Navy Report Says Workers Mistreated

Managers at Point Mugu have engaged in a pattern of discrimination against older workers, and may have improperly laid off as many as 300 civilian employees, according to an internal Navy report that questions the base’s policy for evaluating some employees.

Rear Adm. Bert Johnston, who heads the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, said the base will name an independent investigator this week to look into the charges in the report, which was written in April after more than a year of study.

“The bottom line is that there were some concerns identified, and we’re taking the appropriate action on them,� he said. “We’re going to look over our shoulder.�

The often scathing report by the Naval Air System Command’s inspector general’s office in Washington argues that a 20-year system of awarding bonuses and raises, called the Demo Project, puts older workers at a disadvantage when the Navy dismisses employees.

The report’s author, Harry Carter, an investigator in the inspector general’s office, further concluded that high-ranking officers at the Naval Air Systems Command attempted to quash the report, questioned his authority to handle the investigation and accused him of asking biased questions when he conducted interviews with managers and workers at Point Mugu and China Lake naval bases.

Carter wrote that before the Navy began its 1999 civilian staff cuts, he warned civilian managers at Naval Air Systems Command that they should wait until the issue had been studied further.

But his warning was ignored.

According to an internal memo from the Naval Air System Command’s legal office, lawyers suggested that worker complaints could be ignored, reasoning that the prospect of the workers filing a class-action lawsuit was unlikely because the process would be “onerous, expensive, and time-consuming for the parties.�

Navy brass say they believe the process is fair and respected among most workers and managers, but Carter’s report contends that there is a flaw in the system that leads managers to feel they must under-rate some workers in their evaluations.

He questioned the Weapons Division’s commitment to seeking out the details in his findings.

“I can support everything in my report. There’s no question about that,� Carter said from his office in suburban Maryland. “My position is I want to see how this new investigation is going to be conducted.�

The Demo Project, approved by Congress in 1979 and practiced at only a handful of bases and in another version at the FBI and CIA, was created to give managers more flexibility and to reward employees who do outstanding work, said Ed Rockdale, the acting personnel officer for the Weapons Division.

But managers and workers interviewed by the inspector general’s office say that because money is limited, many managers choose to give lower ratings to older workers because they have typically reached a pay ceiling, and could not receive the money.

Some employees believe managers acted to purposely push older workers out.

“They’ve been giving only average performance ratings to older workers,� said John Jay, 56, an engineer who was laid off in November. “They did it deliberately. They knew what they were doing. . . . All of the older employees were up against these ceilings, and very few are given outstanding ratings, and couldn’t jump over the barriers.�

When the Navy began a series of cuts last year as part of the Pentagon’s ongoing belt-tightening, those who received lower ratings were the first to go--a process that, because of the Demo Project, critics contend adversely affected older workers, minorities and women.

“There’s a design flaw in the system,� said Jack Futoran, a lawyer who has filed a lawsuit on Jay’s behalf. “Older employees are topped out. You can’t reward them.�

Navy officials argue that there are opportunities for employees to contest their evaluations, and that managers can ask for additional funding if “there is good cause to exceed it.� They also say that workers who receive more money--typically the most experienced ones--deserve tougher evaluations.

“The standard for someone who’s highly paid will naturally be higher than for someone who is paid less,� Rockdale said.

The budget for salaries hasn’t changed, Rockdale said, and was based on a previous amount used before the Demo Project’s creation. The program has been overseen by the Navy’s Office of Personnel Management for years, and that office never chose to end the project, even after a series of critical employee surveys and analyses.

Carter’s report, culled from a series of focus-group interviews at Point Mugu and China Lake, states that many managers feel their hands are tied because of the limited funding and it scolds top brass for taking the position “that everything is fine because we have instruction that properly describes how supervisors are supposed to rate their employees.�

“I cannot think of another investigation that I’ve ever been involved in where employees stated they were being mistreated . . . and the supervisory officials supported [their] allegations, but no corrective actions were deemed appropriate,� he wrote in the 16-page April report.

“The people who work for the Navy are not evil people,� Futoran said. “They feel as if hiding this information is in the national interest, like hiding the plans for the Normandy invasion. They are flat out wrong.�

Futoran also questioned the legality of the Demo Project at Point Mugu, where it spread from China Lake. Congress approved the program at China Lake in 1979, but never specifically mentioned the Ventura County base. Futoran said that because there were no open meetings, and workers never had the chance to voice an opinion on how they were rewarded, the project may be invalid there.

Navy officials said they were not prepared to respond to that allegation.

Futoran said the effect on the Navy is potentially large. His client, Jay, who has not yet found work, could be later joined in his lawsuit by others who feel they were wronged.

“We think that the big damages are going to be all of the people who still work there,� Futoran said. “If the Navy has to go back and say ‘Let’s give people the ratings they would have had,’ those people stand to have millions of dollars.�

Since the Navy’s recent cutbacks, many employees who were either laid off or transferred to undesirable jobs have been very vocal about the Navy’s actions, writing letters to Congress, contacting the news media and filing grievances and lawsuits.

Futoran and Jay said they don’t disagree with the process in its entirety, and understand the reasons for merit pay. Jay believes, however, that managers clearly used the process as an excuse to discriminate against older workers and those who had filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“Any kind of complaint and you’re on the hit list,� Jay said.

Jay is appealing what he calls his forced retirement with the Merit System Protection Board in Washington, and says he is skeptical about the impending investigation, even if it is done by an independent body as Johnston promised.

“They’ve investigated themselves before and they never can find anything wrong,� Jay said. “I never once saw a fair investigation until this one came along.�

Rear Adm. Johnston said he stands by the system as the best way to reward workers with the limited funds available.

“We think the performance system is fair,� Johnston said. “We believe we’ve been on track the whole time.�