| Comment Number: | OL-10507381 |
| Received: | 3/14/2005 10:38:14 AM |
| 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:
General Comments: If you were really serious about specific comments you would have provided a Table of Contents for the NSPS Proposed Rules The NSPS Myths and Facts sheet provided misleading responses to the last 8 out of 17 Myths. Pay for performance. Demming, Covey and many other high performance gurus agree that most individual awards and pay for performance systems are detrimental to team work and organizational high performance. The Civil Service's history with this is also terrible. Just look at the recent TSA fiasco. Their awards program gave huge monetary awards to most senior managers at a hugely expensive party, some of whom had not even been employed a year and one had even been reprimanded. Almost no awards were provided to front line workers even though there were numerous worthy actions and individuals. I can also provide some poor DOD examples if you are interested. Contrary to NSPS Myths and Facts there has been no collaboration with Unions. And The town meetings, well one of which I attended at Willet Hall, Portsmouth, VA on March 1st was painfully uninformative and unreceptive to input. I doubt any Union would characterize their meeting with DOD as fruitful. I am sure civil servants would all feel much better about the whole process if our employee representatives were properly consulted. I just do not have the time to study all the NSPS proposals, and I depend on my Union to do this for me. I get the impression that the Unions are being intentionally shut out and that DOD is trying to bypass the Unions and go straight to the workers because they expect us to be easy marks. While Union rights, employee appeals, and due process are not eliminated immediately or in whole by NSPS they are severely and unreasonably curtailed. As an example, 9901.807(K)(6) the arbitrator, AJ, or full MSPD may not modify the penalty imposed by DOD. In many cases the appellant is deemed guilty, but the punishment is unreasonable, discriminatory, or arbitrary. The right to appeal this is eliminated. This is not justice. If you are truly looking for expedited appeals and processes, in 9901.806, do not allow DOD to appeal any arbitration decisions. This is the number one delay in any dispute as the DOD virtually appeals almost every adverse arbitration decision. I can’t even begin to comment on Union rights, they have been so eviscerated. Yes we can still have Unions, but what would be the point. Currently, Management can act and negotiate after the fact. Wouldn’t it be easier and shorter to just list the one or two things? Management is still required to negotiate over. Actually, I can’t see any. Clearly when Unions can no longer help the employees membership will drop, then Unions will no longer be able to fund full time representatives to review DOD management actions, fund arbitration, or MSPB appeals. Then the goal of eliminating Unions, appeals and due process will have been accomplished.