The federal government is trying to reverse a recent judgment favoring a Department of Defense whistleblower who drew attention to overcharges on Lockheed Martin military contracts.
The chief of the Office of Personnel Management has asked the Merit Systems Protection Board to reverse its recent decision in favor of Ken Pedeleose, an industrial engineer with the Defense Contract Management Agency. Agency engineers and inspectors are the Pentagon’s front-line defense against contractor fraud.
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The effect of the request from Linda Springer, director of OPM, is that the agency responsible for helping devise policies to protect federal whistleblowers is actually seeking a judgment that would punish a whistleblower. The three-member mediation panel concluded in a 2-1 decision in October that Pedeleose had been improperly suspended from his job by his supervisor after calling attention to overcharges and advising a fellow employee who found safety problems with a military aircraft.
Pedeleose works at Lockheed Martin’s plant in Marietta, Ga., where the company manufactures military aircraft such as the C-130 transport and the F-22 fighter.
The board ruled that Pedeleose must receive back pay for a month-long suspension and the action against him must be expunged from his personnel record.
“I am of the opinion that the board erred in interpreting a civil service law, rule or regulation affecting personnel management and that the board’s decision will have a substantial impact on civil service law, rule, regulation or policy directive,” Springer wrote in a Nov. 28 letter to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
OPM has 20 days after it receives the case file to submit its arguments to the mediation panel for reversing the ruling in favor of Pedeleose.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 600,000 federal and Washington, D.C., government workers, has agreed to help Pedeleose fight Springer.
Springer previously worked in the Office of Management and Budget as controller and before that as OMB’s head of the Office of Federal Financial Management. Before joining the Bush administration in 2002, she held senior posts at Provident Mutual Life Insurance Co.Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co.
Lockheed Martin is the Pentagon’s top defense contractor, receiving $26.6 billion in U.S. military contracts in 2006.
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