Call To Action: Ask Your Representative to Support the Inslee/Jones/Van Hollen Amendment to Strip Funding of NSPS!

(National Federation of Federal Employees)

A vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to strip funding for DoD’s wasteful and anti-worker personnel system, NSPS, will take place later this week: Call your Representative TODAY, and ask him or her to support the Inslee/Jones/Van Hollen Amendment!

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives is considering the fiscal year 2008 Defense Appropriations bill. It is expected that Representatives Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Walter Jones (R-NC), and Jay Inslee (D-WA) will offer an amendment that would strip funding for labor-management relations and employee appeals sections of the Defense Department’s (DoD) controversial new personnel system, the National Security Personnel System (NSPS).

Since NSPS was first authorized, DoD has misused the authority granted to them by Congress to design and implement a contemporary human resources management system. The Department has not allowed meaningful involvement by employee representatives and there is serious question as to whether the Department’s sweeping interpretation of their new-found authorities are consistent with Congressional intent.

There is also great uncertainty as to whether DoD can control, or even keep track of, the costs associated with implementing NSPS. A recent report from GAO concluded that DoD drastically misrepresented the true cost of NSPS to Congress, and accounting practices have been so poor, it will be impossible for DoD to ever determine how much they have spent on the program.

Congress should not provide funding for the implementation of this misguided endeavor any longer. NSPS, in its current form, denies basic due process and is fundamentally anti-worker. Moreover, the program has proved to be a huge waste of taxpayers’ dollars. DoD has failed to track spending on the program, and the agency has little chance of implementing much of their system before the sunset date, making investment in the system wasteful.

Please call your Representative today (from a personal phone, not on government time) to ask him/her to support this amendment. The Capitol switchboard phone number is: 202-224-3121.