| Comment Number: | EM-023016 |
| Received: | 3/16/2005 12:10:50 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 16, 2005 DoD NSPS Comments , DoD NSPS Comments: I write to voice concern 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 is being sent to both DoD and my representatives in Congress. I am surprised and dismayed at how this proposal seems to treat federal civilian employees. I'm sure DoD employees work hard and are committed to what they do. Mistreating the employees can only hurt the agency?s mission. By changing the way workers are treated --how they are paid, evaluated, promoted, scheduled, fired, etc.-- the NSPS seems to be creating a system in which federal managers will be imore influenced by favoritism than by service to their agency's mission and to the American people. The negative impacts of this system on federal workers and their agencies would appear to be numerous. They include: *greater uncertainty regarding pay (annual pay raises, cost of living increases, etc.); *discord, resentment, and conflict among employees due to the system's almost complete reliance on the personal judgment of supervisors to affect salaries and bonuses (i.e., the new patronage system euphemistically called ?pay for performance?), all with little in the way of meaningful redress available to workers to ensure fairness and objectivity; *lower quality of life for workers and an increased opportunity for managerial abuse (e.g., arbitrary punishments, harrassment, even discrimination) brought about by the system's enhancement of managers' powers to schedule employees to work with little advance notice of the scheduling changes; *lessening of workers' ability to care for their families and attend to other important personal, nonwork-related obligations as a result of the NSPS' allowing employees to be assigned anywhere in the world (even into a war zone!), with little or no notice. While America stands as a shining example for democracy, these rules represent a significant rollback of workers? basic rights. I urge that you make DoD rethink its proposal and, thus, help us all to preserve and enhance fairness, service to the American people, and fundamental respect for the rights of federal workers. Sincerely,