| Comment Number: | EM-019838 |
| Received: | 3/14/2005 1:49:06 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 14, 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 years. I am angry that these proposals seem to treat the employees who help defend our country as the enemy. Most DoD employees work hard and are committed. I believe that mistreating the employees will hurt the agency?s 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. 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 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. Dear Sir or Ms: The preceding letter is a sample of AFGE?s opinions about the NSPS. I prepared the following letter prior to knowledge of its existence and thought it sums up my feeling about the NSPS quite well. I however still wanted my own words to be heard. As the NSPS proposal approaches reality I am deeply troubled by many of the programmed changes. The following is a list of some of my concerns with the intent to demonstrate why I believe this system will not accomplish what is best for our great nation. In the DoD NSPS Fact Sheet Dated 10 February 2005: Why NSPS Point one: Hiring is too slow, and cumbersome processes adversely affect our ability to attract and retain high quality talent. My concern is that the current system can work with some accountability of those who affect hiring. My personal hiring experience was slow due to the incompetence of HR personnel to do their jobs in a timely fashion. Additionally, too many personnel had to be part of the process. These personnel often did not communicate with each other adequately, so the system failed only due to people. The process is cumbersome because of the required amount of paperwork, and the inabilities for HR personnel to get it right the first time. As it is important to have all the correct paperwork because of security and personnel issues about the only hiring issue that could be changed is in giving managers more power to do direct hires. This is one area where I have witnessed what I view as abuses: hiring personnel simply because they know the right people. When this occurs very qualified potential employees sometimes never even get interviewed. The current system can work to attract and retain high quality talent by allowing more flexibility to offer higher steps in grade, and by holding managers accountable. Most of the retention problems are due to fairness in management, and the lack of managers to hold personnel under them accountable. Point two: Outdated pay and performance management systems that result in outstanding performers being paid the same as poor performers. My concern is that the current system allows for awards to adequately encourage good performance, yet the complaint of many is that it is not fairly dispersed or adequately used by the managers who are cognizant for these programs. This is yet another area of managerial abuses in my opinion. Poor performers should be dealt with by managers (that is what good managers are good at doing; motivate, hold accountable, and properly utilize the assets available to them). The current system has provisions for dealing with poor performers by managers by documentation of poor performance and if needed getting rid of the poor performer. Point three: Rigid, inflexible rules hinder DoD?s ability to act expeditiously to meet mission needs and manage from a ?total force? perspective. My concern is that giving managers more power to act expeditiously is not the real problem here. The real problem is that managers take care of others in their political realm, and don?t adequately or fairly administer to the personnel they manage. The new system is most likely only going to intensify this problem. The new system will only lead to easier manipulation of the system by management and will greatly reduce the protections offered to employees that are abused because of political or personal differences with their managers. How would this offer the ability to attract and retain quality personnel? Pay system changes are not going to change this point alone. Point four: Confusing and inefficient disciplinary and appeals procedures fail to allow workplace issues to be resolved in a timely manner. My concern is that the new system allows too much power and abuse by managers who already abuse the power they have in far too many cases. Giving them more power is not the answer. These managers are at fault for the current system not working, why add to the problem by giving them more power to abuse? The appeals and complaints system needs to be more adequately addressed and not reduced as it appears the NSPS will do. The NSPS will have the affect of taking away nearly all employee rights, and put total power and freedom with some unfair management personnel. In the DOD NSPS Fact Sheet Dated 10 February 2005: Labor Relations (pg. 4) Point five: ?Prohibits bargaining over procedures in exercising core management rights, but management will consult with unions?. I and many other Civil Servants have multiple concerns with this statement including: Who will decide what the core rights of management will be? ??Management will consult with unions?. Management has seldom consulted with unions where I have been, and even when contractually sound subjects are at issue. How will management react when given even more power to ignore issues that are contractually sound? The writers of the NSPS clearly want to give more power to management despite numerous cases of abuses by the same managers they wish to empower. Retaining quality people is directly tied to this. Good quality people will not stick around when abuses of power inflicted by management run rampant in some cases. In conclusion The current pay system with its step increases works when fairly and competently applied. If NSPS is fully adopted any pay increase decisions will fall solely with management again giving management all power, and I am not comfortable with the thought that a few chosen individuals will be granted everything while other deserving people will receive nothing. How is that going to work to retain quality personnel? There will be some employees who will be hard chargers but for any reason that management does not like them they will be neglected or abused or both. I am an Emergency Essential volunteer. When I signed on I was promised certain things in return for my service. I was promised GS-12 once I meet the year in grade and while deployed. A recent letter from Richard L. Zirk where he said ?The basic difference between an E-E and a volunteer is that upon deployment, qualified E-E employees will receive a temporary promotion. After deployment, employees return to their permanent positions and grade levels. After the 3-year E-E assignment, employees can transfer to a non E-E position in the same occupational series and grade level or reapply for another 3-year E-E assignment. As an E-E, the temporary promotion salary increase counts towards the ?high three? year for retirement. Also the time counts as ?time-in grade? towards future competitive job announcements and promotions.? All of these things would become obsolete, and I find this offensive. What assurances do I have that these promises will be kept? If you want to keep and attract quality personnel you have to start by keeping promises, being fair, allowing employees the ability to have an opinion that goes against management. I?ve learned through courses with DAU that DCMA has a policy that creates an environment of openness on viewpoints and opinions, yet all that I have read with NSPS will throw out these ideals. The NSPS will also make the backbiting and unfair competition worsen. We need to improve our work environments rather than make an environment that promotes it. The new NSPS system gives no competitive fairness to employees; it will only lead to the ability of managers to have more power to abuse the system further. I have actually seen a great number of hiring practices that abuse the system. Giving jobs to personnel that do not meet the JOAs, and ignore qualified candidates that actually meet the requirements listed in each JOA. Managers continue to practice hiring policies that give more credence to the ?Who you know? mentality and less to hiring the highest quality personnel available. This same abuse of policy gives advantages to these same individuals in the form of priority advancements, awards, travel considerations for no more reason than benefiting a friend to go some place the friend wants to go in the name of fulfilling a business requirement (often sending the wrong person, instead of the best person). The current system only needs to have some accountability of the current abuses going on daily around the world. The NSPS system only allows the people abusing the current system to have the ability to abuse it to a greater extent. The employees that do not possess this power are left with even less ability to speak their minds and be taken seriously. The current system is closer to the same idea on how our great government works. With the checks and balances between the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches. Giving power equally to all with checks and balances should work to reduce the abuses that I know exist within the current system, and would definitely increase with the new system. Thank you for letting me have a voice in this process. I do hope that I will be listened to and a fairer choice of program changes will be considered.