| Comment Number: | OL-10508478 |
| Received: | 3/15/2005 9:00:50 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:
1.The proposals would override any provision of a collectively bargained agreement through “DoD or Component issuances”. This violates Congress’s explicit order to preserve collective bargaining. 2.The proposals would expand management rights so dramatically as to deny bargaining in almost in any circumstance. This violates the specific Congressional directive to preserve collective bargaining. 3.The proposals would create a new labor relations review board, costing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, to invent a structure similar to the existing Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). The members of this proposed board would be appointed solely by the Secretary of Defense, with no Congressional or outside oversight. This violates Congress’s requirement that the Department ensure that any new labor relations system have an independent third party review. 4.The proposals would give the Secretary of Defense unilateral power to appoint as many members to this review board as desired. This violates Congress’s requirement that ensures independent third party reviews of the Department’s labor relations decisions. 5.The proposals would deny employees their right to a fair hearing of their appeals for adverse actions taken against them. The Department would reserve the right for itself to unilaterally reverse the decision of an MSPB administrative judge (AJ), merely because the Department does not agree that the decision was correct. It is ironic that our government continues to deploy our military forces to foreign lands in the name of freedom and the right to self determination, while these same rights are being eroded within our own boundaries. DoD and OPM should scrap their harmful proposals for NSPS and work collaboratively with employee unions to develop a new system, as Congress directed them to do!