Over half a million federal employees work at agencies where the perception rate for political affiliation discrimination approached or exceeded 10 percent of survey respondents. Image: Studio C/Shutterstock.com
The MSPB has called new attention to concerns it previously expressed regarding discrimination on political grounds and political activity coercion in the federal workplace, noting that of the 14 “prohibited personnel practices,” those were the only two that were “notably higher” in the most recent survey it conducted.
The MSPB included that finding in a report on key issues it has identified in its studies in recent years, along with issues related to hiring, employee engagement, fair treatment and more. It said that across surveys it conducted in 2010, 2016 and 2021, the prohibited practice that employees most often said they had seen or personally experienced involved manipulating the hiring process to improve the chances of a particular person’s right to compete for employment.
However, across that time, “Political coercion perceptions doubled from 2.3 to 4.6 percent, and political discrimination perceptions more than doubled from 3.2 to 7.1 percent.” The former is defined in the law as an attempt to induce certain behaviors in the future, while the latter is defined as how a person is treated based on their affiliations and views.
“This is employee perception data—we cannot use it to state what actually happened. However, as the Supreme Court has stated, it is not only important that the Government and its employees in fact avoid practicing political justice, but it is also critical that they appear to the public to be avoiding it, if confidence in the system of representative Government is not to be eroded to a disastrous extent,” it said.
It added that perception levels for these political PPPs “varied greatly by agency, with some agencies having rates two or three times higher than the rates in other agencies.” On the high end were departments including State, DHS, VA, HUD and Education, while on the low end were SEC, NASA, FDIC, Labor and SSA.
Said the article, “Over half a million federal employees work at agencies where the perception rate for political affiliation discrimination approached or exceeded 10 percent of survey respondents. Therefore, agencies should look more closely at available survey and workforce data and take seriously the effect that these perceptions can have on their workforce and mission.”
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