A
Cult of Abuse and Victimization;
The
Dysfunctional Inner Circle of the National Park Service (NPS)
Part 3 of 4- The NPS Rhetoric of Seduction
Every year, hundreds of idealistic people are
seduced into working for the NPS as a federal employee, a volunteer, or as an
interns because of the high-minded values of the NPS mission and by a personal
commitment for a working relationship that includes public service. After
joining the NPS workforce, these people are continually bombarded with infinite
variations of these seductive values cascading down through emails from the
President’s office, the Secretary of the Interior’s office, and the NPS
Director’s office. Each one of the
messages are designed to reiterate the NPS commitment to merit, equally
opportunity, mission, and public service. A large number of these emails inform NPS employees that they
are the single most important resource the NPS has for fulfilling its
mission. These same messages also
state the importance of NPS employees in participating in the management of the
NPS and promise employees that their perspectives and comments are an integral
part of NPS managerial decision-making.
In addition to the top-down emails, NPS employee must take numerous,
on-line trainings on the ethical standards expected for NPS employees and on
the right and duty of NPS employees to bring issues and problems to the
attention of NPS managers. Processes
for NPS accountability are touted as being available through such programs as
Equal Employment Opportunity, the Whistler-blower Program, the Merit Systems
Protection Board (MSPB), and the NPS Human Resources Division. If an NPS
employee is fortunate enough to obtain a career track position, all of these
values and advocacy tools will be reiterated in NPS Fundamentals Training and
additional training workshops such as Operational Leadership. These are indeed,
high-minded ideals and values.
They would not be seductive, however, if they were true.
These high-minded ideals and values are
categorically not true. The
reality of the values and ethics described above is that none of them are
actually available to victims of predatory manager and supervisor. The systems described above are a
one-way street the serves only NPS management. Paul Berkowitz, in his book The
Case of the Indian Trader, paints a picture of how the upper management of
the NPS is completely insulated from being held accountable to the mission of
the NPS, ethics, or the other high-minded ideals outlined above:
In his February 2007 testimony before
the House Natural Resources Committee, Inspector General Devaney once again
addressed the magnitude of ethics and integrity deficiencies permeating DOI
agencies like the NPS. Devaney cited “a culture that lacks accountability,”
observing that supervisors generally received lighter punishments than lower-ranking
employees and that senior executive service members were “remarkably immune to
any adverse action greater than a reprimand.”
Within the NPS it is well known that any
employee who files a grievance against a manager or supervisor will eventually
be terminated or forced to leave the NPS. The same goes for
whistle-blowing. The NPS has its
own Whistler-blower Program, Merit Systems Protection Board (MPSB), Human
Resources Division, and even its own Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) program. These programs are typically housed in
the same buildings as the regional NPS management offices. All of these programs work only to
maintain the rigid authoritarian stratification of the NPS and nearly always
find in favor of NPS management, not NPS employees. Many of the officers of these programs designed for NPS
accountability are former NPS managers themselves who still have connections
and friendships with NPS managers and supervisors. These accountability program officers often find themselves
in the ludicrous position of investigating accusations of hostility, abuse, and
ethics violations by their friends and former coworkers. The results of these investigations are
rarely unbiased and the victims of the abuse and hostility from these NPS predators
are further victimized by the favorable findings for the predator by the
accountability program officers.
These accountability programs serve as advocacy for NPS management, not
NPS employees. The same Human Resource officer who advises an employee about
filing a grievance against his supervisor will, in all likelihood, be
counseling that supervisor on how to defend herself from the very same
grievance. It is an incestuous circle that only tends to feed predation and
victimization. MSPB investigations
into favoritism and unprofessional behavior by managers and supervisors; Human
Resource grievance investigations; and even Equal Employment Opportunity
actions are often decided by accountability officers on the basis of secret and
(most often) fabricated “insider” records that managers and supervisors illegally
keep and share on their employees.
When one NPS informant requested to see the
documents (a right guaranteed by the grievance process) that were used to make
the decision on a grievance he filed with a NPS Human Resource officer against
a hostile and abusive manager, he was told by the Human Relations officer that
no documentation had been used in making the decision. This same Human Resources officer
informed the employee that all of the accusations and complaints against his
supervisor had been categorically dismissed and that she had been completely
exonerated. This institutional
exoneration provided the predatory supervisory with a “green light” to resume
her abuse and victimization with tacit impunity. Another NPS informant
described how the MSPB, without consulting with him, subsumed and dismissed an
EEO claim he had made against a NPS manager when the MPSB made a decision on
another, unrelated matter. NPS
management is also vehemently anti-union and will spend untold tax-payers’
dollars in obstructionist actions to prevent NPS employees from exercising
their rights to organize into unions and create a system of advocacy for their
rights as employees and citizens.
The above represents but a fraction of the
methodology and deceptions NPS management uses to assure that the high-minded
ideals, ethics, and values that were used to entice employees into a
relationship with the NPS are not actually available to the employees after NPS
managers have subsumed control of employee’s lives. Clearly, this seduction satisfies the conditions of
deception and lies that forms the first requisite step in creating a path to
predation, victimization, and abuse.
Chad Montreaux
Newell, CA
