Comment Number: OL-10506904
Received: 3/13/2005 8:47:51 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 today to express my utmost disgust at the thought of the new National Security Personnel System (NSPS). I am a second generation federal fire fighter at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and I love my job. I grew up around the fire department following my dad around and always dreaming of working here myself one day. I worked hard to get where I am today, and I keep working hard every day to make WPAFB a safe place to work and live. I have two major concerns about the NSPS I am 21 years old and am just starting my career as a GS 07 step 01. Now with the new system in place I will stay a GS 07 step 01 until my supervisors see fit that I can have a raise whether it be 1 year or 10 years down the road. Where as right now I am entitled a raise each year for my first 3 years and then so on after that. To me that is incentive to keep up the hard work my coworkers and I do. Where as if the new system is implemented then our hard work can go overlooked year after year without a raise. Without a raise for that long to keep us motivated our work habits go down to the wayside and the federal government is basically getting what it is paying for, there is no incentive to do any better at your work. The federal government has the best people in the country working for them because of what they pay their employees, if this incentive to get automatic raises is abolished I can only imagine the type of work force the federal government would have after 5 years of this NSPS. My second major concern with the NSPS is the blatant union bashing that the federal government is willing to do. I am a proud active union member of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local F-88. We are a strong determined union whose goal it is to promote a safe and healthy work environment for fire fighters, to promote the establishment of just and reasonable work conditions, and to provide the best trained and equipped fire fighters that we can offer the military and civilian employees of WPAFB. With the NSPS we the grunts of the work force have no protection, rights or say in any decisions that are made by management. We are extremely vulnerable and can be terminated unfairly for almost anything. With the NSPS there will be no just or reasonable work conditions; it will be a dictatorship by management. We the fire fighters who do the job day in and day out 24 hours a day 7 days a week and 365 days a year will have no say on how we can be better equipped better prepared or better trained. With the NSPS we will have to rely on the guys who have never been in a fire sitting at a desk to make those decisions for us. I have a family and my union makes sure I go home the next day to see my family. And god forbid if something would happen to me my union would be there to take care of my family. I am not willing to give up my union rights so the Federal Government can form a dictatorship and save some money. I thank you for your time, and help on not allowing the NSPS to happen to this great civilian work force that the United States Government has working for it. Respectively, Michael C. McGrath Firefighter/EMT Wright Patterson AFB Ohio