AF Reservists fight order to wear uniform while performing civilian duties

[mikeylikey]

 

That and  I have the general opinion that anyone associated with the military should be either AD, RES, Guard or Aux. I do not support "civillian" employees of the Defense Dept. one bit. (I hate the merc security groups under contract to the state dept too)

YMMV

^ Agreed, except the people charged with leading the military services and DoD are all Civilians.

[SAR-EMT1]

 

That and  I have the general opinion that anyone associated with the military should be either AD, RES, Guard or Aux. I do not support "civillian" employees of the Defense Dept. one bit. (I hate the merc security groups under contract to the state dept too)

YMMV

^ Agreed, except the people charged with leading the military services and DoD are all Civilians.

If there were a smiley sticking its tongue out at you existed I'd be using it right now



Oh, and in response to what Dennis said... Postal employees ceased being gov't workers about 20 years ago. The USPS is now actually a corp. much like CAP

[DNall]

Whatever, they still get federal retirement points if I'm not mistaken. Know some folks went over there after mil service and cashed in the double pension.

WAIT... disregard that, it's off topic, I wouldn't want to get the thread locked while we're having this all important conversation about some freaking reserve techs whining about some mess that remotely involves uniforms.

[RiverAux]

You know, during WWII the CG turned just about all of its civilian employees into Temporary Reservists and put them in uniform for much the same reason that the AF wants to do it to these folks. 

[DNall]

That's not what the AF is trying to do with these techs. They already are in the military. They are not putting them on active duty, and these people do not want to be put on active duty (take a serious pay cut). I'd argue that the mil should just put them on active duty, or fire them & post the jobs as AGR. It'd save a lot of budget for more meaningful things. It's just a big wasteful shell game played in congress.

[Frenchie]

That and  I have the general opinion that anyone associated with the military should be either AD, RES, Guard or Aux. I do not support "civillian" employees of the Defense Dept. one bit. (I hate the merc security groups under contract to the state dept too)

YMMV

^ Agreed, except the people charged with leading the military services and DoD are all Civilians.

If there were a smiley sticking its tongue out at you existed I'd be using it right now



Oh, and in response to what Dennis said... Postal employees ceased being gov't workers about 20 years ago. The USPS is now actually a corp. much like CAP

The USPS is not a corporation and it's employees are government workers.

[Ned]

That's not what the AF is trying to do with these techs. They already are in the military. They are not putting them on active duty, and these people do not want to be put on active duty (take a serious pay cut). I'd argue that the mil should just put them on active duty, or fire them & post the jobs as AGR. It'd save a lot of budget for more meaningful things. It's just a big wasteful shell game played in congress.

1.  Both the Army Guard and the Reserve have a lot of technicians working as full timers.  They are all required to be M-day folks and go to drills, but their m-f job is as a GS-whatever at a headquarters.  Almost all of them make far less as a GS than they would as AGR and the benefits and retirement are comparatively far worse than AD.

2.  They wear their ACUs while doing their m-f gig.

3.  Simply switching them to AD (AGR, title 32, or straight AD) would bump up against ROPMA and Congressionally imposed AD endstrengths.  It's not that simple.

Ned Lee
Retired Army Guard Guy

[DNall]

1.  Both the Army Guard and the Reserve have a lot of technicians working as full timers.  They are all required to be M-day folks and go to drills, but their m-f job is as a GS-whatever at a headquarters.  Almost all of them make far less as a GS than they would as AGR and the benefits and retirement are comparatively far worse than AD.

EVERYONE I know in a DoD civilian position is making far more in their GS rate than if they were on active duty, and all get full benefit package. The people I know are in starting 40-50k positions, PLUS drill pay.

http://www.fedjobs.com/pay/pay.html
http://www.dfas.mil/militarypay/militarypaytables/2008MilitaryPayChart.pdf

The retirement, as I understand it, is based on their M-Day grade plus active years including GS time. Just like if they worked for the post office or any federal agency.

3.  Simply switching them to AD (AGR, title 32, or straight AD) would bump up against ROPMA and Congressionally imposed AD endstrengths.  It's not that simple.

THAT right there is what this is all about. That's what I'm talking about with the shell game.

[Eagle400]

Wow!  CAP should try to recruit all these whining ART's; they would fit in real well with a large percentage of the membership a lot of members!

[Frenchie]

The retirement, as I understand it, is based on their M-Day grade plus active years including GS time. Just like if they worked for the post office or any federal agency.

They get two retirements.  They would get the civil service retirement based on their ART position and a reserve retirement based on their reserve position.

[Cecil DP]

And how does a union issue  pertain to CAP?

[Ned]

EVERYONE I know in a DoD civilian position is making far more in their GS rate than if they were on active duty, and all get full benefit package. The people I know are in starting 40-50k positions, PLUS drill pay.

We probably know different people.  

Let's take a quick look at my buddy, a training technician at state headquarters.

He was hired as a GS 10, and is now at step 5 (I think), so with his Sacramento locality pay he makes a hair under $60 K a year.  Now add in his roughly $10k drill and AT pay we he gets more like $70 a year in total.  And he  gets his civil service retirement at age 60.  He will also get his modest m-day retirement.  Not bad, really.  

Now let's look at the AGR equivalent.  Call him an O4 over 10 years, so he would make base pay of ($5770 x 12) $69,240 yearly.  Now add the untaxed BAS and BAH to that and we are looking at a significant pay differential of many thousands of dollars.

I'm not suggesting that he is on the edge of poverty.  He does OK.  And of course, he clearly understood what he was doing when he took the job.  

But his job has all of the look and feel of AD.  He takes the PT test twice a year.  He faces the same deployments to the sandbox (via his m-day role) as the rest of us.  He can be relocated against his will, albeit just within the state instead of worldwide.


And AD retirement is way better than civilian civil-service retirements in several regards, mostly because of the lower age requirements that allow second careers and additional income.

I guess my point was that the majority of the folks in my circle get significantly less than they would if they were AGR.  It may be different for folks in highly-technical jobs like aircraft maintenance mechanic or in low level jobs like secretary or voucher examiner.

[Dragoon]

I don't think a major is an equivalent to a GS-10.  In the past, I've seen it listed as an equivalent to about a 12.  The pay gets a bit closer if you make that comparison.  But if you're GS-10 buddy is doing 0-4 work, then yeah, someone's getting a bargain.

The deployable GS-10 is certainly in a tougher spot than a non-deployable GS-10.  But it ain't exactly like active duty - one big difference is UCMJ.  There are many things that will put a servicemember in jail that, at most, get a civilian fired or reprimanded rather than Leavenworth.

Also, don't discount the "world wide relocation" issue.  Being told you have to move across the state may suck, but it beats being ordered to move across the world.  It's a lot easier to visit the old neighborhood on the weekends if you're still in the same time zone.


My problem with civilian techs being forced into uniform is twofold:

1.  When acting as techs they aren't really in the military (meaning no UCMJ).  Regardless of what they're wearing, they can't be held to the same rules.  If you want them in uniform, you should have to put them on military orders, like you'd do for any guardsman on extended active duty.  Then UCMJ would apply.  And...you'd have to pay them for the grade on their collar.  Makes some kind of sense to me.

2.  The rank structure.  A tech's GS rating might be wayyyyy out of whack with their military grade.  I've seen Army NG techs who were tank mechanics doing E-6 work during the week but 1st Sergeants on the weekend. 

A better way of doing business, if USAF wanted to push this, would be to put all civlian techs in BDUs clearly labled as "USAF Civilian" during the week.  That's what they do with civilians in theater.

[RiverAux]

Nah, lets make them CAP members and put them in CAP uniforms.  That would give the military appearance without the military rules that apparently is what the AF Reserve wants of these folks.   

[O-Rex]

You know, if you step back for a minute and think about the subject heading for this thread, you'll come to the realization that sometimes even USAF can be a little loopy. 

[DNall]

EVERYONE I know in a DoD civilian position is making far more in their GS rate than if they were on active duty, and all get full benefit package. The people I know are in starting 40-50k positions, PLUS drill pay.

We probably know different people.    ...

Granted, but the majority of folks in these positions, in my experience, are not O-4s. They're E-6 to 8 or W2-3 or O2-3. With a very few O-4s. AGR poses some problems for promotion in your M-Day status as well.

Now I have to admit, I'm not the greatest expert on this topic. Most of the full-time people I know are ADSW/AGR or they are pure civil service employees who are also M-Day. I'm acquainted with a few ARTs, but I really don't know that much about their situation. I'm less of an expert on the retirement aspect, but I don't think anyone is getting massively screwed over.

[mikeylikey]

I think these guys liked not having to salute people or calling Officers Sir.  Now when wearing a uniform they find themselves not able to "slack" as much. 

Face it, they can freaking wear the uniform and just live with it.  Would they rather be called to Active Duty and serve 3 years in Iraq and Afghanistan total.  I did, they can switch with me any day if they want.

Why do these people even have a union?  It is a huge privilege to work for the Federal Govt.

They should be proud to wear the Uniform if their country.  Am I mistaken or are these the guys and girls that took the JOBS advertised on usajobs.gov that stated they had to join the Reserves as part of their eligibility to get the civilian job??  If so, they need to shut their traps or be prepared to go to War.  I say take the whole group and deploy them forward (outside of the safe Airbases in Saudi)

Am I too harsh......you bet I am.  I would love to be able to get a union job (oh wait I am AD.....and Uncle Sam looks down on that)   

[PHall]

I think these guys liked not having to salute people or calling Officers Sir.  Now when wearing a uniform they find themselves not able to "slack" as much. 

Face it, they can freaking wear the uniform and just live with it.  Would they rather be called to Active Duty and serve 3 years in Iraq and Afghanistan total.  I did, they can switch with me any day if they want.

Why do these people even have a union?  It is a huge privilege to work for the Federal Govt.

They should be proud to wear the Uniform if their country.  Am I mistaken or are these the guys and girls that took the JOBS advertised on usajobs.gov that stated they had to join the Reserves as part of their eligibility to get the civilian job??  If so, they need to shut their traps or be prepared to go to War.  I say take the whole group and deploy them forward (outside of the safe Airbases in Saudi)

Am I too harsh......you bet I am.  I would love to be able to get a union job (oh wait I am AD.....and Uncle Sam looks down on that)   

Typical Active Duty "person". The Guard and the Reserve worlds are totally different from the Active Duty, yet somehow you feel qualified to comment (quite rudely) on it.
Please reserve your judgement on the Reserves until you're actually a member and you halfway know what you're talking about.

And I have a small newsflash for you, just about all Federal Civil Service employees are union represented.

[Gunner C]

Am I too harsh......you bet I am.  I would love to be able to get a union job (oh wait I am AD.....and Uncle Sam looks down on that)   

And I have a small newsflash for you, just about all Federal Civil Service employees are union represented.

And those of us who aren't represented wish we were.

You are correct about the Guard being worlds apart from AD.  I've been in all three components and I'll have to tell you, I didn't quite understand all the nuances with the guard techs, etc.  But I do know that, in my experience, it worked.  It's a good program.  The reserve techs is different from the guard stuff, but it does one thing:  allows the govt to have a larger force without busting the law.  If the powers that be feel that they need to put techs into uniform, there may be a good reason.  It may be that there's a discipline problem that affects the program.

It's kinda like CAP - there's some of us who wear uniforms and do the military thing and some of us who don't.  Does it cause problems?  From the hundreds of threads about it, it just might.  Same with the reserves. 

GC

[mikeylikey]

Typical Active Duty "person". The Guard and the Reserve worlds are totally different from the Active Duty, yet somehow you feel qualified to comment (quite rudely) on it.
Please reserve your judgement on the Reserves until you're actually a member and you halfway know what you're talking about.

And I have a small newsflash for you, just about all Federal Civil Service employees are union represented.

Actually, I was in the PA National Guard, I was in an Army Reserve Unit when I was in ROTC (which is RESERVE officer training corps BTW), I was Commissioned a "Reserve Officer"...... I have just happened to stay on Active Duty. 

I was talking about the AF civilians everyone here is talking about....not the Reserves.

I bet I know more than you think I know about the Reserves.  Even if I did not, don't ever tell someone to shut up because they have a differing opinion.  That hints of being a jerk on your part. Don't worry, I don't hate you.....even though you obviously hate me.