| Comment Number: | OL-10509694 |
| Received: | 3/15/2005 5:07:08 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:
Some of the words I read in 5CFR Chp. XCIX and Part 9901 disturb me as a federal employee who has worked over 33 years at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va. Words like "...the total force, uniformed personnel and civilians, thinks and operates as one cohesive unit". Civilian DOD personnel obviously should and do support the military's efforts, but aren't "one unit" and should not be considered as such. If civilians desire to operate as one with military units, they can or would volunteer to join the military, and if not, no system should involuntarily make them do so. It sounds like the current Administration is trying to draft civilians to make up for shortages in the military. The civilian employees at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and other Defense facilities already support the military as Job 1, that's what we are here for(NNSY currently has a team in Kuwait putting arnor on Army vehicles for example). I don't see how changing the system will improve on such situations any. In the first paragraph of Section 7 under Management Rights, it talks about the Department being "able to develop and rapidly deploy resources to confront threats.....". Again, it sounds like the Administration wants to be able to deploy civilians as if they are military, which should not be the case. The general nature of the whole NSPS Plan to me is contrary to American ideals. It is taking away the rights of American civil service workers using the excuse that this is necessary for American security. This is nonsense! The current labors laws and union agreements have been developed over the last century to protect American civil service employees against the patronage type of system that existed in the eithteen hundreds, and now this Administration wants to return to such a system. The Pay for Performance plan sounds good in theory, but will not work well in practice. Too many managers(including my boss and others at NNSY) play favorites to allow it to work properly, and with less Union oversite, which this system wants to put in place, the situation will only get worse. The current system is bad enough because it takes a long time for the Unions to get resolutions to disputes. The current Administration should be concentrating its efforts on finishing the war in Iraq it started without good reason, rather than trying to take away federal employee's rights and benefits. If they hadn't wasted and stretched our military resources on such an unnecessary war, they wouldn't need to be recruiting or "deploying" civilians. They certainly shouldn't be wasteing over a billion dollars trying to revamp the entire civil service system. Obviously I am completely opposed to implementing the NSPS in any way, shape, or form.