| Comment Number: | OL-10505196 |
| Received: | 3/10/2005 4:20:33 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 feel the National Security Personnel System is turning America into a dictatorship. It is frightening to think that my own government wants to do away with rights that every American citizen should be able to experience in day to day life. Saying that the removal of these rights is necessary for National Security is absurd. Working on a military base and traveling through airports I have made many changes required to support America's efforts to insure security. But allowing collective bargaining agreements to be changed unilaterally at any time for any reason is not for national security. The whole way the "proposal" has been handled has been underhanded and has not followed Congress' order. The NSPS as presented by DOD eliminated any negotiations over the proposed changes. DOD says they are meeting the needs of the DOD employees but they are not. They are dictating and setting up a program that turns the government itself into a dictatorship. No independent third parties are allowed to review DOD decisions. DOD appoints a new "labor relations review board" themselves. They are the judge, the jury, the lawyer, the prosecutor - everything except the defendant - and DOD employees without question will become the defendants. The will be no right to a fair hearing. The DOD will be able to overturn a decision of a judge simply because it is not the decision they wanted. Congress directed DOD to work with the employee unions to develop a new system. DOD has totally ignored Congress and is out to destroy due-process appeals and collective bargaining. I truly wonder where our country is headed. I am ashamed that America is going down this path. We call ourselves a democracy and hold ourselves up to the rest of the world as a model. National security has nothing to do with the issues being pushed through with this NSPS. It is an abuse of the name. It is trickery. I pray that the history books in the future do not need to point to this as the first step toward the end of democracy in America. But I fear we are moving to being a democracy in name only. PLEASE do not let the NSPS system go into effect as DOD and OPM have created it. There must be a neutral body to hear appeals of adverse personnel actions. Management cannot be allowed to change or eliminate collective bargaining agreements at any time for any reason they deem fit.