New rule exposes deep divide between feds, contractors

The new regulation that requires service contractors working in the Defense Department to identify themselves as contractors seems to reveal a very deep divide between feds and employees from the private sector.

Some readers brushed off the policy as old news or no news at all.

“Contractors have had ‘green stripe’ badges for years, and are identified as contractors in their e-mail addresses,” one commenter wrote, dismissing the story.

Nevertheless, the new rule is dredging up some old, deep-seated problems. Both sides are suspicious of the other, and one reader pegged the main concern.

“This forced change may cause division. The challenge then becomes one of diversity,” wrote a reader named Skully. His question is fundamental. “How do you maintain unity of community when segregation is forced?”

Skully, who’s “from the cornfields,” wrote that contractors identifying themselves as contractors is common in the cornfields.

The divide already exists in the multi-sector workforce, and the rule seems to have brought up longstanding problems, as readers' comments made clear.

One reader noted that the pink badges that contractors wear "are pretty obvious," adding "I haven’t been to a well run civilian meeting in years.”

One reader pointed out that some managers prefer to keep identities murky.

“The government managers wanted to pass the contractor personnel off as government employees because we were better trained for customer service and handling the public,” the contractor wrote

The lack of identification by contractors “clouds the water on a daily basis and causes delays and delivery of substandard technology and products to the DOD,” a federal employee wrote.

The fed gave a hypothetical example of a contractor requesting inappropriate technology in an e-mail that comes from a .mil address. The technology is delivered to the client engineer, who then condemns the vendor, who decides DOD must be clueless.

“Anyone not seeing this as a problem with the current procurement system is a victim of ‘.mil’ envy,” the fed wrote.

Other readers agreed that some clarity is necessary.

"Although this sounds a little bureaucratic, it isn’t,” wrote Peter Tuttle, a former contracting officer and competition advocate for the Army and now senior procurement policy analyst at Distributed Solutions.

Some contractors, when asked their affiliation, identify the agency they’re supporting, instead of their employer.

“This situation gets extremely complex when your company’s competitors are providing support to those same clients,” Tuttle wrote. By identifying themselves, others will know where employment loyalties lie.

Some contractors, however, are more than willing to wear their pink badges that identify them as contractors -- but almost in spite.

"I will wear whatever color my client wants me to wear. I always liked PINK!" a reader wrote.

Posted by Matthew Weigelt on Sep 13, 2010 at 10:48 AM