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he National Guard will be authorized to continue to employ 1950 non-dual status technicians. While this represents a modest decrease from current numbers, this should be seen as a positive. The National Defense Authorization Act of 1998 required the total elimination of all non-dual status technicians by 2007. The National Guard leadership, unlike the leadership of the USAR and the USAFR, actively supported maintaining non-dual status technicians. I wish to personally commend all National Guard technicians that participated in our effort to maintain non-dual status technicians. Through your legislative letter writing and personal visits with your representatives, we were successful. This victory demonstrates how effective we can be when we work together. This should serve as a springboard for our future legislative initiatives.

There are still issues yet to be resolved; number of non-dual status technicians allocated to each state and flexibility to determine which positions are to be filled by non-dual status. K

n both 9 and 10 December, 1999, Ron and I met with President Harnage, Legislative director John Thriekeld, General Counsel Mark Roth and Field Services Director Phil Kete.

The discussion centered around implementation of NDAA 2000 as it pertains to Army Reserve Technicians and the question with regard to what legal action could be successfully pursued and not be determined as frivolous.

After two (2) days of meeting it was concluded that there appeared to be at present only three possible issues that could be pursued. They are as follows:

1. Whether the age carve out of strictly Army and Air Reserve Technicians violates the 5th Amendment of the constitution?

2. Whether current Status Quo Technicians (those hired before 1970) are affected by the current law?

3. Whether certain Non-dual Status Technicians should be excluded from this law based on a Review of positions conducted by OCAR in 1998 and the determination that those positions were to be changed to DAC's rather than military technician positions. Positions identified were Auditor, Safety, Information management, Resource management and Engineering.

Mark and other General counsel staff will be thoroughly reviewing theses issues as well as the entire law. They anticipate having specific information by mid January.

We have decided that the most efficient means of communicating this information to the workforce is through utilization of our current Council Web Site, civ-tech164.org.

The other issue discussed was negotiations on NDAA at the bargaining table at local levels. Phil will be reviewing bargaining proposals prepared by me and provide guidance by mid January 2000. This information will also be published on our Web Page. Individuals unable to access our web page should contact me at (617) 363-2385 beginning 20 January 2000.

It is imperative that I caution technicians who are contemplating filing a EEO Complaint relative to this issue that under Section 7121 of the Civil Service Reform Act once you have raised this matter under a statutory procedure you may be prohibited from raising it under a grievance procedure. I encourage all to review all options as well as the ramifications prior to making a decision with regard to filing formal complaints relative to implementation of NDAA. K