Comment Number: OL-10512178
Received: 3/16/2005 11:09:39 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:

While the ‘pay for performance’ as proposed in the NSPS sounds ideal theoretically, and after the proposed NSPS strips the bargaining power of the labor union, there is no checks and balances for managers who committed favoritism and nepotism in granting jobs and/or assignments. Under the proposed NSPS, employees who are victims of favoritism and nepotism would likely not dare to file grievance to the upper management for fear of retribution by managers giving poor rating on their performance appraisal that would eventually affect their pay. Even if an employee files a grievance to the upper management, since the union will only be ‘consulted’ and not part of the process to determine the factors causing the employees to file the grievance, and ultimate decision will be made only by the management instead of a third party independent arbitrator, there will not be any checks and balance against managers at any level committing favoritism, nepotism, or making biased decisions. Very soon, many unqualified individuals who are favorites or friends or relatives of the management will be added to the Federal work force through appointment and get most of the credit through excellent rating on their performance appraisal for the work of other loyal and genuinely qualified Federal workers. Not only would this create a betrayal of public trust and waste of taxpayers’ money, the Federal work force would gradually degrade into an inefficient workforce, and become unable to support the warfighters efficiently. An analogy for the Federal workers under the proposed NSPS would be the court of a Chinese emperor who would typically find two classes of ministers or state advisers: the first class represented those who were loyal, dedicated, and made unbiased decisions for the welfare of the state rather than self interest whereas the second class represented those who always tried to be the favorite of the emperor through flattering, withholding the truth from the emperor and telling the emperor what he wanted to hear, and at the same time consolidating their position and power through favoritism and nepotism to grant jobs to relatives and those they liked, regardless of qualification. Such weak government led to changes of dynasties throughout the history of China for the past 5000 years or so. Do we want our Federal workers under the proposed NSPS to become a weak and inefficient government as seem in so many Chinese emperors’ courts? Can we afford to allow such mistakes in history to repeat itself in the proposed NSPS? I would recommend the current GS system to be in effect but empower the managers to fire those unacceptable performers after failing to bring up to expected performance level through three counseling statements within a certain period of time, just like that practiced in the Active Army. Award those high performers with additional bonus or Quality Step Increase (QSI). Then the DoD and the Congress would not have to spend a lot of time and effort to debate and determine whether it is fair to implement the proposed NSPS. Instead, the DoD should focus on its primary objective: protect America by hunting down all known and potential terrorists by the Active duty folks, supported by the DoD civilian workers. It just does not make sense to make sweeping changes in the personnel system affecting the DoD civilian employees in the middle of a multi-front war in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and possible skirmish with North Korea or Iran due to its nuclear threat! We civilian employees need morale booster, too to help us support the warfighters efficiently and not worry about competing with my fellow coworkers in order to get higher performance rating in order to achieve higher pay under the proposed NSPS! The first thing out of the window in the proposed NSPS will be team work, as Federal workers will be forced to withhold information and cooperation in order to make other coworkers look bad so that one would get a higher rating on the performance appraisal.