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Pentagon officials halted discussions with Defense Department unions Thursday, paving the way for Defense to issue final regulations implementing a new civilian personnel system.

The "meet-and-confer" discussions with union leaders were mandated by Congress and began April 18. They were extended in late May for an additional two days in June.

Mary Lacey, program executive officer for the new Defense personnel system, said in a statement, "The door is still open for additional communications and proposal submissions," and added union leaders will now have an opportunity to meet with senior leadership at Defense and the Office of Personnel Management. Lacey, her staff, and George Nesterczuk and Ronald Sanders of OPM, had led meet-and-confer sessions, but Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and the new OPM director will make the final decisions regarding the personnel system.

Lacey said the meet-and-confer discussions were productive. "DoD and OPM gained a great deal from the process and will make several recommended changes to the proposed regulations as a result of union input," she said, without specifying what those changes might be.

Union leaders, however, said the meetings had accomplished little. "I never participated in a greater exercise in futility," said American Federation of Government Employees General Counsel Mark Roth.

AFGE was the largest member of the United Defense Workers Coalition, a 35-union group that met with Defense and Office of Personnel Management leaders. Congress mandated the discussions in 2003 legislation that allowed Defense to create the new personnel system.

In preliminary regulations, released in February, Defense indicated that it planned to dispense with the decades-old General Schedule pay system in favor of one that set pay raises based on managerial evaluations of employee performance. The preliminary rules also specified that Defense would restrict collective bargaining and tighten disciplinary rules.

Unions have blasted most aspects of the plan, saying it will lead to cronyism, silence whistleblowers and hurt morale. Six unions walked out of the meet-and-confer talks late last month, protesting what they said was Defense's unwillingness to compromise.

Now that the discussions are over, Defense leaders will work with OPM to hammer out final regulations, which should be announced later this year. Then Defense will begin to implement the system unless union leaders can convince Congress to intervene.

COMMENTS

• to the responder to Gil re: the two term issue. It is obvious that Bush himself won't pay at the polls, but the party will, and most likely at the 06 congessionals. The party in power has historically lost most seats in the off year of the second term. Example, Republicans lost many seats in 58 (Eisenhower's 2nd term) and Democrats lost many seats in 1966 (Their second term, Johnson following Kennedy). GovExec.com reader Posted June 8, 2005 5:55 PM
• Dear Gil commentor, Why don't you ask that question to the family members of the almost 1,700 Americans we have lost in Iraq because let me remember-- Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction-- No, Saddam Hussein put a hit on George senior so we have Texas vengeance. To all these Republicans-- if the heat in the kitchen gets too hot, don't let the door slam you in the you know what getting out of the kitchen-- and by the way it is bad form not to clean up the mess after cooking. GovExec.com reader Posted June 8, 2005 11:09 AM
• Hey Gil, I see you haven't been keeping up on current events how do you hurt a second term President at the polls? Chances are this reform wouldn't be necessary (key word here being NECESSARY) if people did their jobs rather then whining, crying and complaining about everything under the sun. GovExec.com reader Posted June 8, 2005 10:41 AM