"The [Human Resources] system does not lead to enforceable contracts and thus fails to comply with the directions of Congress to ensure employee collective-bargaining rights,"
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=1044190&C=america Posted 08/22/05 08:05 Ruling Could Cripple DoD Personnel Plans By TIM KAUFFMAN A federal judge's ruling striking down significant parts of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) new personnel system could jeopardize similar reform efforts at the Department of Defense and other agencies. DHS attempts to alter how it bargains with unions, resolves labor disputes and disciplines workers violated the 2002 law that allowed the department to craft new workplace rules, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer said in an Aug. 12 decision. The new DHS labor relations rules that Collyer struck down are repeated almost verbatim in the Defense Department's proposed National Security Personnel System (NSPS). This almost guarantees a court challenge from the unions if the labor relations provisions are included as expected in final DoD rules to be issued in early September. "When they issue their final regulations, if they're anything like the last draft they showed us, we will be in court that day," said John Gage, national president for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). The ruling appears to be a major blow to the Bush administration's efforts to dramatically shift the power balance between labor and management in the federal workplace. The Homeland Security and Defense departments, which employ nearly half of the 1.9 million civilian workers governmentwide, issued new personnel rules this year that block unions from bargaining over such workplace matters as deploying new technology, reassigning employees and setting work schedules. The rules also circumvent third-party appeals of labor disputes and disciplinary actions. The judge's decision shouldn't impede the administration's plans to roll out new pay and performance-appraisal systems at DHS or other departments, however, since those systems weren't challenged in the lawsuit. Despite the judge's ruling, the Pentagon said it has no plans to revisit the disputed sections of its system. "DoD plans to continue to go forward with finalizing our regulations and our plans to implement NSPS later this year," said Joyce Frank, spokeswoman for the NSPS Program Executive Office. AFGE, which represents workers at Homeland Security and Defense, will be pressuring lawmakers to revisit the work-force reforms they approved for both departments, Gage said. "We hope Congress is going to take another look at this whole deal, and I really think they should," he said. "Neither DHS nor DoD really deserves the benefit of the doubt that Congress gave to them." Impact on Homeland Security The judge's ruling blocked DHS from rolling out its new labor relations rules on Aug. 15, as it had planned. The department has 60 days from the judge's ruling to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. DHS has not decided whether it will appeal, spokesman Larry Orluskie said. House Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., urged department officials to resist lengthy appeals and instead work on creating a system that doesn't curtail collective bargaining rights. "It is clear that the agency can adopt flexible standards to suit DHS' important mission without destroying collective bargaining," Norton said. "If these regulations were deemed urgent four years ago, then the district court decision must be considered a road map on how to proceed to create a valid process that respects collective bargaining now." Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which led the lawsuit against DHS, said the department should re-evaluate not just the collective bargaining and appeals systems but also the pay and performance management reforms, which weren't challenged in the lawsuit. "We're asking that they reconsider this entire sham. These regulations as written are nothing more than that," she said. "The system is not fair, it is not credible, it is not transparent, and those are criteria that we had laid out from the very beginning." At least one lawmaker agrees. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, said the department's planned performance-based pay system must be revisited in light of the court's ruling. Runs Roughshod "This ruling sets new boundaries for those who have wanted to dismantle the General Schedule system. They cannot set up a system in the name of homeland or national security that runs roughshod over workers' rights to representation and collective bargaining," Thompson said. Collyer said the department's overhauled labor-management rules essentially would strip employees of their collective bargaining rights, which Congress explicitly said must be preserved. She said the right to engage in collective bargaining under the new DHS system would be illusory, since the department could nullify any part of any collective bargaining agreement at any time. "The [Human Resources] system does not lead to enforceable contracts and thus fails to comply with the directions of Congress to ensure employee collective-bargaining rights," she said. Collyer said the department also overstepped its authority by changing the duties of the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), an independent agency that conducts hearings and resolves complaints of unfair labor practices. DHS proposed creating an internal body appointed by the secretary to conduct hearings and resolve complaints and limiting FLRA's role to reviewing the internal body's decisions. Likewise, Collyer said the department's attempt to limit the Merit Systems Protection Board's ability to lessen penalties for disciplinary actions violated Congress' requirement that employees have a fair appeals process. The department's new rules would have allowed the board to lessen a disciplinary action against an employee only when the penalty is so extreme as to be "wholly without justification" based on the conduct or performance. This standard, the judge ruled, would all but nullify the board's statutory authority to reduce penalties and effectively shield disciplinary actions from review. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12hu98fp7/M=362329.6886306.7839369.3040540/D=groups/S=1705323667:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1124772681/A=2894321/R=0/SIG=11dvsfulr/*http://youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1992 ">Fair play? Video games influencing politics. 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