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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (1755)	6/3/2003 6:26:32 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793820

Gephardt objects to changes for federal civilian workers By Ed Tibbetts Davenport Iowa Gephart is keeping his Union base happy. A plan to overhaul the U.S. Department of Defense?s civilian personnel system is ?devastating? the morale of people who are working to ensure national security, Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt said Monday. In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Gephardt, a congressman from Missouri, called for the plan to be scrapped. Unionized employees marched last week in Davenport to draw attention to the plan, which would get rid of the current system of paying employees, end automatic salary increases and give supervisors more authority to hand out pay raises. The proposal also would stop the practice of bargaining with local unions in favor of a national contract and would limit certain appeal rights that federal workers now have. The Defense Department proposed the changes in April, and the House of Representatives approved the plan as part of a $400 billion bill to authorize defense programs for the 2004 fiscal year. The plan would affect more than 700,000 federal workers, including about 5,000 on Arsenal Island. Gephardt was not present for the vote. A Senate version also was approved. Defense Department officials claim the current work rules are outdated, make it too difficult to hire people, reward longevity instead of performance and hamper national-level policy making because of a requirement to bargain at the local level. Critics say the new plan is a power grab, aimed at taking authority away from Congress. Unions complain the plan also would pit workers against one another for raises and is an attack on collective-bargaining rights. Gephardt warned in the letter the plan could transfer jobs to private contractors. ?The pending personnel plan ... is already devastating the morale of many in the Defense Department who are making extraordinary efforts to protect our national security interests,? Gephardt wrote. He also warned the plan sets a precedent that could be copied by other agencies. There are about 1.8 million civilian employees in the federal workforce. The plan was modeled after the work rules devised for the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security. qctimes.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (1755)	6/4/2003 5:35:20 AM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793820

Edwards would lose his home state to Bush by 18 percentage points if the general election were held today, the poll found." LB, Edwards is in serious trouble in NC. He is completely absent from the local political scene and he has lost the support, at least for now, of the newspapers. Dole, on the other hand, is in the papers regularly. She is always shown favorably and doing something positive for the state. I don't think Edwards could win a the presidency of a Moose Club in NC. unclewest