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Pentagon Moves to Alter Personnel System

Gordon R. England, the acting deputy secretary of defense, said most Defense Department workers will support the National Security Personnel System.
Gordon R. England, the acting deputy secretary of defense, said most Defense Department workers will support the National Security Personnel System. (By Heesoon Yim -- Associated Press)
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An additional 160,000 workers would move to the new pay system late next year but would not see their raises affected until 2008. The remaining 377,000 employees would join the system later.

By law, no worker's salary can be decreased in the move to the new system.

Bush administration officials have said that elements of the new systems at both DHS and Defense could serve as guides for government-wide changes in civil service rules.

"All of us through the government are watching how this goes," Linda Springer, head of the Office of Personnel Management, said at yesterday's briefing. "There's a lot at stake."

England and other administration officials noted that union contracts can already be overridden in some circumstances. They also said their plan can withstand a lawsuit because it was devised under a different law than the one that allowed DHS to rewrite its personnel rules.

"We have a different program, a different law," England said. "And I believe that we have met the spirit and the intent of what the Congress wanted us to do. This is a very balanced program. It provides all the protections."

Roth, the AFGE official, disagreed.

"We're just very disappointed. We have a lot of interests in common -- good management, fast decisions, effective decisions," he said. "We think it's doomed to failure. We don't think these regulations are going to lead to a better system."

Staff writers Stephen Barr and Eric Yoder contributed to this report.


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