Reply #23: And BushCo is even trying to screw that up

[MADem]

He tried to change the work structure of the Pentagon Civil Service workers, and got slapped back. But I'll bet he will try again.... http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=1575047

Bush losing battle to reform civil service
Setbacks in courts, Congress derail grand plan
By AIMEE CURL
March 06, 2006
The early months of 2004 were heady days for Bush administration reformers seeking to revamp the civil service.
Brimming with optimism, they announced that within a half-year’s time — lightning-fast by government standards — they would rewrite civil service rules and apply them to 300,000 Defense Department employees and 8,000 Homeland Security Department employees. A few years after that, they predicted, more than a third of the government’s civilian work force — 100,000 at Homeland Security by 2006 and 650,000 at Defense by 2008 — would be paid, promoted and managed under new personnel and labor-management rules.
Today, two years later, the race to overhaul civil service rules is still in its first lap and gasping for air.

The only employees covered by new rules are about 7,000 senior executives. Buffeted by criticism, logistical challenges and negative court rulings, both Defense and Homeland Security have delayed and curtailed their rollout plans. Defense now plans to start applying its new personnel rules to 11,000 employees in April. Homeland Security recently began applying new performance rules to 2,400 nonunion employees — and plans to transition 20,000 by year’s end; but it won’t shift those employees to a new pay system until next year.
Federal judges have ruled illegal both departments’ new labor relations rules, saying they improperly usurp employees’ collective bargaining and appeals rights. The most recent blow was dealt Feb. 27 by Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia who told the Defense Department that its new personnel plan “fails to provide employees with ‘fair treatment’ as required by Congress.” ....