| Comment Number: | EM-010818 |
| Received: | 3/8/2005 7:12:19 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:
March 8, 2005 DoD NSPS Comments , DoD NSPS Comments: I write to express my concerns about changes to work rules in the Department of Defense (DoD). The proposed regulations, known as the National Security Personnel System (NSPS), were printed in the Federal Register on February 14, 2005. This message will be sent to both DoD and my representatives in Congress. I have worked for DoD for over 20 years. I am angry that these proposals are fundamentally unfair and seem to treat the employees who help defend our country as the enemy. Most DoD employees work hard and are committed to accomplishment of their mission and the full support of our troops. I believe that mistreating the employees with this system will hurt the agency?s ability to accomplish its mission. I am very upset by NSPS. This system will change the way workers are paid, evaluated, promoted, fired, scheduled, and treated. These rules would create a system in which federal managers are influenced by favoritism rather than serving the civil concerns of the American people. If managers were educated on the current system, they would know that existing civil service rules allow for performance pay if they are applied correctly. Instead the current administration is using improved performance as a ruse to install its own management preferences. They do not philosophically believe in our right to organize. Annual Pay Raises Under the General Schedule and FWS, employee pay was clear. It was funded by Congress and could not be taken away. However, NSPS will unfairly take away this certainty. Salaries and bonuses are funded by DoD. In the past ? as recently as just last year ? DoD did not fund its awards program as President Bush stated he would to the tune of $500M per year when touting the NSPS system to congress. Given the agency?s miserable record on this issue, how can employees feel confident that our salaries and bonuses will be funded in the future? I am not afraid of "pay for Performance" but we must have a fair system that is not dependant on the whims of poorly trained managers. ?Friend of the Supervisor? Pay System With the new patronage pay system, which DoD calls ?pay for performance,? the amount of a worker's salary will depend almost completely on the personal judgment of his or her manager and will be nothing more than a writing contest where using the right buzz words means more than actual work accomplished. This system will force workers to compete with one another for pay raises, which will destroy teamwork, increase conflict among employees, and reward short-term outcomes. In this Good Ole Boy type of system, there is no guarantee that even the best workers will receive a pay raise or that the pay offered will be fair or competitive. This system will create a situation in which workers are in conflict with one another and afraid to speak out about harassment, violations of the law, and workplace safety problems. Furthermore, there will be no impartial appeal system to assure that everyone is treated fairly. Schedules and Overtime NSPS will allow managers to schedule employees to work without sufficient advance notice of schedule changes. This will make it extremely difficult for working parents to care for their children and family. It will also mean that abusive managers could harass employees with bad schedules or short notice. Overtime rotations can be canceled, which means that employees may not be able to plan adequately for childcare and other important responsibilities. Flex-time and other Compressed work schedules will be eliminated without any discussion after long hard years of fighting and negotiating for these employee friendly systems. I always thought that the federal government was supposed to be the model to which private industry could look to when considering how to improve the quality of life of their employees, not to see how to treat them as servants. Civilian Deployment Federal employees could be assigned anywhere in the world, even into a war zone, with little or no notice. I am proud to serve my country but I am also responsible for caring for my family and my personal obligations at home. We signed up for a civilian job. We did not enlist in the military. Today?s volunteer system is working well. America is at war. We are fighting for democracy abroad. But the regulations are an attack on workers? basic rights. Furthermore, NSPS will divert the attention of defense workers from the soldiers? welfare to protecting themselves from abuse on the job. I urge you to force DoD to rethink this proposal. We need work rules that preserve fairness, serve the American people, and respect the rights of Defense Department workers. It appears to me that the current rules are working, we are indeed fighting the war in Iraq and fully engaged in the Global War On Terrorism (GWOT) not to mention all of the peace keeping efforts and disaster relief missions conducted worldwide on a yearly basis without the NSPS system. Can someone in the administration or Congress explain to me how we can accomplish all of this without NSPS, but it is still required? I challenge them to try. Sincerely,