President Joe Biden is signing an executive order Thursday aimed at limiting turnover for federal service contract workers by offering them right of first refusal when a contract changes hands.
Under the order, when a federal service contract is transferred from one contractor to another, employees from the previous contract who performed their jobs well must be offered the opportunity to keep their job working for the new contractor. The order covers more than 2 million federal contractors, who do everything from fulfill building maintenance roles to operate technical equipment.
The White House said the order will reduce turnover among workers who fulfill critical roles supporting federal operations. It’s aimed at preventing disruptions and the expense of recruiting and training workers to fill jobs that existing contractors do well. The administration says the order also protects experienced, well-performing workers by giving them job opportunities that outlast the lifetime of a single government contract and avoiding unnecessary transitions.
Administration officials said it could cost as much as 20% of a worker’s salary to recruit, hire and train replacement personnel, and that the order would bring significant cost savings to the federal government. Officials did not immediately provide an estimate of the cost saving.
According to the White House, federal service contract workers are disproportionately women and people of color, and that the order would further the administration’s equity goals.
(AP)
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3 Responses
this is just another way for him to reward his Big Contractor friends who run the big companies. why should competition be a thing; that would drive down prices!
This sounds like nationalizing these contractor companies and giving “contractors” almost same protection as millions of federal workers already have: new management can propose a bid, but will have to use the same workers as were there before. No more competition, keep your job even if customers are not happy with your company. Nothing could go wrong with this.
This is absolutely the right thing to do and is long overdue. They should be doing the same thing for technology contractors since a huge amount of institutional memory gets lost in transition, thus costing the taxpayers millions.