NSPS- Read it for Yourself

 

 

Are you getting tired of the rumors and counter-rumors, the spin and counter-spin on the proposed National Security Personnel System (NSPS)?  So are we.  Any federal employee who cares about his or her career needs to take the time to “go right to the source.”  Read the NSPS law.  Read the NSPS proposed regulations which would implement the policies in that law.  They are easy to find and save to some spot where you can read them on your own time, free of distractions.

 

Here are the “links” you can use to get the NSPS law and the NSPS proposed regulations:

 

NSPS Law:

 

http://www.cpms.osd.mil/nsps/pdf/NSPSLegislation.pdf

 

NSPS proposed regulations:    

 

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20051800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2005/pdf/05-2582.pdf

 

 

The Union invites any employee who takes up our invitation to get back in touch with us to tell us whether the following are facts or rumors:

 

1.      The NSPS law begins with section 9902(a), which empowers the Secretary of Defense to establish and change a new personnel system.  Until now, the fundamentals of the federal civil service system have been established and changed by Congress, not DOD.  For all of you folks who think its a great idea that Mr Rumsfeld should have this power, how are you going to feel if or when Secretary of Defense Hillary Rodham Clinton scraps his system and puts her own system into place?  And how will you feel 4 years later when Secretary of Defense Karl Rove scraps her system and puts his own system into place?

 

2.   The next 2 pages of the NSPS law contain sections 9902(b)(3) and 9902(d), which identify the specific laws within title 5 of the U.S. Code that cannot be waived.  They are short.  Section 9902(b)(5) is even shorter.  It says that, with the exceptions listed in the other places, every part of title 5 of the U.S. Code and every government-wide regulation issued by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) under title 5 of the U.S. Code may be waived by DOD.  Find a copy of title 5 of the U.S. Code.  Or just find the table of contents of title 5 of the U.S. Code.  All the veterans preference laws in Chapters 33 and 35?  Waivable.  Chapter 43 on employee performance?  Waivable.  Chapter 53 on basic pay?  Waivable.  (And you thought you’d always be a GS employee or a WG employee)   Chapter 61 on establishing and changing basic work weeks and tours of duty?  Waivable.  (Yes, that includes the designation of federal holidays as days off and the requirement for double-pay if you work on a holiday).  Chapter 63 on annual and sick leave?  Waivable.  (Yes, that includes the Family and Medical Leave Act).   Chapter 75 on the right not to be fired except for good cause?  Waivable.  Chapter 81 on workers compensation?  Waivable.  Chapter 83 on retirement?  (Yes, chapter 83 on retirement)  Waivable.    Chapters 87 and 89 on life insurance and health insurance?  Waivable.  Do you feel better knowing that the proposed regulations for the new NSPS issued by DOD don’t actually waive all those laws, or do you feel worse knowing that whether those laws apply to you or don’t apply to you is now in the hands of each Secretary of Defense, and not Congress?

 

3.   Spend some time with DOD’s proposed NSPS regulations.  Read them.  Forget about everything you’ve heard from any union, employee, manager or DOD office.  Just read them.  Let us know if you find anything that assures that veterans and disabled veterans will not have to compete with non-veterans in order to stay in their competitive levels in a RIF.  Show us anything in the proposed regulations that guarantees your pay will be retained if you have to take a lower-graded position in a RIF.  Let us know if you find anything that says what the pay schedules or pay bands are going to be.  Let us know if you find anything that says you will get a cost of living increase every year.  Read on.  What do you think of the proposed regulation that allows your supervisor to reduce your pay by 10 percent in any year when he or she is dissatisfied with your work?  Read on and don’t stop until you finish it and you understand it.  Then tell us what you think.