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NSPS Message

Years of hard work by NFFE members and our brothers and sisters in fellow unions finally paid off this year.

On January 28^th, President Bush signed into law the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. The bill included language which made sweeping changes to the National Security Personnel System (NSPS).

Significant victories in the bill include the restoration of collective bargaining and employee appeal rights for Defense employees. Blue-collar workers are also now exempt from the system. The law left in place the Defense Department’s authority to implement a pay-for-performance system; however, the measure would guarantee that NSPS employees get 60 percent of the annual pay raise given to most federal workers if they perform at a satisfactory level or above. Only the remaining 40 percent of the pay adjustment, which is set annually by Congress, would go toward performance pay.

While the new version of the system is still far from perfect, it is a vast improvement from the previous forms. By relentlessly working together to make our voices heard, we ensured that many of Defense workers’ rights will be maintained under this new system. This is a significant victory for Defense workers, for NFFE, and for the entire labor movement. Thank you to everyone who stepped up to the plate and helped bring about this important change.

Richard N. Brown

NFFE Praises One-Year Defund of Forest Service A-76 Program

Friday, June 8, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mark Davis, NFFE Forest Service Council Legislative Chair

Phone: 608-231-9474

Washington, DC – A provision in the fiscal year 2008 Interior appropriations bill, reported out of the House Appropriations Committee yesterday, would cut funding for the Forest Service competitive sourcing program in FY08.

Sec. 414(a)(2) of the bill reads: None of the funds available to the Forest Service may be used in fiscal year 2008 for competitive sourcing studies and related activities.

“We are very pleased to see Congress step in and take decisive action to address the wasteful and ineffective competitive sourcing program in the Forest Service,” said Richard N. Brown, President of the National Federation of Federal Employees. “This agency has an established track record of failure in their efforts to privatize government work, and this is an important first step to make sure it does not continue.”

Report language accompanying the bill noted that “alleged savings are not substantiated” and listed a number of serious problems that led to this action, including: previous wide-spread management lapses which required legislative action, failure to implement accounting and reporting requirements concerning the program’s costs, and inadequate consideration of potential impacts on the agency’s ability to provide emergency wildfire staffing.

“The Appropriations Committee recognizes that A-76 is a poor model for reform in the Forest Service,” said Brown. “We applaud the Committee for including this provision in the bill.”

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