| Comment Number: | EM-017494 |
| Received: | 3/10/2005 4:53:46 PM |
| 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 10, 2005 DoD NSPS Comments , DoD NSPS Comments: I It is my belief that the NSPS is a veiled way to make the non-patrician Civil Service System obsolete and replace it with a politically motivated personnel system. What this will eventually do is remove the protections the civil service system provides to the tax payer (read the people). The NSPS will become a politicized system that rewards cronies with pay (read performance awards) and forces honest government employees to remain quite or risk loss of pay and honest performance awards. This is sinister. When political ambitions, big business and government work together it spells tyranny. Civil Service was designed to prevent this from happening. This country will become a third world nation. When the current political party leaves or is no longer in favor, in the work place, government workers of the wrong political persuasion will be denied awards (read performance awards) that are a major part of worker pay under the new NSPS. The worker will be forced to comply with the new powers or live on reduced pay. Maybe the worker will even be inclined to leave government service altogether. Government workers with special skills are not readily available leaving the whole country at a much greater risk to face the terrorist?s threats. What the NSPS must not do is : 1. Link workers pay with awards. 2. Link organizational awards to workers pay 3. Reduce protection provided to the tax payer (read the people), a tenant of the civil service system 4. Base reduction in force on performance awards What the NSPS must do is: 1. Define performance awards as beyond what is required by the workers? performance standard. 2. Prevent superiors from not providing performance awards as a means of retaliation or punishment against a worker. , employee pay was clear. It was funded by Congress and could not be taken away. However, NSPS will 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. 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? ?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. 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. 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. 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 works 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. Sincerely,