| Comment Number: | OL-10502926 |
| Received: | 3/3/2005 1:10:48 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:
I think the NSPS system is a good idea, and will hopefully help the government attract good workers and be responsive to needs. My one concern however, is the potential for conscious or unconscious discrimination (gender or racially biased, etc) in the allocating of performance based pay increases. For example, where I work I think only ~15% of the supervisors are women and none are african american that I can think of. The large majority of the supervisors are middle aged white men. There have been tons of research studies, and in general, most people will empathize with, hire and promote more people like themselves than not - even down to such things as haircuts and their style of dress. This is why, on average in our society, women still make 76 cents per dollar that men make for the exact same job and responsibilities. I still think NSPS could be an improvement over the current systems, but I think that there definitely needs to be checking and comparisons, to ensure women and minorities are given, on average, the same pay increases and promotions as white men. When there is more leeway in who to give pay increases to, it needs to be ensured that the money is actually handed out based on performance, and not on gender or skin color. The statistics of salaries should be made public, so women and minorities can see if there is discrepancies and if so, hopefully do something about it themselves.