Testimony of Ron Ault,
President of the Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO

On behalf of the
United DOD Workers Coalition,
a coalition of the representatives of the DOD workers

March 6, 2007

Greetings from the civilian workers of the Department of Defense: We thank you for finally allowing hearings to examine the most sweeping and wholesale personnel reforms ever enacted on civilian workers any where in the free world.  Such radical reforms deserved a full and careful examination in 2003, but in the wake of the September 11th terrorists’ attacks, DOD Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rushed this legislation through under the implied threat that anyone voting against it was soft on terrorism and was unpatriotic.  In 2003, we were never given any opportunity to testify nor provide any input on behalf of the DOD workers before NSPS became law.  Excluding the workers’ representatives in every aspect of the NSPS process guaranteed a fight and ultimately a series of federal lawsuits where the workers ended up suing their employer.  This was not a fight of our choosing; this fight for workers’ rights was forced on us.

Let’s call this personnel system what it is:  the “Donald Rumsfeld Personnel System”, as it was DOD Secretary Rumsfeld who placed such a high priority on these reforms that he maintained without them, the security of the United States would be adversely affected.  Indeed, not only did Secretary Rumsfeld label this reform the “National Security Personnel System”, but NSPS is a key part of his Iraq war strategy; the “One Force” concept.  The Rumsfeld “One Force” concept transfers traditionally uniformed military non-combative support functions to the civilian workers of the DOD- supplemented with private contractors.  In other words, under NSPS, DOD civilian employees/private contractors become a “paramilitary force” that would be deployable into combat zones without the protections of the Geneva Convention or the Uniformed Code of Military Justice applying.  What “One Force” does is utilize the uniformed military personnel exclusively as “trigger pullers/war fighters” without DOD having to raise the military ceiling or having to resort to reinstating an unpopular military draft.  This “backdoor draft” of placing our members in a theatre of war under possible hostile fire conditions could not have been accomplished under Chapter 71 without Secretary Rumsfeld sitting down with the labor organizations that represent DOD workers, negotiating appropriate arrangements and the implementation of his concept.  That, I believe, was the catalyst for DOD’s NSPS. 

FACT: The National Security Personnel System has absolutely nothing to do with national security; this system is all about stripping American workers of their constitutional rights of free association and the right to join and form a union to bargain with their employer.  In all of the meetings I have attended over the past three years with DOD and OPM over NSPS, we have repeatedly asked the DOD Representatives for one example of how National Security is impaired or hampered by the present Chapter 71 rights.  The answer we have is this:  DOD representative Ginger Groeber told us in an NSPS meeting in early 2004 that she did not have to justify any national security issues whatsoever as they (DOD) had won, Congress passed NSPS and we (Unions) had lost…and they (DOD) intended to push forward on NSPS without delay, declare collective bargaining agreements null and void, and issue regulations enabling managers to manage without interference.  This dictatorial, “I’m boss, shut up and do as I say” tone of arrogance and disrespect has carried over to every meeting DOD has held with us on NSPS.  To date, we (UDWC) have attended hundreds of hours of meetings with DOD/OPM officials that had no purpose other than documenting DOD/OPM had held meetings with their labor organizations as required by law.

FACT:  Since NSPS was passed into law, DOD has not been able to implement what Donald Rumsfeld told Congress was an essential to national security personnel system…Why?  Because key portions of the regulations have been declared unlawful by federal judges.  Instead of halting the program and making an attempt to resolve those key portions with the DOD workers’ representatives, DOD chose to act as if nothing had happen and as Deputy Secretary Gordon England recently told Congress… “those lawsuits are just a bump in the road”…

FACT: DOD has squandered millions of dollars in an unlawful program whose flaws are public record.  Ask one question of DOD.  What national security problem (s) has there been because NSPS has not been implemented?  I think we all know the answer to that question…there have been none.  There never were any National Security issues with DOD’s civilian employees having collective bargaining rights to begin with and there never will be.

I find that I am in agreement with Senator John McCain on at least two things:  I agree with his assessment that Donald Rumsfeld will be judged by history as the worst DOD Secretary ever to hold this position and I agree with Senator McCain that Secretary Rumsfeld mismanaged the Department of Defense.

What I find hard to understand is this: Donald Rumsfeld is gone; George Nesterchucz is gone, Ron Saunders is gone; Kay Cole James is gone…Right? Has Donald Rumsfeld really been replaced as Secretary of Defense?  If so, why are members of Congress still supporting the failed policies and mismanagement of Donald Rumsfeld?

There is nothing about NSPS that has not been tainted and contaminated by DOD Secretary Rumsfeld.  Any examination of the public records proves his NSPS was based on bad science…a pre-determined solution in search of a problem.  The Rumsfeld Personnel System will never, ever work.  Hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been squandered on his NSPS.  If Congress does not repeal NSPS, DOD will squander an additional 4 to 7 Billion tax dollars on an illegal personnel system that has zero credibility with DOD workers.  Any personnel system has to have credibility with those who will be in that system if that system is to work.  Rumsfeld’s NSPS is a mousetrap that will not catch mice…we are beating a dead horse.  This system also has zero credibility with the United DOD Workers Coalition and we will never, ever accept it.  If it is not repealed in this Congress, we will use every resource available to us to continue our fight against this anti worker law until it is repealed.  We will not go quietly without a fight…many of us in the UDWC invested a lot last year to bring this worker rights issue to the public awareness and make it part of the political debate.  Our DOD workers are determined to fight as long as it takes to regain their rights and dignity at the workplace that was stripped from them in 2003 by the passage of the Rumsfeld Personnel System.

We only ask that Congress do the right thing; scrap Rumsfeld’s NSPS and restore the 700,000 hard-working, loyal, and patriotic DOD workers’ rights.

Thank you