Tone of Congress Shifting on NSPS as Meet and Confer Goes Nowhere

As the meet and confer period between the Department of Defense (DoD) and employee union officials reaches the end of its second week, little progress has been made in the way of meaningful discussions that address real issues department employees have with the proposed National Security Personnel System (NSPS). 

This has not come as a surprise to union officials who entered the meet and confer with guarded optimism that the Pentagon would finally include employee representatives in the process by putting some of the most contentious issues on the table for meaningful discussion; however, DoD’s approach has been a revelation to a bi-partisan group of Congressional Representatives and Senators who were expecting a good-faith collaboration during the meet and confer, and are heated that the Pentagon is not cooperating.

Pentagon officials eluded a number of difficult questions in an April 14^th hearing of the full Senate Armed Services Committee addressing NSPS.  When pressed on the legitimacy of several aspects of the proposed plan, Navy Secretary Gordon England and Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Dan Blair continually assured the Committee that the plan was not complete and their issues would be addressed in the meet and confer.  Union officials now have fading hope that their input will be given due consideration.

Although no official action has been taken by Congress yet, it is likely that in one form or another, lawmakers will start to more closely scrutinize the actions of the Pentagon with regard to NSPS.  For this reason, it is extremely important that each and every NFFE-IAM member meet with his or her Congressional Representatives about this issue.  We need to do all we can to keep this a prominent issue among our Congressional Representatives.