Adversaries on NSPS Get Their Day in Court

Attorneys for the government and a group of federal employee unions have argued their cases for and against the Defense Department’s national security personnel system before a federal judge in the District of Columbia. Both sides essentially repeated the assertions they have made throughout the process: the government asserted that the new system falls within the scope of a law authorizing DoD to break away from many standard federal personnel practices, and the unions asserted that the planned system would exceed that authority. Primarily at issue are the allowable scope of bargaining, the department’s prerogative to void contract provisions and employee rights to appeal adverse personnel actions, including a new category of offenses, yet to be defined, for which firing would be mandatory.