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April 12, 2005
President Ault Testifies on the Perils of NSPS Before the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce and Agency Organization, House Committee on Government Reform
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
My name is Ron Ault, and I am the President of the Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO (MTD). On behalf of the more than 40,000 civilian employees of the Department of Defense (DoD) represented by MTD, I thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am also pleased to appear on behalf of the 700,000 employees represented by the 36 unions of the United DoD Workers’ Coalition.
The Metal Trades Department of the AFL-CIO represents workers in a range of occupations and facilities within the Department of Defense—all of them critical to the national defense of the United States. From nuclear specialists to crane operators, from shipwrights and pipefitters to engineers with advanced degrees—Metal Trades represented workers run the gamut of educational and vocational training and experience. We take a back seat to no one in our dedication to America’s security and welfare.
The recent wave of adulation for the late Pope John—especially his role in collaboration with his countryman Lech Walesa in igniting the spark that destroyed Soviet Communism is a sharp reminder to all of us—especially those involved with shipyard labor—of the importance of free trade unions to the fabric of freedom in our own nation. Some may recall that Mr. Walesa was a mere shipyard electrician before he became head of the first free Polish state since before World War II.
I mention the Pope and the Polish labor movement, Solidarnosc, as a reminder to us all that anything which compromises the right of free trade unions to represent the aspirations of working families is an anathema to America. I strongly suggest that NSPS represents an imminent threat to that freedom.
The workers we represent are patriotic. Many, like me, are veterans of military service and we are proud of the work we perform and the reason we perform it. One of our affiliated organizations, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, recently had one of their members seriously wounded while performing work as a federal employee in Iraq. Gary York, IBEW LU 1688 Vice-President, is a power plant controller working at the Gavins Point power plant in Yankton South Dakota. He volunteered for Operation Restore Iraq Power in October 2003. On Christmas Eve, his convoy was attacked and he was wounded. Actually, he was shot in the head. Lucky for him, the bullet passed through the doorpost before striking him. He also received shrapnel wound in shoulder,(minor injury compared to his head wound). He spent several weeks in hospitals in Germany and then Walter Reed. He returned to his job around May 2004. Gary received the Medal of Freedom from the Corps of Engineers for his service. He was also featured in one of the issues of the IBEW magazine and one of the Corps publications. Believe it or not, Gary just returned to Iraq for a second tour of duty on April 20, 2005.
Since NSPS was first proposed, I have met with rank and file workers in almost every DOD work location where we hold recognitions and collective bargaining agreements. On their behalf, I want to register my most strenuous objection to the inference and implication that underlies the National Security Personnel System—that is: that we oppose this plan because we are obstructionist and because it represents a departure from the status quo.
Ladies and gentlemen, we do not like the status quo.
We believe that constructive change in the worksite is long overdue. One of the primary reasons that working people select union representation is because they want to see change and they expect us to help them implement it—
- Change that brings about a more open, objective atmosphere in the workplace;
- Change that enables working people to perform their jobs effectively without interference and impediment;Change that removes the subjective elements of personality, prejudice and ambiguity from the workplace and supplants those elements with clear rules and standards of evaluation.
- In other words, we support high-performing workplaces, clearly defined performance standards—assignments which are understandable and achievable.
We support individual and organizational growth, equal opportunity and fair treatment on the job.
We welcome change when it enhances our ability to have a voice on the job, where it enables us to attain improved training, improve our safety and health on the job, where it is accompanied by the respect and the dignity that our contributions warrant.
We are skeptical of change that is initiated for the purpose of undermining our freedom of association.
We are dubious about change that is unilaterally initiated for the purpose of curtailing our potential for wage growth and personal achievement.
We oppose change imposed from above as a means to subject us to more authoritarian control.
I particularly resent attempts by representatives of the Secretary of Defense to paint our opposition to NSPS as irrational and self-serving.
I know that many of the distinguished members of this panel are acutely aware of the pioneering work our Department has done to deal with critical personnel issues to enhance America’s Defense preparedness — from the heroic efforts of our members, both civilian and civil service, who repaired and returned the USS Cole to active service within months of the terrorist attack on her in the Gulf -- to the ongoing work our members at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard are now performing to return the USS San Francisco to active duty.
I call your attention to the formal agreement between the Metal Trades and the US Navy more than four years ago to establish cross-training capabilities among crafts in Navy repair facilities worldwide. My predecessor, President John Meese and Admiral Tom Porter, both worked tirelessly to help craft that agreement.
About two years ago, the Navy raised red flags over findings that the Navy’s craft and trades workforce is growing perilously old and that the pipeline of younger workers in craft and trade occupations is inadequate to meet the demand.
The Navy and DOD agreed that the supply of skilled craft workers, vital to ship construction and repair, had to be augmented. The Metal Trades Department had raised concerns over that problem for several years. When, at last, the Pentagon conceded that indeed, we had a point, the Metal Trades Department not only cooperated, but provided much of the innovation and insight to create effective vocational training to develop several apprentice classes to train shipbuilding skills.
Contrary to what the Department of Defense suggests, our objections to NSPS are based on two fundamental principles:
- Our national defense relies first and foremost on the performance of a well-motivated, well-trained corps of personnel whose morale is buttressed by a strong belief in management that operates on objective, transparent and fair rules. Neither the substance of NSPS rules as they have been unilaterally developed, nor the process under which DOD has chosen to develop them, qualifies as fair or transparent.
- The primary result of NSPS as it has been developed will be to effectively undermine the voice and weaken the rights of DOD personnel who will be expected to work under it.
The mystery about the true cost of this new system raises additional skepticism on our part. The Department of Defense maintains that costs are minimal—although it has been careful not to challenge our own estimate that it will require every penny of $3 Billion. We assert that, without effective, costly and near-continuous training to implement so-called “merit pay” provisions, the system is destined to fail miserably. Furthermore, as now envisioned by DOD, the so-called “pay for performance” will destroy teaming and espirit de corps by pitting employees against each other in their yearly quest to receive a pay raise. No one will dare share knowledge or job experience for fear of losing ground and someone else gaining a pay advantage. Can you envision a shift of nuclear pipe welders retro fitting a damaged nuclear attack submarine like the USS San Francisco, each jealously guarding their skills and job knowledge so that no one will get their pay raise? Furthermore, DOD has refused to acknowledge the additional costs requited to establishing labor relations and third party structures that parallel those already in existence for the rest of the federal civilian workforce, NSPS will crash and burn.
DOD’s purpose in the NSPS exercise has been focused on weakening the ability of labor organizations to represent and advocate for the interests of DOD civilian personnel and providing protective cover for implementing a purely subjective merit pay system. All the rest is mere window dressing.
Those objectives should not be confused with the literal meaning of the word “flexibility.”
As simply as we can state it, those are the two overriding concerns we bring to you, our congressional representatives. We charge that DOD has been less than forthright in its exercise of the authority Congress gave it in November 2003; and less than forthright in the reports it has filed with you. I know this first hand, as I have personally attended every NSPS meeting, initially with DOD, and later with DOD and OPM. We have been completely shut out of this process to the point that our requests to jointly develop the presentations or secondarily to be a part of the “Town Hall” meetings DOD held with employees were rejected. We were notified that the meetings had already been planned and scheduled, many the same week we were in meetings with DOD.
This example is but one of many such outright misrepresentations DOD/OPM has provided Congress and the general public in regard to our involvement into this process. I won’t belabor the point as many of us in the UDWC have taken DOD/OPM to court in a lawsuit currently before the DC federal court.
The law is clear. The congressional intent is clear: nothing under this statute should be construed to reduce or weaken the Pentagon’s responsibility to engage in collective bargaining or to compromise the rights of civilian Pentagon personnel to the redress of grievances.
In preparing this testimony, I solicited my colleagues who represent the more than two dozen labor organizations that comprise the United Defense Department Workers Coalition, and I received far more contributions than I could possibly include within the constraints of this testimony. I would offer the following examples as representative of the kind of flexible, cooperative agreements that have been accomplished through the structure of collective bargaining. I submit at the outset, most of these accomplishments would not have been possible under the stringent and inflexible structure that DOD seeks to impose under NSPS.
The background of my colleague B.A. Napoleon, a representative of the Tidewater, Virginia, Federal Employees Metal Trades Council is perhaps more representative. Brother Napoleon is also a former Navy enlisted man. As a young sailor, Brother Napoleon says his first ship was in an unfinished state at Pearl Harbor. In his words:
“There was nothing on the ship. I thought it would take years to get the ship to the point where we could sail. I was wrong. Within 12 months, we were on sea trials. I was amazed at the level of detail and technical precision the men and women had performed to get us floating.”
Some years later, as a civilian, Brother Napoleon was an apprentice painter working in bilges and tanks of ships and submarines. He writes:
“My satisfaction and motivation came from seeing those vessels sailing away from the yard and I knew I was part of the team that made it possible. Having been in the Navy, I knew the importance of making sure everything worked the way it was supposed to work. The men and women who repair and maintain naval warships are the premier artisans of their trades and are very under recognized.”
In Mr. Napoleon’s service at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, he has witnessed dozens of examples of service “above and beyond” and extraordinary flexibility that achieved missions that would have been otherwise impossible.
After a collision at sea, the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower was repaired in record time and under budget by the craftsmen and women at NNSY.
More volunteers than were needed came forward to repair the USS Iowa after a shipboard explosion—where grown men shed tears working on the damage to get the vessel into shape for an inspection by Navy brass.
The USS Radford, damaged by a collision with a tanker that left a hole big enough to drive a tractor trailer through, was put back into service ahead of schedule and under budget.
And, of course, the tragedy of the USS Cole, which necessitated volunteers from the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) and from the Tidewater Virginia Federal Employees Metal Trades Council (TVFEMTC) to fly out to the Gulf to help refloat the vessel for passage back to Pascagoula where other Metal Trades workers restored her to service.
Civilian employees at Rock Island Arsenal represented by AFGE Local 2119 fabricate gun mounts for humvees that are a substantial improvement on the design originally provided.
Other examples provided by members of our coalition--
During the First Gulf War, members of AFGE Local 1882 in Wisconsin moved their painting operation outdoors in the middle of a Wisconsin winter in order to get equipment ready for mobilization.
Those same members worked alongside Army reservists to rebuild 915 tractors needed in the conflict.
These and other incidents demonstrate flexibility and responsiveness that is only possible where the workers are confident that their skills and rights are respected. NSPS would be a step back from that status.
If it is true flexibility and positive outcomes that DOD wants under its new personnel system, then there is no better apparatus than collective bargaining with which to achieve it.
If the Pentagon is really interested in accomplishing its mission and not tightening its control over individual workers, then I submit it should invest in strengthening the relationship between Pentagon management and the labor organizations that have been selected to represent civilian employees.
Thank you,
Ron Ault, President
Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO
Metal Trades Department, AFL-CiO • 815 16th Street, NW •Washington, DC 20006
Phone: 202-508-3705 • Fax: 202-508-3706 • email: metaltradesweb@gmail.com
