| Comment Number: | OL-10504620 |
| Received: | 3/9/2005 8:23:45 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:
This letter is to express my great concern about the changes to work rules in the Department of Defense (DoD). This message will be sent to DoD, Senator Ben Nelson, Senator Chuck Hagel and Congressman Lee Terry. I have worked for DoD for a combined 25 years, 21 ½ active duty in the United States Air Force and 3 ½ as a civilian with Defense Finance and Accounting Service. I am extremely upset that the proposals treat employees who help defend our country as the enemy. DoD employees work hard and are committed to their mission. Mistreating the employees will hurt the entire agency’s mission and I am angry that this is what NSPS will accomplish. NSPS destroys the objective way workers are evaluated, promoted, fired, scheduled, treated and paid by creating a system in which supervisors and managers are likely to be influenced more by favoritism than true performance. This certainly is not the best way to serve the civil concerns of the American public. Under the present General Schedule, annual employee pay raises are funded by Congress and cannot be taken away. However, NSPS will take away this certainty. As recently as last year DoD did not fund its awards program. Given the agency’s miserable record on pay issues, how can employees feel confident that their salaries and bonuses will be funded in the future? While the new “pay for performance” system that DoD proposes sounds good in theory, it is totally impractical. I have seen the results of this type of system before and it did not work then and will not work now because of human nature. The amount of employee’s salaries 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 be detrimental to teamwork and will at best result in short-term gains. There is no guarantee that even the best workers will receive a pay raise, or that the pay offered will be fair or competitive. Unfortunately, the result will be workers that are in conflict with one another, afraid to speak out about harassment, violations of the law and workplace safety. Instead of retaliation by a supervisor or manger being a violation of law, it will become the standard operating procedure. Additionally, there will be no impartial appeal system to assure that everyone is treated fairly. NSPS will allow managers to change employees work schedules with insufficient advance notice. This will make it extremely difficult for working parents to care for their families. It will also mean that abusive supervisors could harass workers with bad schedules and short notice overtime. Current rotations of mandatory overtime could be canceled leaving workers unable to properly plan for childcare and other personal responsibilities. Additionally the issue of civilian deployment is a real “burr under my saddle”. Under NSPS proposals federal employees can be assigned anywhere in the world, even a war zone, with little or no notice. I served this country for over twenty years with the Air Force, ready and willing to go where needed at any time. I accepted those terms willingly and proudly – as a member of our armed forces. However, I and my fellow civilian workers did not volunteer to be active members of the armed forces when we accepted our current federal government jobs. Our country is at war, our proud service members and many civilian government employees are fighting for democracy around the world – voluntarily. However, these NSPS regulations are an attack on workers’ basic rights. Instead of defense workers giving their full attention to the military members’ welfare, they will have to be more concerned about protecting themselves from abuses on the job. I urge you to help DoD rethink this proposal. We need work rules that preserve fairness, serve the American people, and respect the right of all workers. While the current system has some flaws, “we don’t need to throw the baby out with the water."