| Comment Number: | OL-10510031 |
| Received: | 3/16/2005 12:07:57 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:
Labor-Management Relations: Subpart I This subpart is nothing but a wholesale assault on the concepts of collective bargaining and grievance/arbitration. In authorizing NSPS, Congress could not have been clearer that DOD employees must retain the right to engage in collective bargaining. “Collective bargaining” has a very clear meaning after decades of experience in the federal sector. It does not mean that the union gets to meet with the employer and make proposals the employer can accept or reject as it pleases. That’s collective begging. It does not mean that the employer asks the union for comments on a plan it has already decided to implement. That’s meet and confer. It means that before one of the parties, union or employer, can change personnel policies or working conditions, that party must propose the change to the other party and must agree to meet face-to-face to try to resolve the other party’s concerns about the proposed change. At the end of this process, the parties either sign a binding agreement or arrange for a third-party will resolve their impasse. When the agreement is signed, or when the third party has ruled on the impasse, the change in personnel policies or conditions of employment may be implemented. The proposed regulations abolish collective bargaining in DOD. Nearly all changes of any significance will be considered “management’s rights” and not subject to negotiations- not even over the procedures management will follow or appropriate arrangements for affected employees. In short, the employer will impose the change. No advance notice. No bargaining. For those topics where some sort of bargaining is still allowed, and assuming DOD does not consider the impact on employees “de minimis,” impasses will be resolved not by a third-party but by the Secretary’s hand-picked NSLRB. Even if no “management’s rights” are involved, DOD can still refuse to bargain over any aspect of DOD or Component issuances, according to section 9901.917. Since the Air Force has a regulation on merit promotion, there will be no bargaining on merit promotion. Since the Army has a regulation on hours of work and scheduling, there will be no bargaining on hours of work and scheduling. Since the Navy has a regulation on leave, there will be no bargaining on leave. Open the table of contents of any labor contract now in effect in the federal sector and tell us, if you can, how any of the articles in that contract can continue to exist once this new system is adopted. Why the strict limits on negotiations with unions? What are you afraid of? If the union presents more efficient and effective proposals, your NSLRB can shoot them down. If your local negotiators in a rare flash of integrity actually sign off on the union’s more efficient and effective proposals, you can shoot them down on “agency head review.” In an environment like this, you can do more than pretend to be “contemporary” or “transparent.” You can actually do it. You can experiment with a collective bargaining modality that looks more futuristic and less like a throwback to the Gilded Age. Make everything negotiable! The regulations should state that there is a duty to bargain in good faith over any personnel policy or condition of employment. Just think how much time and frustration could be avoided if both parties did not have to argue about what they had an obligation to argue about. Just think how much paperwork and delay could be avoided if the NSLRB didn’t have to make “negotiability” rulings. Let the parties bargain; they’re adults. If they can’t reach an agreement, you can get exactly what you want from the impasse resolution process at the NSLRB. If they do reach an agreement and you don’t like it, void it. At least the system would be honest about who has the final say. And who knows, if you let your managers and employees negotiate with each other without trying to tell them what they can talk about.