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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

Forest Service Workers Denounce Agency Effort to Open 15,000 Jobs Up to Privatization Studies

Monday, January 30, 2006

Contact: Randy Erwin (202) 216-4451 (office) (202) 898-1866 (fax)

Forest Service employees are responding this week to news that the agency plans to open 15,000 additional full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) up to A-76 privatization studies by FY09, according to new revisions in the agency's Competitive Sourcing Green Plan.

While the agency plans to study every job considered commercial by the FAIR Act Inventory, the Forest Service has received no special appropriation to carry out the studies.

"The Forest Service has neither the resources nor the capability to study 15,000 jobs by 2009," said National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), Forest Service Council President Bill Dougan.

In all likelihood, capital to conduct studies will come from diverting funds from resource management projects, principally, clearing National Forest land of wildfire causing fuel.

"Studying this many positions would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and there is no fat in the Forest Service budget to absorb this kind of an expense," said Dougan. "This could cause a dangerous deterioration of our National Forests."

Forest Service employees are also displeased with agency representatives for being left out of the process to develop the revised Green Plan.

"The agency cut the union completely out of the process. This is a slap in the face to every worker in the Forest Service," said Dougan.

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