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.
A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber flew from Europe across the Middle East to the Persian Gulf on July 25 in a 32-hour flight, as conflicts continued to roil the area with U.S. troops coming under attack in Iraq and Syria on July 25 and July 26, U.S. officials told…