| Comment Number: | EM-019841 |
| Received: | 3/11/2005 2:56:23 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 11, 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 28 years. I am truely upset that the proposals seem to treat DoD employees who help defend our country as incompetent and/or viewed as the enemy and need to be censored and controlled. For many years now, civilian have had to do more with less. We have met the challanges of assuming new and different responsibilites. The employees had to take risks and be innovative to meet the mission requirements for the last 10 plus years. Most DoD employees work hard and are patriotic and committed to meeting mission needs. The NSPS proposal opens the doors to gross abuse of the employees who are productive, efficient, but may disagree with their supervisors and or managers. I believe that the abuse and general mistreatment of the employees will become more prevalent, and hurt the agency?s mission. To believe that management will be fair and impartial when making decision affecting employees future reflects DoD's lack of reality. I am very upset by NSPS. This system will change the way workers, particularly females and minority's are paid, evaluated, promoted, fired, scheduled, and treated. These rules would create a system in which federal managers are influenced by favoritism and personnal monetary gains, rather than serving the civil concerns of the American people. Page 7556 Outreach to Employees. DoD efforts in keeping employees and managers informed and given the opportunity to participate in the development of NSPS is without merit. The Town Hall meeting at various sites was worthless. The presentations were incomplete, therefore useless. There was no details provided. I attended one of these meetings, and no question were answered since no one had any information on what the NSPS program would look like. Subpart C, Pay Sections 9901.301 - 9901.373. 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? Employees focus will be direted to being friends with their boss instead of their job performance. It will cause employess to mistrust their fellow coworkers, resulting in reduction in quality of work and in production. Subpart C, 9901.313:(a) to the maximume extent Practicable. This is no guarantee that the employees will receive the same amount under NSPS. Certain terms in the regulations allow DoD to be very flexibile at the espense of the employees. Orgainzations frequenly do not award step increases for sustaining high performance ratings because of the "budget". With NSPS, management can reduce a employees pay under some conjured bases, just so they can look like they are saving DoD money. Subpart C. 9901.304 Extraordinary Pay Increase: ?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/biased judgment of his or her supervisor and/or manager. There are already expamples of how management rewards itself first. Few employees will receive higher pay increases, if there are no additional funds allotted to DoD for this. 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 reflective of their performance, 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. Subpart C, 9901.322:(a) Availability of Funds. This appears to give DoD the right to adjust the pay ranges if they have budget problems. Subparts C, 9901.352:(a) DoD may set pay anywhere within the assigned pay band when an employee is reasisigned. This provides DoD flexibility to make reduction at employees expense. Subparts C, 9901.352:(b) DoD may reduce an employee's rate of basic pay 10 percent for unacceptable performance. Such a reduction may be made effective at any time. Under the current regulations, the empoyee is given a notice and placed on a Performance Improvement Plan (30 to 60 days) before an adverse action is taken. NSPS takes these rights away from the employees. 9901.910 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. Subpart E, 9901.512 Probationary periods: Current probationary is one year. Why does DoD need to change this to period deemed appropriates which could be two, five or more years. This appears to be about total control of employees. Subpart F, 9901.601 - 611. There is no need to DoD to make dramatic changes to the current layoff/RIF rules which give blanced credit to performance and employee's valuable years of committed service to DoD. Subpart G, 9901.910 (a)(2) Management Rights: 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 and military mission, but I am also responsible for caring for my family and my personal obligations at home. We signed up for a civilian jobs. Some of the employees signed mobility statements, some have not. We did not enlist in the military. Today?s volunteer military system works well, there is no reason to establish Civilian status and treatment as a "Quasi Military" unit. America is at war. We are fighting for democracy and improve quality of life at home and abroad. But these regulations are an attack on workers? basic rights and show total disregard for what the Federal employees accomplished during the last 50 years. The proposed 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,