DOD, UNIONS MEET TO DISCUSS NSPS

Source: Fednews-online.com

Representatives from the Department of Defense and a coalition of 36 unions have wrapped up a series of meetings in which they discussed the National Security Personnel System.

The two sides met in early December and again last week to discuss seven recently-released NSPS Implementing Issues.

“We feel the meetings were very informative, and we hope the unions did also,” said Joyce Frank, spokeswoman for DoD. “We’ve identified some issues we need to clarify,” said Frank, adding that the meetings “provided a lot of give and take.”

Union representatives were not as upbeat about the meetings.

“From the beginning, DoD’s concept of conferring with the unions has been to tell us it’s either too early or too late to meet. Now they are trying to give us the worst of both worlds. After six months of dancing around all the details of the new NSPS, DoD has dropped four-hundred pages of technical rules and concepts on us and unilaterally mandated that we respond after the holidays. Truly, they give new meaning to the concept of bad faith,” said Mark Roth, general counsel to the American Federation of Government Employees.

According to DoD, the unions have until the end of the year to submit questions and concerns about NSPS in writing. The Department extended the deadline for correspondence concerning Workforce Shaping, which discusses how DoD may realigned its civilian positions, until mid-January. Frank also said that DoD will be available for conference calls through the end of the year.

DoD released the long-awaited regulations in late October and published more details in November.

Two weeks ago, DoD posted a 25-page primer of the personnel system’s proposed human capital components. The document defines key terms and the system’s compensation structure, staffing flexibilities and performance management components.

DoD originally had wanted to begin implementing NSPS last month, but delayed the personnel system until Feb. 1, 2006, at the earliest. A coalition of federal unions, led by AFGE, has filed a lawsuit seeking to derail the personnel system. (See DoD DELAYS NSPS UNTIL FEBRUARY at
http://www.fednews-online.com/view_publication.aspx?publicationId=8618.)

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will begin hearing the case Jan. 24, 2006.

More information about NSPS can be found at http://www.cpms.osd.mil/nsps/index.html