Comment Number: OL-10503340
Received: 3/5/2005 12:12:59 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:

Comments concerning: Federal Register: February 14, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 29) Proposed Rules: FR Document 05-2582/NSPS (National Security Personnel System) pages 7552 - 7603. NSPS regulations were released on 14 FEB 2005. Prior to that date, no information was released to Congress or employee representatives. PL 108-136 required DoD to include OPM in creating NSPS. Only when Congress reminded SECDEF that PL108-136 must be followed, did DoD include OPM. Please note that PL 108-136 also requires DoD and OPM to collaborate (definition: to work together) with employee representatives. At no time has DoD/OPM collaborated with the unions. It has dictated what and how NSPS will be. This is bad faith and certainly not the transparency so widely touted by SECDEF in announcing NSPS. There will be no legal right of discovery by interested parties. DoD ensure that "alternative means" of obtaining requested information is through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). Of course, then the FOIA official may decide not to provide the information, or provide it in a manner that is not timely to the situation. Management can hide documents for whatever motivation they wish. As for communications by DoD, the NSPS Working Groups did little or no listening to anyone except SECDEF. I am a stakeholder and I was not told anything. Period. Until I read this Federal Register release, I did not know any details on NSPS. Any claim otherwise is less than the truth. The NSPS Working Groups did not reach or even attempt to reach a consensus because they had already been told what to do. Their job was to "sell" NSPS. It was just a PR campaign without substance as there was nothing to tell until the proposed regulations were released (implementing issuances are still to come). The only reason for those NSPS Working Groups "meetings" was to attempt to satisfy Congressional outrage over NSPS planners' failure to work with OPM and their treatment of unions and other interested parties. A track record of dictation to, rather than, working with is the norm under NSPS as we have already seen. More of the same will be all we have to look forward to. "...the intent is to explicitly restrict the authority of MSPB...." This is the one time that DoD is letting us know what they are doing in a complete fashion. The fact that MSPB can be over-ridden at will by DoD is immaterial. The fact that MSPB must follow DoD guidance is immaterial. The fact that MSPB will no longer be independent is immaterial. There will be few, if any, local CBAs (Collective Bargaining Agreements). There will be only a master agreement at the national level with only a few local agreements allowed. However, one size does not fit all. For example, OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) is not the same as SIMA Pearl Harbor, or NSA Naples, or a lab facility. Dealing with issues that affect only one or several locals may seem a waste of time to SECDEF, but these union locals represent the civilian employees who actually get the work done to support our military (regular and reserve) brethren. There is no need to trample on decades of labor law and fundament rights granted under the Constitution and Bill of Rights (assembly, petition) and spend countless millions of dollars to change the system when all the tools, rights, and power already exist. Part 2