Comment Number: OL-10509828
Received: 3/15/2005 6:54:30 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:

I am a Civil Service Mariner (CIVMAR) employed by Military Sealift Command, a component of the Department of the Navy. My comments apply equally to myself and my fellow CIVMAR employees. We are a very small and equally unique group of federal employees. We are employed strictly aboard auxilliary (supply) vessels of the United States Navy. We often, in fact almost entirely, deploy in company with U.S. Navy vessels. Like my fellow CIVMARS, I have deployed to many or most of the locations reachable by water throughout my career. I was in the Indian Ocean in August 1990 with the first ships to respond to Operation Desert Shield. I have since deployed to the Persian Gulf. You will find CIVMAR-manned MSC ships with U.S. Navy deployments throughout the world. We are excepted service employees, we are not career competitive Civil Service. Our service is almost entirely aboard ship, we do not go home at the end of the day, for weekend or holidays. We are assigned to ships for months at a time, wherever that ship may go. We provide what I believe is an extremely valuable and unique service to our country, bringing great dedication and specialized skills to the benefit of the U.S. Navy fleet. We CIVMARs already demonstrate the greatest degree of assignment and operational flexibility of any group of government employees I know of. Whever the U.S. Navy goes, there is a CIVMAR manned MSC ship alongside to provide fuel, ammunition, and stores. Whatever the operational Navy calls on us to provide, we "fill the bill". But we cannot do this without the skilled, experienced, and dedicated CIVMARs who man out ships. We are in a competitive situation with civilian industry for the Mariners who man our ships. A prospective employee is free, and is guaranteed, to evaluate employment with MSC versus employment with a private or contract employer. In order to attract and retain the CIVMAR employees we need, our conditions of employment imperatively need to be as close to commercial standards as the government service can allow. We already work for far less paid vacation than our industry counterparts. This is a historical and ongoing challenge to our recruiting and retention. We CIVMARs have proven thoroughly and repeatedly that our conditions of employment are highly favorable to the accomplishment of our mission and satisfactory to the needs of the Government. I most strongly urge that our conditions of employment remain as they are and that no further deviation from commercial maritime employment stanndards occur. We are challenged to the maximum at the present time in recruiting and retention, any further changes that deviate from industry standards will make selling the idea of seagoing employment with MSC an impossibly difficult task.