The Bush administration has proposed new personnel rules for 750,000 civilian Defense Department workers that would:

• Reduce pay for federal workers overall.
• End civil service protections.
• End meaningful collective bargaining for these workers.
• End seniority rules on layoffs and reductions-in-force.
• Allow management to decide who gets raises and change work hours and civilian deployments at will.

Known as the National Security Personnel System (NSPS), these rules become a model for attacks on collective bargaining throughout the federal government—and by states and private-sector employers. The rights of all of us are threatened.

The Bush administration is accepting comments from the public on the proposed rules for just a few short weeks. Please use the message below to submit your comments to the Federal Register. It's important to use the language provided because it is in the format and uses the technical citations necessary for official comments.

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

I believe the proposed NSPS regulations will undermine the civil service and hurt the ability of Defense Department employees to accomplish the agency's mission.

Please consider the following comments and delay final implementation until the proper steps have been taken to effectively involve the elected representatives of Defense Department workers.

Subpart B Classification - Section 9901.201 to 99901.231

NSPS will replace the current government job classifications by grouping them into a few occupational categories with pay being set in "bands" with the new categories. Individual employees will be unable to appeal these newly-classified positions or the broad range of duties under the revised categories to a neutral arbitrator.

Subpart C Pay, Sections 9901.301 to 9901.373

Defense Department employees should continue to receive the same annual pay and across-the-board adjustment that other GS/FWS workers receive.

The individual pay increases for performance in the regulations should include guaranteed percentages so employees will understand the pay system and what their pay increase will be depending on their performance.

Subpart D Performance Management - 9901.401 to 9901.409

To ensure fairness and accuracy, Defense Department employees should be able to appeal any performance rating to an independent grievance and arbitration process as they can do now.

Subpart E Staffing and Employment - 9901.501 to 9901.516

The proposed regulations would replace longstanding provisions on hiring found in 5 U.S.C. Chapters 31 and 33 with unpublished procedures that will be prescribed at some future date through implementing issuances. Using this approach will allow the Defense Department to arbitrarily develop and administer new rules on staffing and employment that have not been available for public comment. This is especially troubling given the proposal to engage in non-citizen hiring to positions within NSPS. Our national security would surely be put at risk if Defense Department managers were able to exercise such hiring flexibilities.

Subpart F Workforce Shaping - 9901.6012 to 9901.611

The Defense Department should not change the current layoff/RIF rules, which give balanced credit to performance and the employees' valuable years of committed service. Moreover, under he proposed regulations employment disputes over such matters would be unfairly limited to the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Subpart G Adverse Actions - 9901.701 to 9901.810

The NSPS guiding principle on enhanced management flexibility would be undermined if the provision on mandatory removable offenses is retained. Due process and fairness demand that the independent body reviewing major suspensions and terminations be allowed to alter the proposed penalty if it deems deem the penalty to be unreasonable. The current standards approved by the courts to guide such bodies should be continued.

Subpart H Appeals - Section 9901.801 to 9901.810

Over 25 years worth of case law will be discarded, where those precedents conflict with NSPS. This will eliminate the use of the Douglas factors, which third parties used to mitigate or overturn agency-imposed penalties.

Subpart I Labor-Management Relations - 9901.901 to 9901.929

The labor-management law that has governed the employees' right to organize and engage in collective bargaining has worked well since 1978. There is no compelling reason to take away most of the collective bargaining rights or grievance rights.

The Defense Department should not create a "company-dominated dispute board." Any dispute board must be jointly selected by management and the union.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
February 25, 2005