Pentagon may seek an extension of labor relations deadline

The Pentagon may ask Congress to extend a 2009 deadline for implementing a new labor relations system for civilian employees, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England testified in the Senate Wednesday.

Written into the 2003 law that created the National Security Personnel System -- which ousts the General Schedule in favor of a flexible compensation scheme based on performance and allows department officials to rewrite the rules on collective bargaining -- was a sunset clause that automatically reverts the department to current labor relations rules unless Congress likes the new system enough to reauthorize it.

In November 2005, England told the same panel, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, that he supported the end date because it allays fears over the controversial new labor system.

"While the department has designed a labor management relations system that provides appropriate checks and balances to ensure employee rights are protected, let me mention an additional check that Congress wisely included in the NSPS enabling statute," England said. "The department has four years to demonstrate to the Congress that we can exercise these authorities and flexibilities in a responsible manner … that is a powerful incentive."

But Wednesday, England said delays from a court case brought by employee unions may change the situation. Defense's collective bargaining proposal was enjoined in April. Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the system did not provide employees with true collective bargaining, in part because agency officials retained the right to override agreements after the fact. The case is under appeal.

"Of course we're hopeful that the courts will rule and resolve all this, but we may, depending on what the rulings … are … come back for some clarification before the Congress next year," England said. "If we are held up for long periods of time, we may indeed come back and ask for an extension of the 2009 date."

There has been a timing game between the unions and the Pentagon all along. The unions are looking to run out the clock on the system through court battles and then are hoping for a more labor-friendly administration come 2008. The Pentagon has an incentive to get a new system going before different political winds could alter its course.

England also attributed the possible need for an extension to meticulousness on the Pentagon's behalf in developing the regulations governing labor relations, which he said took longer than anticipated.

Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, convened the hearing to assess what is happening with the first 11,000 employees who have been placed under NSPS. They are not members of bargaining units.

Collins did not comment on England's suggestion but Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who chairs the subcommittee overseeing the federal workforce, did. He did not appear to object.

"I frankly think you put a lot of time into [developing the regulations] and that was good," Voinovich said. "You can probably just go through and show how we anticipated we would get the regs done by X and weren't done until a year and a half, maybe two years later, so it's logical you would need more time."

England said he expects the appellate court to rule on the case by early 2007.

He also said the Pentagon may ask Congress to pass legislation removing the injunction on one portion of the labor relations regulations: the ability to bargain on a national level, instead of with local bargaining units. Both unions and the department support national level bargaining, but officials at the American Federation of Government Employees said they have never been approached on the subject.