| Comment Number: | OL-10511396 |
| Received: | 3/16/2005 3:18:45 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:
Good Afternoon Ms.Lacey I am writing to you because of my concerns about the proposed National Security Personnel System (NSPS) scheduled for implementation for more than 700,000 employees of the Department of Defense. As you know, NSPS was authorized under the 2004 Defense Authorization Act, passed by Congress in November 2003. There is, however a significant difference between the skeletal authorities that Congress approved and the sweeping new authorities that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is now claiming. During congressional hearings on this issue, the Secretary asserted that the Pentagon's broad mission requires greater "flexibility" in hiring, disciplining, compensating and assigning civilian personnel. In short, the Secretary wanted the same "chain of command" authority over civilian personnel as he enjoys over uniformed military personnel. Neither the Secretary nor his subordinates offered any concrete examples to explain how civil and union rights might have impinged on the Pentaton's mission in the past. Although Congress acceded to the broad requests lodged by the DOD, it attached certain strict conditions--including, a specific requirement that DOD observe legal requirements of labor relations statutes and that they involve duly elected unions in the development of the new system. The Pentagon has done neither. Althought DOD has convened a dozen or more meetings to "brief stakeholders" and to "solicit the views" of unions, there has been no information sharing from DOD and absolutely no response to repeated union requests for specific information as to exactly what problems management wishes to address with the adoption of NSPS. Also when you have managers who feel that if it is not good for them it won't be good for their subbordinates. If they don't get good performances you can bet the subbordinates won't either. NSPS is going to become joke in the Government because there will be some who will make a mockery out of it and abuse the system to reward those who should not be. It is going to become a "Good Ol BOY System" and I'm sure that is not the intention. I am sure that the Pentatgon's objectives in advancing NSPS is to construct a so-called "pay for performance" system. This is another case of deceptive labeling. Various government agencies have been testing performance pay system for more than twenty years and invariably, the results have been that the majority of workers feel cheated when advancement, promotion and pay decisions are given over to the sole decretion of a supervisor. The process typically reduces salaries and morale. It is too autocratic and eliminates any redress for decisions made on the basis of considerations other than merit. For these reasons, I oppose the implementation of NSPS and I urge you to act to instruct the Secretary of Defense to halt any further development of NSPS unless and until the Pentagon is willing to substantively address the issues raised by the United DOD Workers Coalition and other employee representatives. Please accept my e-mail address as my signature.