FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 07, 2009
October 07, 2009
Michael Victorian
(202) 639-6405
(202) 639-6405
AFGE Applauds Decision of Defense Authorization Conferees to Repeal NSPS
Categories:
News & Publications, DoD, Press Release, D.C. Government
(WASHINGTON) - Today, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), AFL-CIO, lauded the decision of the 2010 Defense authorization conferees to repeal NSPS. John Gage, AFGE national president, said, “This day has been a long time coming. We greatly appreciate Chairman Skelton, Chairman Levin, and the ranking members, Representative McKeon and Senator McCain, for their courageous decision to repeal the fatally-flawed NSPS pay system. After numerous Congressional hearings as well as analysis by the Department’s own Defense Business Board task group, the evidence was all on the side of repeal. The Congress had generously given the Department six years to develop a fair pay system, ample opportunity to correct its mistakes, and finally determined that the system could not be – and should not be -- saved.”
NSPS was created in a poisonous atmosphere by ideologues seeking to destroy collective bargaining, federal unions and employee rights and protections. Through various defense authorization bills, some of those rights – collective bargaining and employee appeal rights – were restored. But the NSPS pay system is costly, unwieldy, discriminatory, complicated, opaque, and mistrusted by DoD civilian employees at all levels.
AFGE looks forward to working with the Department to improve the performance management and hiring systems so that the needs of the taxpayers, war fighters, and employees can all be addressed.
The defense authorization conference report also includes language from the House version which will credit FERS employees with their unused sick leave when they retire. This is a critical issue of equity with employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System. The report also provides for the conversion of non-foreign COLA to locality pay for employees in Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. In addition, it corrects a longstanding retirement equity problem for employees in the District of Columbia Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) that has required some CSOSA employees to work 10 additional years to meet required credits for federal retirement eligibility.
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