815 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006 • Phone: 202-508-3705 • Fax: 202-508-3706
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815 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006 • Phone: 202-508-3705 • Fax: 202-508-3706 |
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NSPS: A Bad Idea for Workers and a Bad Deal for Taxpayers Ron Ault, President OPM and DOD representatives recently visited and briefed members of Congress about the “Meet and Confer” process mandated by Chapter 99 of the “National Security Personnel System” (NSPS). (Despite the name, NSPS has nothing to do with real national security.) It was reported to me that DOD and OPM told members of Congress that the United DOD Workers Coalition (UDWC) had not made proposals to the DOD…Wrong! We gave DOD detailed proposals on virtually every aspect of the proposed regulations. We even published these detailed proposals on the United DOD Workers Coalition website (www.uniteddodworkerscoalition.org) when we gave them to DOD/OPM. This just goes to show that DOD is being less than truthful with Congress and the public. DOD and OPM were required to meet and officially inform Congress that the meet and confer period required by law was over. Under Chapter 99 of the NSPS law, the 30-day minimum meet and confer period was intended to enable management to attempt to come to an agreement with employees…However, the only thing that happened was that DOD met with most of the federal employee organizations…there never was any attempt by DOD/OPM to reach any agreements with the employee organizations. That is why after 29 days of this process the Metal Trades and five other labor organizations that represent DOD federal employees withdrew from participation until DOD/OPM followed the law and had a real “meet and confer” process. No one on the UDWC side has any idea of what DOD/OPM will include in the final NSPS regulations after more than 14 months of meetings we have held with DOD/OPM and the more than 30 days of “meet and confer”…only that the DOD/OPM representatives have “heard what you have to say” (whatever that means) and that the Secretary of Defense has the final say on anything and everything in the final regulations…now, even an old country boy from the hills of Arkansas can understand that! We call that “my way or the highway” where I come from… How did it all come down to this? How could federal employment with the United States government evolve into such a horrible “employment at will” system of patronage and corruption? Let’s take a look at where we have been over the past twenty or so years…I’ll use as an illustrative example our experience and personal involvement with the United States Navy and the Naval Industrial Funded (NIF) operations under Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). NAVSEA at the nation’s four public Naval Shipyards each employ tens of thousands of civilian craft journeyman mechanics, helpers and apprentices. NAVSEA personnel overhaul, manufacture, repair, retrofit and convert new weapons systems into the Navy’s most advanced nuclear powered ships, submarines, weapons, electronic and scientific warfare equipment, and maintain the support infrastructure of those complex facilities. Back in the early 1980’s the Navy experimented with rank and file employee involvement under a quality of work life program exported from Japan called “Quality Circles” that gave the average rank and file worker an opportunity to be involved in improving the working environment and processes of work. That program led to other more involved programs using the teachings of modern enlightened management guru, Doctor Edward Deming. Deming changed Japanese manufacturing quality from world wide ridicule to the world leader in quality. The Navy wanted to improve their productivity and quality, so they tried his teachings. The effects were profound and measurable, not only in productivity, but also in improved employee morale, reduction in costs, improved safety and a higher quality product. This evolved over several years into a formal process and became known as Total Quality Management (TQM). The base of this process begins with employee participation and employees buy into the ownership of the process. As with any team employee participation program, mutual trust and total management support are the keys to maintaining the program. Under the Clinton Administration, employee involvement was elevated to another level and formalized under “Partnerships.” Partnerships worked well where the parties had worked to maintain a relationship of mutual trust and support of the process. A process was developed to dismantle the traditional “adversarial” relationship and substitute a more cooperative relationship between labor and management called “interest based bargaining.” These programs became so successful that DOD used them as “demonstration projects” for the military/industrial base in the private sector and began “encouraging” the private contractors like Northrop Grumman who had contracts with DOD to adopt these new management/work planning/manufacturing processes as costs saving and productivity improvement processes. The name of the process changed to “world class manufacturing” and “LEAN” manufacturing, but it is basically the same “team” concept we mutually developed in the Naval Shipyards. The reason we, at the Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO, are so aware of what the private sector Navy contractors have done is that we also represent those private sector shipyard workers. We have negotiated collective bargaining agreements and MOU’s with those private shipyard employers covering the DOD developed employee involvement programs I am relating to you. The Navy and the nation have reaped the savings generated by these combined employee involvement processes and programs. I participated at a DOD Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) rally at our Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, where some 16-20 thousand people lined both sides of the street for some five or six miles to greet the BRAC commissioners’ visit of the shipyard, June first. Governors from Maine and New Hampshire, four US Senators and more Congressmen that I could count were marching down the street in front of the main gate, arm-in-arm with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Painters General President Jim Williams, Building and Construction Trades Department President Ed Sullivan, myself, PFEMTC President Paul O’Connor and dozens of Trade Union Officers, and thousands upon thousands of union members from all our affiliated unions. It was a very impressive rally. Afterwards, the Chairman of the BRAC committee spoke to the news media. He relied heavily on the outstanding team labor management relationship between the Naval Shipyard management and our Metal Trades Council during his news conference. The Chairman pointed out that this relationship has resulted in the shipyard being the premier submarine shipyard in the nation, setting record after record of accomplishing repairs and overhauls under budget and under schedule. The latest record was announced on June 1st: the fastest time ever for changing out a propeller shaft on a nuclear submarine. This team-minded labor management relationship is not unique to our Portsmouth Naval Shipyard; it exists at every level of our organization from my office and the office of the Commander of the Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters, to all of our Naval Shipyards. This relationship was developed by my predecessor, MTD President John Meese and Admiral Tom Porter and has been carried on by the present Commander NAVSEA, Admiral Phillip Balisle and me. Together, labor and management have done some really remarkable things, saving the U.S. Navy hundreds of millions of your tax dollars of overhaul and repair cost avoidances, shortening scheduled repairs by months. Those savings went back into the Navy’s operating fleet budget and allowed the Navy to do things it otherwise couldn’t do. I firmly believe the savings we have generated by our working together results in more real dollar savings than what is being projected by DOD by closing our Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Now let’s fast forward to NSPS…May 22 through May 26th of this year, the Metal Trades Department conducted the NSPS Truth Tour at our Naval Shipyards. We used very plain language every one understood when describing what had taken place in the meet and confer process that was anything but meet and confer. We told our shipyard workers that this DOD/OPM NSPS was nothing more than outright, blatant Union Busting, stealing their dignity and workplace democracy from them; they would be employed at will, with no real meaningful appeal rights and subjected to favoritism, discrimination and unfair treatment that we wouldn’t wish on anyone…and that we blame all this on Congress for passing this bad law and then not having the guts to do the right thing, stand up and take on DOD when they violate it. And the saddest thing of all is the enormous costs to the American taxpayers for NSPS…we estimate during the six years of implementation of NSPS that it will cost approximately $10,000.00 per DOD employee (this was the figure DHS estimated it would cost them for their version of NSPS) or some 7.4 billion dollars of your taxes. Finally, NSPS is designed by purpose to destroy the mutual respect and the relationships we have so carefully nurtured and supported for so many years between labor and management. The harm to our nation will be irreparable. |
The Metal Trades website will be spotlighting local councils on a periodic basis.Amarillo Atomic Trades Council, Amarillo, TX
Clarence Rashada, President |
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© 2004 Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Ron Ault President • 815 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006
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