The Pentagon last week unveiled its plans to push 65,000 civil service employees into the new performance-based pay system under the National Security Personnel System. Several unions immediately lined up to challenge the action in court. Members of a coalition led by the American Federation of Government Employees say they will file a lawsuit this month to block DOD’s plan for reorganizing labor and management relations, according to the Washington Post. The unions point to the fact that a federal judge has blocked implementation of similar rules at the Department of Homeland Security. The federal government developed the new personnel plan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, when officials successfully argued that they needed to be able to manage the civilian work force according to mission requirements and not by bureaucratic imperatives.
The White House announced its United States Space Priorities Framework in a document released concurrently with Vice President Kamala Harris' first National Space Council meeting. Listed among five U.S. priorities is to “defend its national security interests from the growing scope and scale of space and counterspace threats.”