| Comment Number: | OL-10507764 |
| Received: | 3/14/2005 2:54:57 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 proposal and the NSPS is nothing more than the current administration's blatant end-run around the safeguards inherent in the existing civil service system. It is a disgustingly bald and brash attempt to abolish labor unions and the employee protections that have been so hard fought and hard won over the years. I have worked for the DoD for 23 years, in three different agencies. My degree is in Human Resource Management, and I am a former EEO counselor, so I feel I have a good grasp of employee compensation systems, labor management relationships, and equity issues. This so-called new system is more like a return to the bad old days of the good-old-boy (GOB) system. Under the GOB system, women and minorities received short-shrift when it came to training, promotions and/or plum assignments. There is no reason to believe that this will not occur again, under the NSPS. Under the GOB system, managers controlled who got the opportunities to work on assignments which allowed the employees to excel. Naturally, those assignments went to the boss's favorite(s). There is no reason to believe this will not reoccur under the NSPS, in fact, it is probably much more likely. Under the GOB system, the managers tended to favor those people who were most like themselves, and who exhibited the same behavior, values, and attitudes. There is no reason to believe this will not occur again under the NSPS. This system is highly subjective, and critically dependent on the individual's relationship with his/her supervisor. This will lead to the same kind of disparate treatment that drove employees to form labor unions in the first place, and which forced passage of civil rights (EEO) legislation to protect women and minorities from management's gross abuses of power in the workplace. Please note, it took LEGISLATION to correct these former abuses, and it will no doubt take future LEGISLATION to repair this NSPS debacle. The former GOB managers and supervisors did not change voluntarily, and apparently whatever culture changes have occurred over the years were superficially cosmetic on the part of management, since they are now promoting this disgusting parody of a fair and equitable system that will allow them to legally do exactly what they have always tried to do under the guise of the merit performance system (also known as the good-old-boy system). That is: reward their individual Star Performers at the expense of the rest of the team, while at the same time exhorting everyone to be team players. Pay banding will just give them an excuse to reward the Stars and they will not even have to feel guilty that their blinders keep them from seeing anyone else's contribution. I have talked to people who have worked under pay banding, and have yet to find anyone who thought it was fair or equitable. Many people worked for years at the same rate of pay, while the boss's favorites got raises every year. NSPS will pit worker against worker at the very time when we need cooperation, not competition, to defeat an insidious enemy who apparently knows more about how to inspire teamwork than we will ever hope to learn (especially under the new good-old-boy system called NSPS). Please scrap the NSPS system before it is too late and you undo years of civil rights, EEO and diversity progress. It was obsolete 40 years ago, why resurrect it now? NSPS only confirms the fact that the racial and gender bias inherent in the GOB system has never been totally eliminated; only festering just below the surface, waiting for the right time to rear its ugly head again. I used to brag to family and friends about how fairly the government treated its employees, but I will no longer be able to do so if this system becomes a reality. I will no doubt become just another disgruntled employee, like my friends in the private sector, betrayed by the broken promises of their obscenely greedy, near-sighted employers who can't see the forest for the trees.