Comment Number: OL-10503700
Received: 3/7/2005 12:47:16 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 am writing to express my concerns about changes to work rules in the Department of Defense (DoD). The proposed National Security Personnel System 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 years (16 of which were in personnel). Most DoD employees work hard and are committed. This system will change the way workers are paid, evaluated, promoted, fired, scheduled, and treated. These rules would allow a system where federal managers are influenced by favoritism. Annual Pay Raises Under the General Schedule and the 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. If it is felt that employees need a faster incentive than the current step increases, just change that portion to allow for annual step increases based on continuity. If an employee is a non performer, the supervisor has the authority to take action now and should be accountable for taking that action rather than giving them an easy out. “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 judgment of his or her manager. 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 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. With all the changes to centralized civilian personnel systems already, the poor supervisors do not have devoted advisors and are having to spend immense amounts of time researching personnel regs and than many lack the training or ability to interpret & understand them. That is why once upon a time we had trained personnelists. Consider most military managers, is it to be a major time-consuming effort to try to figure out this system. Their primary mission is not how to pay an employee, it is how to soldier. In many cases, secretarys or the employees themselves will be making the call on salary & bonuses. 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. Who is watching out for me the employee. What happened to the years of building a good, fair, equitable system??? Why are you proposing on taking it away. Civilian Deployment Federal employees could be assigned anywhere in the world, even into a war zone, with little or no notice. If my understanding of this is right, why are not mobility agreements used? That is an option now, why are we not using & refining the already devleoped options. Why is the government spending immense amounts of $ to develop a new system. Where do you believe the government $ comes from. Are you all tax exempt? It comes from the tax-paying citizens. We are fighting for democracy abroad. But the regulations are an attack on workers’ basic rights. We need work rules that preserve fairness, serve the American people, and respect the rights of DOD workers.