lawsuit, because they haven’t suffered any harm, and I can’t believe union or civil service regulations prevent intra-departmental transfers.
And they do nothing. Which means they can’t leak sensitive information, because they don’t have any. And they can’t obstruct the implementation of policy, because they aren’t involved in the implementation of policy. As for the loss of manpower, people like this cost more manpower than they produce.
I would expect many of them to quit, which is an extra bonus since Trump wants to cut 10% of the federal work force. Looks win-win to me.
Published in General
This reminds me of one of Walter Williams’ bon mots, “The country would be better off, if on April 15, you rolled the money you owed in taxes up in a bundle and threw it in the fire.”
My word. I knew there were a lot of them, but I had no idea it was so many.
One guy is suing New York for this policy:
I wonder if any conservatives are locked away in that rubber room for saying something against the Democratic Party dogma. Perhaps the union is something conservative teachers need too.
Couldn’t Trump’s administration calculate the cost associated with the Rubber Room and reduce federal funding to offset it to insure the cost is borne locally. Then, if they want those funds restored, NY, city and state, will figure out how to dismiss those people or put them to work.
I’m guessing most conservative teachers know to [self-redacted]. ??
I had a very good friend who taught seventh-grade science in a Cape Cod town. She put her kids in the local charter school, much to the anger of her fellow teachers. She was also a Republican, and she was always a little nervous and reticent about her political views around her fellow teachers.
This is me at work
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I teach my students, fulfill my professional duties to them, their parents, and my admins.
That it. There be no more.
Sadly, if I had children, I would not send them to public school.
It may be the only reason I have remained as a teacher is my subject seems ancillary to all the cultural and social chaos, and I can function, amidst the chaos. However, it is getting old, and I am losing stamina and patience with the grown-ups. So. Tiresome.
I’m not suggesting that anything be taken off the table, but I think the situation requires more than just saying that we’ll get rid of the unions. The inability to fire federal workers has been a story for decades now, and it’s no easier to fire anyone now than it was before, and if anything, more federal workers are unionized.
I’m saying, walk and chew gum at the same time. While working on eliminating unions and changing civil service rules, warehouse the troublemakers and end the hemorrhaging that they are causing.
The problem here is that firing a federal employee will likely take long enough that Trump must be reelected to finish the job. You can’t get it done in just a single term. And as I wrote in the previous comment, nothing to say you can’t do all of this at the same time.
This is somewhat different, and I would support this kind of thing. But as most education funding comes from the state and local level, there is only so much they can do here.
Long ago I watched a documentary on Japanese business practices. At the time they did not fire a non performer, they just sort of shuffled him off to the side. As I recall it started with the boss just giving him fewer and less important tasks and kept on from there.
I remember they showed one fellow that still had a desk with the other employees but nothing on it – including no telephone.
I’ll admit that part of why I like this idea is that I think it’s funny. “Office supplies? Why would you need office supplies?”.
Yes. Attack on all fronts.
One reason it is so hard to fire a civil servant is because it requires a dossier. If managers were encouraged, rather than discouraged, at preparing the needed documentation, word would get around. Employees who knew their file was getting thick would start looking for other jobs. A lot of the bad apples would prune themselves if it looked like any sort of serious effort was under way to apply pressure.
^Like
Great idea, actually firing would be better but warehousing may be all that is left after the socialist take over.
Hey could we do this with all those indoctrinating liberal professors who have tenure at state universities?
The media and the Universities are also the swamp that needs drained.
Isn’t it funny how Democrats claim that the successful people Trump has put in his cabinet are the swamp? They really don’t understand anything.
I haven’t read alll the comments so someone may have already mentioned this. Rubber rooms for the unfireable was my thoughts exactly , I would also add that there is no reason they have to be in D.C or Virginia, how about some nice relocations to places really, really uncomfortable for them, send the northeastern urbanites to Texas or Mississippi, if they like warm areas then it’s Alaska or Maine, if they dislike heat, then it’s Miami also keep the heat/ac at the absolute legal minimum. Retire, resign or relocate.
I like your general idea here. Yes I know the rubber rooms.
However, I have known a person in the Federal government where the opposite happened basically. He was working in good faith and the agency wanted to get rid of him. In govt it’s frequently difficult for a person to get fired so the bureaucratic way to dispose of a person is to “reassign them to do nothing”, that way the agency can then start making a series of bad reviews to build a case for termination. The person I know was a whistleblower in a different Fed Agency. He got a lot of flack for being a whistleblower and it became impossible for him to continue to work in his old department even after being vindicated. He was transferred to the EPA where he apparently was a target. The agency started refusing him work to do, despite repeated requests for work. Maybe some system can be re-worked in a fashion to accommodate your idea. But aside from conspicuous insurgents I think we might end up finding a more subtle bureaucratic way of a fought resistance. Like stone walling, fillings, endless review processes, saying that something is being done yet it isn’t, the run around with now body having direct authority to make a decision, etc…
I’ll say though this open insubordination from agency bureaucrats is absolutely unacceptable. It also undermines elected govt and the rule of law.
As much as enjoy the sound of that, I was leaning away from that sort of thing, trying to make it impossible for any of these employees to show any harm in a lawsuit. You would want to take a serious look at the law and work place rules to find out where the limits are.
A good model for the bureaucratic rubber room would be Jonathan Price’s demi-office in Brazil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS5WLkb_Cxk
I hate to be a ninny, but this is why employees want a union. Supervisors and managers should review for performance. If performance is sub par walking papers should be prepared. Otherwise workplace torture and stress is not permitted.
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Soylent Green.
Is this true?? I didn’t know that. And it’s appalling. I hope it changes under the new Education Secretary and we get back to common sense and not wasting money!
It’s true in a few of the largest, most dysfunctional urban school districts.
The Secretary of Education has no power over this. It is not a Federal issue. It isn’t even a state issue. That is one local school district.
Is it true about union teachers not being fired if they are bad?
It depends on the place, but many unions make it difficult to fire people. If it costs more to fire them than to keep them in a rubber room for years, yes, it happens.
It apparently depends on the locality, as has been mentioned here in the comments, but in at least some districts it is notoriously difficult to fire teachers. Some of those in the NYC rubber room have been accused of, or even convicted of child molesting or having sex with underage students. From my (distant) observations, it seems like if they don’t go to prison, they keep their job.
I’d prefer bringing back the spoils system. None of these yahoos would get too cozy and comfortable in their jobs as they would know they were one election away from being unemployed. An administration which wanted to cut a department’s budget or reduce its power could simply fill fewer positions. Getting rid of the lifelong bureaucrat mentality in government would be a good thing, in my opinion.
It’s an interesting question. As previously mentioned, the current system was designed to correct that problem. But was the cure worse than the disease?