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The Defense Department has disregarded congressional objectives in developing its personnel policy overhaul, seven senior Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday.

"We strongly urge the department to withdraw this proposal immediately and submit a new proposal that is consistent with the intent of Congress," the letter said.

The letter was signed by Sens. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Carl Levin of Michigan, Richard Durbin of Illinois and Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, and Reps. Henry Waxman of California, Ike Skelton of Missouri and Danny Davis of Illinois.

Congress has allowed the Defense Department and the Homeland Security Department to reform their personnel systems to better serve military operations overseas and domestic homeland security efforts. The Defense Department released its proposed reforms in early February but they have been denounced by federal labor unions.

If the reforms were implemented in their current form, most civilian employees at the Pentagon could continue to join unions, but an alternative system would be established for employees to contract with a union for temporary representation. Some Defense employees - including accountants, intelligence personnel and attorneys - would not be allowed to join unions. Defense managers would also be able to waive collective bargaining during national security emergencies and for personnel changes that they decide are insignificant.

Defense officials say that they need to streamline bargaining and implement a performance pay system to improve military operations.

Tuesday's letter said, however, that the reforms infringe on employees' right to join unions and the right of unions to bargain collectively and protect against unfair labor practices.

"The DoD proposal effectively eliminates collective bargaining by providing only perfunctory 'consultation' followed by unilateral implementation," the letter said. "This is not good-faith collective bargaining."

The lawmakers said Congress had not intended for the Pentagon to infringe on Chapter 71 of Title 5 of the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act, which sets out the rights of unions. The Defense proposals, however, specifically stipulate that the new labor system "will not employ any provisions of 5 USC Chapter 71," according to the letter.

The letter also alleges that the Defense Department did not follow congressional direction to involve the Office of Personnel Management in the policy overhaul. Last month, OPM Associate Director for Human Resources Management Ronald Sanders said that his agency had no involvement in shaping the initial proposal. During a Feb. 11 hearing, Sanders said that OPM was planning to take a larger role in the development of the new personnel system.

Echoing another frequent complaint, the letter took issue with the proposed Defense Labor Relations Board. Instead of providing an "independent third party review of decisions," as was called for the 2004 Defense Authorization Act, the board will be selected by the Defense Secretary and located within the Pentagon, according to the letter.

"We do not see how such a system could possibly be 'independent,' " the lawmakers said.

COMMENTS

• An individual in our organization receives barely satisfactory on his performance appraisals. Nothing happens. I receive exceptional performance appraisals with proposal for cash award from my supervisor(several years in a row). Nothing happens (vetoed by higher ups). It makes you wonder why you should continue to put out all the extra effort and time for work when you get the same "award" as an individual who gets barely satisfactory. Fortunately, self worth and satisfaction keep me working at my job. Will the new system change anything? No, it will only be worse. The slacker will continue to keep his job as one of "the good ole boys", and others will continue to take up the slack. With the old program, I at least knew I'd get my step raises and yearly cost of living. With the new program, I can't even look forward to that. New isn't always better. GovExec.com reader Posted March 25, 2004 9:23 AM
• This past weekend-Sunday, I read an interesting article about how Congress has given up its oversight and congressional perogatives to the White House. A letter from Senator Lieberman and his six peers holds little weight in the Pentagon or the White House. In fact, all 535 Congressional Representatives and Senators could write a letter or vote for a position and it would again hold no weight with this administration. Until Congress is willing to stand up and punch back in defense of the federal civil service we will just keep getting beat up. I had a discussion with a conservative Republican, fellow civil service employee friend of mine and I told him point blank that it doesn't matter if one is a liberal Democrat or conservative Republican or someone politically in the middle- it is time that all feds vote their paycheck and get all their family members and friends to vote their paycheck- perhaps six or seven million federal employee related votes will get the attention of this administration and stop the abuse. HR Specialist GovExec.com reader Posted March 15, 2004 7:14 AM
• I think one of the most monumental moronic ideas I've heard relates to the pay system that is part of the the new proposed personnel system. It's the idea of pay-for-performance. In theory it sounds great and if all people or at least our supervisors were totally objective it might not be a bad idea. But supervisors are people and therefore incapable of being totally objective. One of the most useless things we do in civil service is give out performance awards. Rewarding someone for superior performance is not bad but it IS very subjective. I personaly feel there is no way around the subjectivity of it and hence should be eliminated. Even Dr. Demming realized that a performance award program was not good. It's bad enough we use this system to provide monitary awards and promotions. But with this new proposed pay system all employees are at the mercy of their supervisors as they are with the performance awards program. If a supervisor doesn't like you for what ever reason, maybe nothing more than a personality conflict you're not going to see an award. BUT now we have to have our pay, or at least pay increases based on what our supervisor believes our level of performance is. Oh my God, you got to be kidding. Our current structure is based on pay per qualifications. If you're qualified for and working in a GS 12 position then that's what you should get paid. If you are a nonperformer you should be removed from the position If you're qualified to hold and work at a WG 10 or a GS 12 or any other grade level than that's where your pay is set, with a few variations. But now we are going to take this extremely unfair subjective good ol boy award program and basically move it over to our pay system. I have 35 years total civil service time and have received MANY awards, and many with $$$ attached. But the system is unfair and in no way should our pay be based on what our supervisor feels our level of performance is. GovExec.com reader Posted March 11, 2004 4:04 PM