According to various news reports, the American Federation of Government Employees has asked the Supreme Court to consider its lawsuit against the labor relations rules in the Pentagon’s new National Security Personnel System. A union coalition lost its appeal before the US Court of Appeals last year. Congress, however, has been sympathetic to the union case and in the 2008 defense policy bill directed DOD to make NSPS consistent with current collective bargaining requirements.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
