| Comment Number: | OL-10506877 |
| Received: | 3/13/2005 6:44:35 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:
The proposed National Security Personnel System (NSPS) regulations issued by the Department of Defense (the Department) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) are deeply disturbing to me as a Department employee. The Department’s proposed NSPS regulations violate the specific Congressional directive in 5 U.S.C. 9902(b) to preserve collective bargaining by expanding management rights so dramatically as to deny bargaining in almost any circumstance. In the proposed NSPS regulation 9901.910(a)(2), the Department declares that management will now have the power “to take whatever other actions may be necessary to carry out the Department’s mission,” a clause that literally has no definition or limitation in the regulation. This proposed management “right” effectively ends collective bargaining in the Department, in direct violation of Congress’ specific order to the contrary, as management can literally apply it to any situation in the Department to deny bargaining The proposed NSPS regulation 9901.807(k)(8)(iii) denies employees their right to a fair hearing of their appeals for adverse actions taken against them by the Department. In this proposal, the Department reserves for itself the right to unilaterally reverse the decision of an MSPB Administrative Judge (AJ), merely because the Department does not agree that the decision was correct. This is the equivalent of the prosecution being able to tell a courtroom judge that the decision just rendered is not what the prosecution wanted, so the prosecution will overturn the judge’s decision! I feel that the NSPS should be discarded. The Department of Defense and the Office of Personnel Management should work with the employee unions to develop a plan that would be beneficial for all parties.