Unfireable Offenders
2nd April 2023
For over two decades, attorney Philip Howard has endeavored through his nonpartisan organization Common Good to promote a restoration of “common sense” in government operations by replacing bureaucratic red tape and legal roadblocks with individual accountability. His previous four books, starting with the 1995 bestseller The Death of Common Sense, and notably including one titled Life Without Lawyers, have earned acclaim from across the mainstream political spectrum, from George Will to Arthur Schlesinger Jr., to the New York Times.
In his newest tome, Not Accountable, Howard traces the lack of government accountability to what he concludes to be its underlying source: the rise of public employee unions. Whereas his earlier studies described “a flawed governing philosophy” that overemphasized procedural rights at the expense of the public good, “applied by people acting in good faith,” this one “is a story of raw power and democratic disloyalty.”
Job security (‘you can’t fire me’) is a cornerstone of labor union practice.