| Comment Number: | OL-10503874 |
| Received: | 3/7/2005 11:31:15 PM |
| Subject: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| Title: | National Security Personnel System |
| CFR Citation: | 5 CFR Chapter XCIX and Part 9901 |
| Attachment: | NSPS-comments.doc Download Adobe Reader |
Comments:
Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 was founded on the old thinking that government employees primarily perform inherently government, non-commercial functions and emergency services, which are so critical that allowing government workers to exercise their natural rights -- to band together and refuse their labor if their employer will not agree to fair wages and working conditions -- would cause intolerable harm to the general welfare. The Act presumes that worker rights to strike, negotiate wages and organize closed shops must be prohibited to preserve the public good. Counterbalancing the loss of worker rights, the Act [1] acknowledges that maintaining employee rights to organize, bargain collectively and participate in labor organizations safeguards the public interest, contributes to effective conduct of business, and encourages amicable settlements, [2] requires Union and Management to negotiate and to do so in good faith, and [3] sets rule of law in place of either walkouts or lockouts. The Act is balanced in the employer’s [the federal government] favor, but does give workers some union rights. The National Security Personnel System Proposed Rule removes what institutional instruments of fairness that exist with unbridled power in the hands of DoD management. The characteristic phrase throughout the Rule is the Secretary’s, Deparment’s and/or management’s “sole, exclusive, and unreviewable discretion”. This smacks of imperial rule. As the saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The effect of the new Rule will not be to enhance national security, but to corrupt. The rationale for the changes provided by the Proposed Rule are that current due process for performance and conduct issues is “cumbersome” and “restrictive”, and that labor relations requirements under Civil Service Reform Act keep the agency from being “agile” and “flexible”. Behind this rationale are these fallacies: 1] National security is compromised by protecting employee rights. 2] Streamlined regulations that enhance agency discretion enhance national security. 3] Compelling the agency to the bargaining table threatens national security. Current due process is cumbersome and restrictive primarily to untrained, unskilled, rash and irresponsible supervisors. Current labor requirements are agile and flexible when managers are competent, knowledgeable and know how to work well with others. The current personnel system encourages calm, deliberate, conscionable and effective action to deal with personnel and labor matters. It is doing what it is supposed to. Employee rights do not compromise national security where supervisors are competent. Incompetent supervisors compromise national security whether faced with “cumbersome” and “restrictive” rules or ones that are streamlined and give them great discretion. Instead preserving employee rights encourages employees to public service and guard national security, rather than placating a capricious boss. While there will always be debate on performance management, the Proposed Rule creates an open-ended one with little or no sideboards that allows for favoritism, caprice, inequality and arbitrary ratings that create resentment and demoralization. That pay will be tied to performance ratings only further aggravates a system vulnerable to abuse. And employees who band together in labor organizations are normally patriotic and conscientious workers. Historically threats to national security have come from elsewhere. In the face of requests by federal unions for examples, the agency has failed to show where federal labor organizations have posed an obstruction to national security.