Although the demise of both NSPS and MaxHR represent a setback for those who regard the provisions of Title 5 as out of date, pressures for reform of the civil service system have persisted. The General Schedule system of compensation and classification has been subject to particular criticism.
The General Schedule (GS) is widely regarded as outdated, overly rigid, not compatible with the needs of an increasingly professional workforce, and insufficiently sensitive to performance in matters of pay setting (Office of Personnel Management 2002).
In a 2012 report entitled “Bracing for Change: Chief Human Capital Officers Rethink Business as Usual,” the Partnership for Public Service (PPS) reported that “nearly all CHCOs [chief human capital officers] agreed that the current 1949-era GS pay and classification system is outdated and doesn’t meet the needs of a dynamic and changing 21st century workforce” (Partnership for Public Service 2012a: 16). The chief human capital officers expressed preference instead for a system of “paybanding.” With paybanding the narrow grades that characterize the General Schedule would be replaced with broad salary bands and managers would be permitted more discretion in setting the pay of their subordinates (Thompson 2007b). Under this approach there is less need for classification experts from the personnel office to make fine distinctions between the relative responsibilities of positions at different grade levels. Instead, a supervisor or manager equipped with some technical support can decide the band to which a position is assigned. Paybanding was first introduced to the federal sector in 1980 at a naval research facility in California and has subsequently been implemented in a number of additional agencies and units with generally positive results (Thompson and Seidner 2008).
The Renewal of Labor-Management Partnerships
In no area has the contrast between the Bush and Obama administrations been greater than in the area of labor-management relations. The Bush administration took a generally hostile stance toward the federal employee unions as exemplified by the proposed MaxHR and NSPS personnel rules, which would have significantly compromised the collective bargaining rights of employees in those two agencies. In 2001, soon after taking office, President Bush issued Executive Order 13203 repealing an executive order issued by his predecessor that mandated the creation of labor-management partnership councils throughout the government.3 In 2002, the Bush administration denied collective bargaining rights to employees in the newly created Transportation Security Administration.