| Comment Number: | OL-10509941 |
| Received: | 3/15/2005 9:31:44 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:
After making a number of other comments to the proposed Regs, and in thinking about the NSPS, I keep coming back to two main points; namely, (1) It looks like DoD wants to embrace a performance-based pay system for its civilian employees, and (2) It looks like DoD want to transform its civilian work force into a quasi-paramilitary force, willing and able to be shipped out to anywhere in the world that DoD sees fit to protect our "National Security". Along with this scheme goes (a) A reduced role for unions -- in the military, there are no unions, (b) the opportunity for "extraordinary pay increases" -- in the military, they call these "promotions in rank", and (c) the opportunity for "mandatory removal offenses" -- in the military, they call these "dishonorable discharges". Maybe my analogies aren't real precise, but boy, they're pretty close. In fact, no matter how you look at it, taken all together, the changes proposed by DoD for its civilian workforce are truly sweeping, revolutionary changes, which represent a profound and significant departure from how our government civilian workforce has operated in the past. If DoD is bound and determined to jump into this chasm, I have an alternative that may be worth considering: Why not create a separate classification of DoD civilian employee, one who WANTS to be paid according to his/her performance, one who WANTS DoD to send him/her anywhere in the world at their whim? This would create many opportunities for ambitious people who seek greater challenges -- in return for greater pay and advancement opportunities. Also, let there be a separate, enhanced pay scale for such people. That way, DoD would not have to affect the current pay rates and lifestyles of thousands of existing DoD civilian employees. In this way, valuable DoD employees who prefer to live in one community year after year will have the lifestyle they want, while ambitious, energetic, talented DoD employees who prefer to encounter different challenges at a variety of "duty stations" throughout the world -- even in hazardous regions -- will have the lifestyle (and higher pay) that they crave. Guys, you can kill two birds with one stone here. It even might work out that the "new pay category" for "ambitious" DoD employees gets more and more "takers", until the old system just withers away. But whatever you do, don't make the mistake of forcing the NSPS wholesale upon a workforce that is clearly reluctant to accept it. And in any event, don't change the entire present system all at once -- especially one which has been working as well as this one for so many years, through years of peace as well as through years of war.