Comment Number: 05-02582-EREG-195-d7391-c32321
Received: 3/14/2005 8:00:00 AM
Subject: Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment
Title: National Security Personnel System
CFR Citation: 5 CFR Chapter XCIX and Part 9901
No Attachments

Comments:

I believe the proposed regulations in their entirety should be withdrawn, as they have not been presented with sufficient specificity in many areas of the new NSPS to allow for comment. In many instances, implementing issuances will be used to provide details on various aspects of the new system. Using such an approach permits DoD and OPM to avoid scrutiny, transparency, and appropriate accountability. It was never the intent of Congress that DoD/OPM design a contemporary and fllexible human resource system with the level of secrecy that has been exhibited.

While the legislative history was quite clear that the right of employee representatives to engage in collective bargaining under Chapter 71 of Title 5 should not be hampered, through the proposed regulations and future implementing issuance, DoD and OPM will essentially eliminate collective bargaining. This is quite astounding, given the fact that our country has been through world wars and numerous other armed global conflicts, and the rights of unions were never threatened to the extent they are under the DoD/OPM version of NSPS.

As it relates to pay and pay administration, what DoD really needs is performance leadership not a new performance management system. Unless those in the DoD chain of command hold those with the power to evaluate employee performance accountable, and managers have the proper training and time to review performance in an open, fair, and objective way, the new pay-for-performance system will be a failure. The ability to properly fund such a system will also serve to undermine the bargaining units credibility in it--absent an ongoing commitment to fund performance based on truly rewarding those exhibiting excellence--PFP becomes the flavor of the week.

As proposed, the new system will be very much one-sided with standards that favor DoD and an appeals system that will not have the necessary checks and balances. Where DoD is able to review decisions from third parties, the critical element of a fair, impartial review is lost.

Within NSPS, DoD/OPM want the opportunity to reduce the numbers of job series organization-wide to a handful. DoD will become a core of generalist lacking the expertise to get critical jobs done in the best way possible. Flexibility will replace job specialization, since DoD believes it is more important to be able to assign employees in an arbitrary fashion to carry out duties anywhere around the globe where a mission requirement dictates. The DoD jobs of the future will require an inordinate amount of training for such broard-based positions, and the task of evaluating how well employees have performed in their multitude of changing tasks will further complete the new PFP scheme.

DoD/OPM need to go back to the beginning and properly involve the unions in the process of designing a new, world-class personnel system.