Comment Number: OL-10508976
Received: 3/15/2005 11:47:09 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:

I am writing to you because of my concern about the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) scheduled for implementation for more than 700,000 employees of the Department of Defense over the next year. As you know, there is, a big difference between the skeletal authorities that Congress approved and the sweeping new authorities that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is wanting to put in practice. I understand that, the Secretary would like to have greater "flexibility" in hiring, disciplining, compensating and assigning civilian personnel. After what I have read and understand is that, the Secretary wanted the same "chain of command" authority over civilian personnel as he enjoys over uniformed military personnel. There are no concrete examples to explain how union rights might have affected the Pentagon's mission in the past. As usual DOD convened a dozen or more meetings to "brief stakeholders" and to "solicit the views" of unions, there has been no information sharing from DOD. Which is normally is what DOD does, wants everyone to follow the law except them. And when the union requested specific information as to exactly what problems management wishes to address with the adoption of NSPS no answer was given. It sounds like one of the Pentagon's objectives in advancing NSPS is to construct a so-called "pay for performance" system. This is another case of deceptive labeling. Various government agencies have been testing performance pay systems for more than 20 years and invariably, the results have been that the majority of workers feel cheated, when they see advancement, promotion and pay decisions are given over to the sole discretion of a supervisor. The process typically reduces salaries and morale. I have worked for the Federal Government for over 20 years and my husband worked for over 30 years, I have seen how unfair a supervisor can be under the current system and after reading the new plan I can see nothing but going backwards. In the twenty years I have had Military and Civilian bosses, many Military have no idea what they are suppose to do for you not even on appraisal, so to them it is supervision by fire. I have been waiting for 2 years for my position description to be taken care of after I was moved by a Lt Col of the Unit. My immediate supervisor was a Captain right out of School she then deployed and it went to a Chief MSgt he didn’t want to do it and was deployed and then it went to the Lt Col and he was deployed but said he would do it while gone. Well they all were gone for 120 days, the captain still didn’t do it believing the Lt Col was doing it, the Chief MSgt came back and started getting in retirement mode and didn’t do it. When the Lt Col came back he was immediately sent to another base. I had gotten a position description from another person whose job was the same and wrote the position description myself. I then gave it to the Captain and she handed it over to a SMSgt because she was deploying again, it is still waiting on his desk because he is to busy with his airman to worry about a civilian. So if you think that supervisors are going to take care of us you are very wrong they only will when it benefits them. I have also worked on the outside for different companies, one was a bank I went through two reduction in force with them and it was really scary as they didn’t need any reason to let you go. This is what I can see happening with this program if the supervisor has a grudge, dislikes and can paint a ugly picture of you to high ups you will be gone. I came into the government because I liked the idea that if I worked hard and produce that I would be reward with retention. I have worked for a Colonel that did something wrong and I put in a IG complaint which he had to answer even though I didn’t give my name afterwards he abolished my job and I moved on. I can see with this new system the same kind of thing happening. Another aspect of changed which was forced upon us was the changing of the retirement system. I have one that you should look at. Why not make all the Senators and Representatives go under the same retirement that all the other civil servants are under, the good old Social Security System, I bet it would become a priority to fix the Social Security if they were For these reasons, I oppose the implementation of NSPS and I urge you to act to instruct the Secretary of Defense to halt any further development of NSPS unless and until the Pentagon is willing to substantively address the issues raised by the United DOD Workers Coalition.