| Comment Number: | OL-10502508 |
| Received: | 3/2/2005 11:02:41 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:
Based on the literature that has been thus far presented regarding the new NSPS human resources management system, one is inevitably led to the conclusion that the proponents and supporters of the NSPS as it is presently written are attempting to: 1) Place more authority and power into the hands of management by effectively providing management carte blanche that permits any rule or regulation to be written with impunity and changed for expediency; 2) Produce total annihilation of the Federal Union by limiting its involvement in all forms of policy and decision making to such an extent that what does remain is naught but a husk of an organization; 3) Turn civilian DoD employees into pseudo-military personnel to be used as another branch of the armed forces. (Regrettably, space limitations are prohibitive for elucidation on these statements.) All of this is being done behind the “Shield of National Security.” However, the public and DoD civilian employees can see the NSPS for what it is really and the “Shield of National Security” has instead turned into a chimera; a diaphanous veil; a pitiful attempt to produce a strongly positive emotional reaction in support of the NSPS. One specific, if I may.......the idea of a performance-based pay structure sounds like a fine idea; unfortunately, it only works so long as all supervisors are equivalent automata! Supervisors, however, ARE NOT automata! Supervisors, like employees, have personalities and abilities that run the entire spectrum. There are horrendous supervisors and exceptional ones; some are uncaring, niggardly, and dishonest while others are caring, generous, and respected. Furthermore, it is the epitome of naïveté to suggest that supervisors do not have their “favorites.” Granted, these factors reside within the present system, however, an employee’s salary, his livelihood, has been removed from the equation. The present system was established for just this very reason---to remove the possibility of a supervisor “playing favorites” among his employees. The NSPS removes this safeguard entirely! Additionally, the NSPS system of pay, being based not only on performance but conduct as well, can cause the system to quickly and easily devolve into an employee being held for ransom; any possible clash---whether personality or simple disagreement---can be held against the employee regardless of competence and performance. Irrespective of job performance, if the supervisor does not like an employee, the employee runs an unreasonably high risk of obtaining a lesser or no salary increase and a slower, if at all, movement within the pay band. The present system does allow a supervisor to reward his better performing employees through the use of monetary awards and step increases. The system is already established! In order to convince anyone of the efficacy of the NSPS requires evidence both to show that the present system is causing difficulties---that it is THE SYSTEM that is the problem and not the people working within the system---AND that the NSPS will indeed remove these difficulties and reap improvement. The NSPS proponents and supporters do neither; making no attempt to show in what manner the current system is inadequate with respect to “National Security” nor how the changes proposed by the NSPS aid and improve “National Security.” Given that the main thrust for the development of the NSPS is “National Security,” it is puzzling that the literature supporting/explaining the NSPS is totally devoid of evidential cites. In the end the NSPS comes across as nothing more than an attempt on the part of a group of individuals to place more power in the hands of DoD managers and supervisors at ALL levels through and including the Pentagon and to eliminate the Federal Unions; Unions that quite coincidently are private industry’s greatest impediment in its continuing attempts to wrest from the federal employee a greater share of DoD work.