exemptions, please

[Ian Murray <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

Pentagon Assails Work Rules
Senate Panel to Hear Rumsfeld Request for Freedom From Civil Service Laws

By Christopher Lee and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 4, 2003; Page A25


Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tried to bolster support yesterday
for his plan to revise work rules for the Pentagon's civilian employees as
a Senate panel prepared to take up legislation that would give him much of
the authority he seeks.

Appearing at a Brookings Institution forum, Rumsfeld repeated the case he
has made since shortly after sending his proposal to Capitol Hill on April
10: that the Pentagon needs to be freed from the constraints of many civil
service laws to organize its 746,000 civilian employees into a workforce
that is better prepared to meet such challenges as global terrorism.

The department "is working to deal with security threats of the 21st
century with an industrial age organization that's struggling to perform
in an information age world, and we simply aren't cutting it," Rumsfeld
said.

He said burdensome civil service rules, many of which date to the middle
of the past century, mean the department cannot recruit talented employees
and sometimes must hire private contractors or assign military personnel
to perform tasks that would be better handled by civilian workers. The
department also cannot crack down on fraud and abuse as quickly as it
would like to, he said, and it cannot adequately tie pay to performance.

Also speaking out yesterday for the new personnel system, Defense
Department official Charles S. Abell said, "The least most flexible
resource to [department managers] is the civil servants."

The inflexibility of the civil service system helps explain why only 17
percent of 8,000 civilians now working for the Defense Department in Iraq
are civil servants, with the vast majority being contractors, Abell,
principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness,
said in an interview yesterday.

The Pentagon proposal would permit officials to discard the General
Schedule and replace it with a system that ties annual raises to
performance rather than longevity in the job. Officials would be able to
hire workers more quickly, rehire some retirees and restrict the ability
of unions to bargain over workplace conditions. The plan also would shift
as many as 320,000 military personnel out of jobs that civilians could do,
which officials say would reduce the department's reliance on private
contractors.

Federal employee labor unions and many Democrats oppose the initiative.
While conceding that some changes may be needed, they say the revision
Rumsfeld seeks would erode longstanding protections against patronage and
discrimination and would demoralize employees.

"No group is more concerned or more supportive of measures that truly
advance our nation's security than the DOD's civilian federal workforce,"
said Bobby L. Harnage Sr., president of the American Federation of
Government Employees. "But what the Department of Defense is demanding in
the name of 'flexibility' is nothing short of exemption from congressional
oversight in the way it hires, fires and otherwise treats its civilian
workforce."

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee plans to hold a hearing today to
examine plans to transform the department's personnel system. Scheduled
witnesses include Rumsfeld and U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker,
among others.

Rumsfeld would get much, but not all, of what he wants in legislation
prepared by committee Chairman Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sens. Carl M.
Levin (D-Mich.), George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) and John E. Sununu (R-N.H.).

The bill would require the Pentagon to develop a pay-for-performance
system of the type it already has tried out in demonstration projects and
outlined in notices in the Federal Register, said a Senate aide familiar
with the legislation. It would allow officials to base compensation on
performance but would prohibit them from reducing the overall amount of
money devoted to employee pay. It also would require officials to phase in
the new system over at least three years -- and not before they have
developed a credible system for measuring employee performance.

The bill would provide for streamlined appeals but still rely on the Merit
Systems Protection Board as the final arbiter. And while it would restrict
collective bargaining, as Rumsfeld wants, it would provide for third-party
review of labor-management disputes by the Federal Labor Relations
Authority. "On-the-spot" hiring authority would be limited to critical
positions.

Rumsfeld also would not have the "sole and unreviewable" discretion he
sought to implement personnel system changes, requiring him instead to
develop a new system with the director of the Office of Personnel
Management.

The House passed a less restrictive bill last month, but still altered
Rumsfeld's proposal to require explicit protections against nepotism,
discrimination and conflicts of interest. An independent review board must
be established to oversee employee appeals, and the new compensation
system should be based on merit principles and include input from
employees.

Abell said the Pentagon believes it got about 75 percent of what it wanted
in the House, and acknowledged that the Senate version would further
curtail Rumsfeld's plan. He pointed, in particular, to the requirement
that any changes be phased in over several years.

"We would like to get all of our employees under one system as soon as
possible, and the Senate bill would preclude that," Abell said.

Staff writer Stephen Barr contributed to this report.