My dust-up with the director of the US Census
Now, it’s war!
The director of the US Census, which is spending more than $11 billion of taxpayer money, told some members of Congress that my recent columns about employment abuses by his organization are wrong.
Those columns quoted numerous workers saying that the Census was hiring people, then subjecting them to arbitrary firings after which they would be inexplicably rehired.
Lots of Census workers from around the country made these claims in e-mails to me.
Workers are also alleging that they are paid to train for positions but then given far less time on the job than promised. When they are told their jobs have been completed, others are then paid to train for the positions the original workers just vacated.
But Robert M. Groves, director of the Census, defended his organization’s hiring practices.
“First, we do not hire, then fire, then rehire anyone. Any employee who is fired is fired for cause,” Groves wrote in a letter to Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney and other members of the House Joint Economic Committee.
Congress apparently questioned Groves about what I’ve been documenting. Groves should have said “I’ll investigate,” instead of issuing an outright denial. OK, I’ll ignore the fact that Groves carelessly uses the word “anyone” in his defense to Congress.
But since the director seems so clueless about his own organization, I decided to send some of the e-mails I received to Maloney’s office, including the one below, which I’m editing and condensing for space reasons.
(For those of you who wrote to me, be assured that I stripped off any clues to your identity before forwarding the letters.)
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“* Dear John: I have read your recent article regarding the Census “whistle-blowers” and I can confirm the accuracy of their stories, and add more. I work in a (state erased) Local Census Office. I have also witnessed the process of “fire” and “rehire” employees, and was baffled by it.
I am now working on the Non-Response Follow Up (NRFU) operation, and the situation has gone from bad to worse. Our office has hired more than 900 people, many of whom are not needed.
One supervisor was informed that she was getting a new clerk assigned to her, which she found odd, since she had no need for a clerk.
But she did her best to find something for him to do. A few weeks later, she was told that she would be assigned four more clerks!
Further, the policies in our office have become so ridiculous and untenable, it is making the job far more difficult than it needs to be, and forcing some employees to quit.
Worse, we are being told to liberally write D-282 “Performance Conduct Reports” on employees for the slightest infractions, which is setting the stage for them to be terminated for cause.
For example, we are being directed to write up employees for making even the most minor errors in their paperwork, such as failing to completely erase mistakes on the questionnaires they complete, or making any mark other than an “X” in the appropriate box, or failing to stay within the lines and boxes provided.
Employees are now being told that they have to submit their daily pay sheet records (D-308) the same day they work. So, for example, if an enumerator works Tuesday evening from 6-8 p.m., he/she must submit their timesheets to their crew leader later that same night.
Previously, crew leaders would pick up timesheets the next time they met with that employee, usually the next day, perhaps even the day after. The timesheets must be processed at the local office. This creates extra work for the crew leaders, who have to essentially give up any life they have outside the Census.
One of my co-workers is a Field Operations Supervisor for NRFU. And he has now been told that he must stay in the office, he is forbidden from going into the field. He recently did meet one of his employees in the field, and was nearly fired for doing so.
His employees, on the other hand, are forbidden from coming into the office. Does this make any sense to you? It doesn’t to me.”
I can’t say I understand why Census is hiring and firing workers with abandon. Or, for that matter, why it is giving people far fewer weeks of work than they are promised.
Is it really an attempt to avoid paying unemployment claims, as the anonymous letter writer above suggests? Or is Census fudging its payrolls so it looks as if it is hiring more people than it really is.
Each month Census — like every other employer — reports its total employee count to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So, the official firing of one person to hire another would seem like a wash — unless there was some paperwork gim mick that goes along with it.
But telling one worker that his job is complete (without actu ally firing him) and then giving that job to someone else might pad the payroll.
I’ll admit that I really can’t figure out the gimmick here.
Anyway, the Labor Department will likely report job growth tomorrow for May. An improvement of 500,000 jobs is expected and the vast majority of those will likely come from temporary Census hiring.