| Comment Number: | OL-10510411 |
| Received: | 3/16/2005 9:26:54 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:
Well, it is the last day and nothing has been said about what the disabled workforce may face due to the changes. How do you rate performance and merit in a competition which threatens to award those who can walk, go to Iraq, and have no limitation in assignment? I have watched and clapped at special act awards for colleagues manning the test field, equipment setup in war zones, and many endeavors that I could not perform. I have tried to volunteer for assignments that, while difficult, I could perform to be told that my supervisor prefers to send someone else. Now it won't be on-the-spot awards, it will be my cost of living increases that go to those who are physically capable to walk that extra mile. Where I work, going the extra mile without dramatic travel and meetings is not valued. Early in my career, before equal opportunity awareness, I asked my private sector employer why someone with less education and less job responsibilities made more money than me. I was told that men have greater family responsibilities and need to be paid more. I see a return to that day in these proposals because they remove all pretence that the government is a non-discriminating employer. A single lip-service remark about non-discrimination without a mechanism of enforcement is meaningless. In the same manner that many aging employees see this system as a means through which age-discrimination is made attractive, I see the proposal as an avenue of many abuses based on performance results that are easily manipulated by managers through job assignments and information flow control.