NSPS—Congressional Action
For nearly three full years, DoD has misused the authority granted by Congress to design and implement a contemporary human resources management system. As the record reflects, the Department has not allowed meaningful involvement by employee representatives and there is serious question as to whether the Department’s sweeping interpretation of their new-found authorities are consistent with Congressional intent.
There is also great uncertainty as to whether DoD can control, or even keep track of, the costs associated with implementing NSPS. GAO’s recent report demonstrates that DoD drastically misrepresented the true cost of NSPS to Congress, and accounting practices have been so poor, it will be impossible for DoD to ever determine how much they have spent on the program.
In this regard, the 600,000 plus members that are represented by the 36 member United DoD Workers Coalition, is requesting that Congress take the following actions:
Defund NSPS through the Fiscal Year 2008 (FY08) Defense Appropriations Conference Report: With our country in the midst of a global war against terrorism, this is hardly the time to spend billions of dollars to institute another one of former Secretary Rumsfeld’s ill-conceived reforms; much less one that has demonstrated that it will demoralize the federal workforce and take much needed resources away from our men and women in uniform as they defend our country.
In light of the aforementioned conclusions, the Congress should not provide funding for the implementation of this misguided endeavor any longer. NSPS, in its current form, denies basic due process and is fundamentally anti-worker. Moreover, the program has proved to be a huge waste of taxpayers’ dollars. DoD has failed to track spending on the program, and the agency has little chance of implementing much of their system before the sunset date, making investment in the system wasteful.
The UDWC applauds the House of Representatives for unanimously accepting the bipartisan Inslee/Walter Jones/Van Hollen NSPS defunding amendment. While the Senate version does not include the defunding language, the UDWC is urging DoD Appropriators to include it as a part of the final FY08 DoD Appropriations Conference Report.
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Repeal NSPS through the FY08 Defense Authorization Bill: The House passed FY08 Authorization measure (H.R. 1585) included a sweeping repeal of much of NSPS, while leaving in place the Department’s ability to move forward with pay for performance. While the UDWC is leery of pay for performance, the coalition is nonetheless pleased that the House bill restores all of the civil servant, veterans preference, appeals rights and collective bargaining protections for the DoD workforce. In addition, the language will ensure that the DoD will have to bargain impact and implementation of any pay banding system with unionized DoD workers, ensuring that a fair and balanced pay system is put in place. The UDWC supports the House language in its entirety.
In addition to all of the House language, the UDWC also supports inclusion of Senate passed language included in their version of the FY08 Defense Authorization bill (S. 1548) that will repeal all of NSPS, including pay for performance, for wage-grade Civilian workers at DoD. There is also language in both the House and Senate bills that exempts DoD labs from NSPS and the UDWC supports that as well.
The UDWC asks that Congressional Authorizers to the FY08 Defense Authorization Conference Report include all of the House passed NSPS repeal language, as well as the Senate passed language calling for a full repeal of NSPS for Wage Grade workers.