| Comment Number: | OL-10509417 |
| Received: | 3/15/2005 3:12:56 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:
As a person who is currently under a lab demonstration project, here are a few comments that I have about the new proposed NSPS: The pay for performance is a good idea. But, the current demo system that we are under, the permance pay is separate from the yearly raise (also known as the cost of living increase). Not too many people get upset about not getting too much in the pay for performance because the pool of money to start off with is miniscule to start off with. People are more concerned about the yearly raise. If the yearly raise was used to add to the pay for performance, there will be more people upset when they feel that they didn't get their fair share. There still is favoritism evident here, and seeing the pay raise money unfairly go to some "fair haired boys" , would not sit too well with the masses. In the demo program we have pay privacy, where current salaries of our peers aren't known. This is not a positive of the demo program. It is too easy for a supervisor take care of one person and not another where favoritism still exists. The governement is not like a private company where profits are distibuted as bonuses, and the non performers are weeded out seeing how they don't help the profitability of the company. I feel that all pays and bonuses should be public knowledge. With the pay for perfomance system, there is also a problem where fellow workers are battling it out for the same pool of money. This does not encourage teamwork. This new NSPS looks like it will allow the DOD to transfer any worker any place, at any time. This looks like an area that could be seriously misued. As an example, if a supervisor is trying to thin out the older workers and replace them with younger cheaper workers, they can continually transfer the workers until they decide to quit. If you talk to most government workers, they didn't become a government worker to get rich. But they were willing to trade the bigger paycheck in for more job security than you would find in private industry. If you are looking to entice new workers, this constant fear of the chance of being moved every few years, would most likely make prospective new hire hesitant to work for the government. It appears that the DOD has too much control over setting the local market supplement and setting and adjusting rate ranges. In the wrong hands this could be abused. Let's say that the DOD wants to shut down a lab. Currently it is a process that many people provide inputs to. With the new plan, if the DOD wanted to close a lab, all they would have to do was drive down the salaries for the labs to a point where people would quit. In the new system, it appears that RIFs are no implemented in a fair manner. It appears that even if a person is in the same classification as another, one person could be RIFed over the other just because he is working in the wrong product line. As an example, a computer engineer with 10 years experience (making washers) could be RIFed, while a computer engineer with 3 years experience (making widgets) is not. All because the DOD feels that they no longer need to make washers and eliminates the washer makers. As with the lab demo program that I am currently under, the new NSPS looks like it is not completely defined. It appears that a lot of the blanks are not going to be filled in until after the program has been implemented. This leaves a lot of room for people to misuse this program and define what they want later on in the program. From following the news about the NSPS over the past several months, it appears that the DOD is trying to eliminate any union involvement in the development and implementation of the NSPS. I am not a big advocate of the unions, but I do feel that there should be some checks and balances. Therefore, I do believe that the unions should be involved in this whole process. I am all for improving the process, but it appears that the DOD is rushing into it.