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Return to Article: Appeals court deals blow to unions in Defense personnel case

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  I must agree with both Jim and Mike.

  1. Ref Jim: As for the monetary issues, may future NSPS defendants please use hard pay data. Show what is to be gained by the average (or better) worker, as it is they whom you wish to buy-in to this new system. Consideration should be given to:

  a. Please remember that the old system has legislated steps and values in the pay system for career pay progression (upon successful work completion); while the new can change at the drop of a hat; and we all know how often hats are dropped in the political ring.

  b. Please, do not hold that to the assumption that step increases are automatic. This lie is getting stale. The only way they can be considered automatic is due to the same supervisors who will be doing the evaluations under NSPS. The only fix for that is to change supervisors; either in action or relief from duties.

  c. Oh, and please, do not deny the existence of cash awards or in-service step increases as rewards for excellent performance. We've all seen or had them.

  2. In Mike's favor: Yes, there is much more in the NSPS to fear and abhor than just the PFP. The deployment and enhanced resizing capabilities come swiftly to mind.

  Perhaps Doogie and Trenchie are avatars of disinformation but I feel they do reflect a certain mentality that is out there; albeit less so every day. Ronald Reagan was called the "Great Communicator", and we all know Dubya's prowess in this arena... What amazes me is the excellent judgment he showed in Public Relations (aka Spin Doctors) but the poor judgment in appointments elsewhere (Rummy? Gonzales?).

  I think such attitudes are directly due to NSPS training and indoctrination. I've seen it and was amazed at the push for "team players" as opposed to solid facts describing benefits. It resembled nothing so much as propaganda; light on facts, heavy on shame and guilt for asking questions.

  Personally if we were all as incompetent as we are painted by the current administration, made obvious by this personnel system design to ship out the old and draft in the new, I think this brainwashing might actually have taken better affect.

  Tip off Posted August 20, 2007 11:31 AM
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  The original intent behind NSPS was to develop a streamlined, more flexible system. The concept in itself was fine but then DOD wrote the implementing instructions and the components and major commands their pay setting and other implementation policies. All these were written by folks mired in the GS system. Just look at a few and you will see how they actually use parallels to GS grades. As the system trickled down through the components, it became more regulated and restrictive and most of the original intended flexibilities were lost. Not only that, instead of one policy, we now have one for each major command. Talk about efficiency! As to pay for performance, dream on and hope to have a supervisor who is an excellent writer. God help you if you are in a profession where writing is not a key element. The training requirements for the implementation of NSPS are immense and the wealth of information so overwhelming that most managers leave with only a cursory understanding. We are continuously holding their hands with even relatively simple issues such as determining the pay band used for a vacancy announcements. The automated performance appraisal tool is cumbersome and perplexing to even key staff members at the Army headquarters - imagine a user guide with 171 pages plus several supplements issued since its original publication. The tool has numerous shortcomings that resulted in higher headquarter's guidance to do hard copies until the system can be revised. The pay for performance system is no more objective than its precursor, TAPES. At the end of the day, folks will figure out that only a very few will make more under NSPS. Most will make less. Despite all the shortcomings, Congress is being told it's a huge success. It is not. But retirement is looking sweeter and sweeter!

  DA HR Specialist Posted August 20, 2007 5:36 AM
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  Jim - Your'e pushing a rope. I don't think Doogie is real nor trenchie and maybe not chris (but dan is, too real). I think they're avatars created by the PM NSPS to sow disinformation and propaganda to confuse the masses. I may be paranoid but that doesn't mean people aren't out to get me. Trenchie's gotta be a fiction or else s/he really has a hard time holding a job. There's been exactly one NSPS pay out cycle that started spring '06 with an abbreviated rating period. Where'd all these positive, glowing, feel-good experiences in multiple organizations with NSPS come from in just that one abbreviated and the current incomplete cycle? In my agency, only personnelists went in 1.1, wouldn't want to experiment on real people. Not much happy talk going around here from that first iteration and at the DOD LR Conf there was a distinct reluctance to share any concrete info on the results of the cycle, just sessions oddly reminiscent of pep rallies. Heard, and this is all anecdotal, that in at least one agency the vast majority of 4's & 5's went to the managerial/supervisory ranks as we cynics might expect. Haven't seen any hard data that would contradict this, certainly not at the DOD or this agency's websites. ENH dredged up the ghost of the late but unlamented PFP past, Merit Pay. Some of us may remember what killed that (I'm implementing either the 5th or 6th appraisal system of my career not counting the annual tinkering with SES). I remember, sorta. The devil as always was in the details but a big part of it was that it set supervisors in competition with their subordinates for their piece of the pie with unhappy results even tho it was confined to 13's and above. From where I stand, I see NSPS repeating that mistake but then if the majority of the workforce was going to be valued employee level 3's did anyone actually think that would apply equally across all bands? Avatars, don't give me argument or the glowing promise of a brighter tomorrow, like Jim has demanded, let's see some hard evidence. As to gaming the system, Game On! Stay with at 3 or less objectives and never more than 1 factor per if you know what's good for you. That's semi-official.

  Don't be too distracted by the PFP sideshow there's a lot more to NSPS not to like.

  Mike Posted August 17, 2007 3:24 PM
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  Doogie...I'm calling you out. You mentioned giving facts, yet most of what you said afterwards were your opinions. SO give us the real info. Your base salary, your rating, your share distribution, the formula for your performance payouts, the division between salary increase and bonus and please, for the sake of comparison, give us the GS rating and step you were at prior to conversion. I'm asking for a reason...because for a good part you're right. Most of us are operating on conjecture, while you have the opportunity to provide us with real live it actually happened this way facts/numbers. And in fairness Doogie, if you were a GS-12 before and your new performance pay raise is less than the previous steps or the GPI...then you are NOT better off than before. The Ball is in your court!

  Jim Posted August 17, 2007 7:14 AM
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  For those still under the illusion that NSPS doesn't promote favoritsm and sucking up......a monetary award was just presented in a staff meeting to an employee who "performed dead mouse removal and disposal (which is covered by contract and should NOT be done by governemnt workers), checked daily for new corpses under the boss' desk, kept the boss sane (whatever than means), conducted care and feeding (bribed with fudge and cookies) of a specific group of employees....etc.

  There was no mention in the award of any reasonable, specific and work related "above and beyond" effort, no special act based on job performance, nothing.

  If this is the kind of recognition employees can expect, I guess NSPS is a good thing. Let me just dust off my old cookie recipes and set up some mouse traps.....

  SAD BUT TRUE Posted August 16, 2007 2:00 PM
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  Anyone entering the federal workforce from private industry is immediately struck by the entitlement mentality that pervades the bureaucratic beast. There is, unfortunately, no tolerance for improving accountability or for recognizing high-productivity performers at the expense of the slackers. Pay-for-performance is the best possible tool for recruiting highly motivated and results-oriented individuals. If you aren't able to keep up with the new, high energy, creative workforce, find an exit door to relieve yourself of your suffering.

  Michael Posted August 16, 2007 12:56 PM
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  I think that our Senate, Congress, House of Representatives and all the proponents of NSPS should also be under the new NSPS pay system and have to follow the rules and regulations as set up today. Lets see how long this new pay system would last then. I'm sure they would not be pleased, to get a promotion and only receive 5% increase in pay or to not receive an increase in pay at all for doing a great job because you are not part of the "good 'ole boys club". I believe it is extremely unfair for the employees to not have an avenue to voice a complaint. If we are going to play this game then we must all play on the same field!

  Sylvia Wilson Posted August 16, 2007 9:14 AM
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  At the risk of confusing my fellow commenters with facts, rather than speculating and finger-pointing, maybe we could look at what is really happening. I've been under NSPS since earlier this year and it works wonderfully. My supervisors are able to exercise greater flexibility to ensure the work gets done and to compensate me for taking on greater responsibilities (which they have done). Ratings are more appropriate and realistic as are the performance payouts associated with those ratings. I, and many others, are better off under this system that we would have ever been under the outdated GS system. And by the way, I can't believe a Union official would have the audacity to complain about DoD wasting taxpayer dollars. The taxpayer dollars wasted defending against labor's legal maneuvering and stalling tactics is positively obscene.

  Doogie Posted August 16, 2007 8:36 AM
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  In the trenches says that NSPS promotes high performance. Can you tell me how the performance payout was granted: a salary increase, a bonus, or a combination of the two? Can anyone tell me what benefits I will gain over the next 30 years if my performance payout is split between a salary increase and a bonus. All I can see is the strong potential for a lower salary, a lower 3-high and therefore a lower penison benefit; less TSP contributions from the gov't because they match up to 5% of your salary, and lower TSP contibutions because I contribute a percentage of my salary. Investing the bouns after 35% tax is not going to make up the difference you lose in the long run either. If you qulaify, you could invest the bonus in a ROTH. If you don't qualify then you would have to invest that money in a taxable account, and then pay more taxes on your investment return. Then you will have NSPS employees visiting the OPM website looking at what there GS counterparts are making (and what they could have been making) and this will prompt them to then visit USAJOBS. I like pay for performance...I would just perfer to have the performance payout as a 100% salary increase as your salary affects your retirment benefits! I don't see any of the endorsers of NSPS talk about the potnetial for lower retirement benefits because your performance payout was split...especially for a young worker like myself. Any thoughts?

  TD Posted August 16, 2007 8:19 AM
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  Strive for mediocrity! watch what happens when people under NSPS figure out they will earn less than their WIGI! Also when they can only move once in their paypband for 5% any other moves is a straight across with no advancement. You may never be able to catch up going from a 12 to a 13. this is all about saving money for the agency anyone who says diffrent is a liar. Your good workers will imediatly bail as i di and go to non NSPS positions. all your going to be left with is the mediocre employee who has neither the courage or the ability to work elsewhere. remember 3 is valued performer. dare to dream you can be middle of the road! nobody gets 5's and very few 4's so where is the extra money going? when bonus and pay increase total 2.25 percent or in some commands it has been .9% why should you stick around to get screwed. go work for a contractor and get PROFIT SHARING which of course why PFP works in the outside industry.

  Greg Posted August 15, 2007 9:02 AM
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  I've been a DOD employee for seven years, after 24+ years of active duty. Rumsfeld's NSPS does what he wanted--to hire, promote, demote and fire at will. The system opens the door to corruption. It's pretty easy for an experienced Federal employee to see how the system can be gamed . . . and it will be.

  FP Morales Posted August 14, 2007 10:11 PM
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  Shelving employee rights until the year 2009 reeks of an administration that wants to push through its agenda and leave a mess for the next administration. If something is a good policy it shouldn't have any time lines placed upon it. Federal employees, especially those who work for the defense of this country, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. We have worked hard and long to have union rights to ensure employees are treated fairly or at least have an avenue to grieve if they are not. In a democracy, any effort to give one group complete power over another is very dangerous. The NSPS would give managers complete power over employees and would leave those employees with no recourse if they were to be treated unfairly. I cannot believe America's government is willing to go this far away from our basic belief in human rights. It is very disappointing. I believe the NSPS is an un-American personnel system. I also think it is a way to keep salaries low. It does away with step increases and there is no guarantee that the opportunity for awards and promotions will even be funded. By having a so-called impartial panel review the performance appraisals, it gives people who have no actual knowledge of how an employee performs the opportunity to deny any award or increase in salary. I don't believe that personalities will not play a big role in NSPS. If a reviewing panel member doesn't like the rater, he/she may deny the employee an opportunity for award or salary increase. It will get really ugly. I don't believe the system is set up to provide fair pay for performance. I think the whole NSPS is a farce and those behind it know it.

  Rachel Fleming Posted August 14, 2007 7:20 PM
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  The possibilities with NSPS have merit if: you get along with your supervisor (assuming he's good at managing his personnel) and if you're a hard charger and are good at your job. The ones that may find themselves in the weeds are the non performers or those just getting by, which will put a good deal of pressure on Supervisors and Managers who may or may not know how to deal with people. Personally, I'm not sure what's broke with the current pay system? But then I've only been in it for 6 years... and I love my job, but what do I know. NSPS could possibly thin out the ranks of Government workers? Knowledge is lost, which calls for the training to be excelerated. Retirements will create a vacuum as well.

  JCarter Posted August 14, 2007 6:00 PM
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  Just one more example of the Bush administrations dislike for organized labor. They will do anything to break the unions. Just look what he is doing to the National Air Traffic Controller Association. Bush is playing russian roulette with your safety in the skies to break that union. The Supreme court is already stacked against the DOD. It is a lost cause.

  retired air traffic controller Posted August 14, 2007 1:30 PM
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  They have already implemented NSPS where I work and it didn't take long for the "good old boy" system to take over and it is running rampant. I am a republican, but am voting the straight democratic ticket until I retire in the next few years. What a crock of illegal bull.

  Linda Little Posted August 14, 2007 12:53 PM
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  Unfortunately we have too many incompetents working in DOD at the managerial level, put there by quotas rather than being earned. EEO created this monster so I don't have any sympathy for EEO now feeling the pinch. Hopefully this system will expand goverment wide penalizing the incompetent and rewarding the best, putting an end to the entitlement mentality

  dan ketter Posted August 14, 2007 10:47 AM
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  NSPS isn't perfect and the comment regarding funding is spot on. However, there are aspects of the new system that merit a fair test. Among them is the performance management process that is far more visible and open than the old system ever was. Being required to justify recommended ratings and shares to a pay pool panel rather than having 1st and 2nd level supervisors make a quiet agreement on an employee's rating and performance award will be more effective in distinguishing among strong and weak performers and should eliminate the "peanut butter spread" of awards currently viewed as the easy way out for supervisors who haven't been monitoring subordinates' performance in the first place.

  John Posted August 14, 2007 10:47 AM
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  Chris,

  The whole point is that NSPS is leaving out collective bargaining rights. In other words it is ignoring the input of the unions and the workers. NSPS is the one NOT playing well with the other people. NSPS is the one NOT "working together to make it the best system that it can be."

  Raven Posted August 14, 2007 10:02 AM
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  As someone who has worked in multiple organizations covered by NSPS, my observation is that the system clearly links job performance to organization/individual goals and PROMOTES high performance. In the GS system your rating is determined almost exclusively by your immediate supervisor. Under NSPS final ratings/compensation decisions are made by pay pool panels which consist of leaders from across the organizations whose role is to ensure equity and address over/under inflation of ratings. The result is that meaningful differentiations are made between high and low performers. The system promotes organizational TEAMWORK because as an employee I know that others outside my organization potentially have an impact on my rating/pay adjustment. Instead of competing against my peers as is often the case under the GS system, under NSPS I compete against the objectives that have been established for me (to meet or exceed them). Overall, I've found that good employees do as well or BETTER under NSPS than the general schedule.

  In the Trenches Posted August 14, 2007 9:48 AM
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  What a waste of time and resources better spent organizing. Never take anything to this Supreme Court if you can help it. Since this NSPS LR provision sunsets in 2009 and the Court even if they take it won't hear it until after October, 2008, why bother-- just let it sunset.

  This Court might even play games and legislate from the bench. I wouldn't risk letting this Conservative Majority anywhere near Labor issues.

  HR Specialist Posted August 14, 2007 9:18 AM
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  NSPS is a "newer" version of the old General Manager (GM) pay for performance system---which didn't work.

  Why did the GM pay for performance system fail? Simply because it was so difficult to fairly adjudicate performance and pay decisions in a non-profit government setting. One organization's role model might be an average performer elsewhere---and vice versa. Plus, personality plays far too large a role in the pay pool process. When I was a GM back in the 1980's I saw entirely too many pay decisions based upon a supervisor's like or dislike of his or her subordinates.....

  Good managers can do anything (within reason and good management sense) using the exisiting GS personnel system---promote, fire, reward, raise pay levels through quality step increases, grant recruiting/relocation bonuses, etc etc....it just takes a little work on the part of managers and personnel specialists.

  NSPS will fail because a large number of participants,performing at a satisfactory level, will not be able to keep up with their General Schedule counterparts. For example, a YA-03 (equivalent to GS-14, step 8) will expect to receive a full annual cost of living raise and approximately one-third of a step increase just to keep even with General Schedule personnel in other agencies. And, this will be expected for performing work at a satisfactory level. If this doesn't happen, expect a large-scale hue and cry (and rightfully so) from senior NSPS members.

  ENH Posted August 14, 2007 9:09 AM
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  The idea that the NSPS will fair any better than the MAX HR system proposed by DHS is rediculous. When any pay for performance system is broken down it must possess a number of integral components to be effective. It must be equitable to all involved, it must award for actual performance in a manner easily understood by all involved, and it must be funded. In a study I completed in Graduate School, I found that funding is the most pressing issue when marrying pay for performance with the public service. NSPS is a convaluted system, just look at the system, but what makes it worse is that funding, actual payments that will be made to employees, has not been established on the operational level. A government organization can implement a great system, of which NSPS is not, but Congress must fund it. That is the catch.. Just look at what has happended at the FFA. Funding has left there performance based pay system unfunded and dysfunctional.

  Jerry C. Templet Jr Posted August 14, 2007 9:08 AM
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  From what I have seen NSPS promotes the "good ol'boy" system more so than our current system.

  Susan Arnett Posted August 14, 2007 9:07 AM
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  Ok, now you going to get on board? I've been telling you for months, and the court agrees that NSPS is legal, and will do more good than harm. Now that the union lost another round in the courts I'm sure they will try to have Congress deny funding or rewrite the law. It would be nice for once if they just admitted defeat and said, Ok lets work together to make this the best system it can be. But no.

  Chris Posted August 14, 2007 7:59 AM
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  NSPS is a JOKE. It is right up there with the Base Realignments and Closures which the Pentagon is still dealing with. NSPS is just another waste of taxpayer's dollars and government resourses. And this is ALL in the name of 'The War on Terror'? Good grief............. Why can't the Pentagon complete its work on the Base closures before taking on another task such as NSPS? Where is the money that was/is saved from closing bases? Why can't our government listen to the people and do what is right for the people's benefit? I'm not laughing.

  A. Flores Posted August 14, 2007 7:56 AM
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  It is very clear that LTC Melnyk has not talked to anyone in the civilain work force. training up to 1000 new federal employees yearly we have less than .5% believe NSPS is good, our EEO staff is already feeling the pinch of complaints from it. A Govt survey found less than 50% of supervisors can effectively write, which is critcal under NSPS. One supervisor commented that "at least under NSPS we can eliminate bad supervisors who can't write" true, but at the cost of who? We already cannot find enough qualified personnel for positions, so lets make it worse?

  Myers Posted August 14, 2007 7:55 AM
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  Lt. Col. Les' Melnyk, must be reading some fictional interpertation of the NSPS. There are no protections for bargaining rights written in NSPS and the appeal rights are nothing more than a kangaroo court.

  Rocky Posted August 14, 2007 6:44 AM