Background Issues Related to Hiring in the Forest

Service
Over the past 4 years, the Forest Service has been attacking the Contract
Provisions regarding allowing current Forest Service employees the
opportunity to apply for promotions within the Forest Service. Below are
a few of the actions the Agency has taken and the Union response to
them:

2012 National grievance over 100 Hires in 30 Days: At the

height of the slowdown in hiring, the Agency attempts to create a
new model of hiring by hiring 100 employees in 30 days.
Unfortunately, the solution to this is to use excepted and noncompetitive hiring authorities to hire into permanent positions.
This stops any current employees from applying for these jobs
which could be a promotion or better job. Ultimately the Agency
signed a settlement agreement and agreed to abide by the
provision of the Master Agreement.

Spring 2015 National grievance of Region 2/3/5 Model Hiring: The

Forest Service starts using Hiring Events to use excepted and noncompetitive hiring authorities to hire applicants on-the spot. In
Regions 2, 3, and 5 jobs are filled at the Hiring Events without
giving current employees an opportunity to apply. In multiple
places and times, the FS violates the Master Agreement and denies
employees the ability to apply for jobs.

Spring 2015 Region 6 Excepted Service Hire: The Forest Service

filled a job in Region 6 without advertising the job through Merit
Promotion, even though there were more than a dozen employees
who responded to the Outreach Notice and expressed interest in
applying for the position. The internal candidates were not given
an opportunity to apply, and an excepted service appointment was
made from outside the Agency.

Summer 2015 Use of Demo Authority without Merit: Since late July
2015, the Forest Service has started advertising positions through
Demo without also offering them through a Merit Promotion
announcement. This change violates the Master Agreement and
was never discussed with the Union. After more than 25 years of
doing both Merit and Demo announcement, the FS has abruptly
changed its practices and employees are now forced to apply
through Demo announcements for a number of jobs. The Union
has filed numerous grievances over this issue.

2015 Master Agreement Negotiations: Negotiations start in early

spring of 2015 but drag out until spring of 2016 at which point the
parties are still at impasse. The issue? Hiring Practices! During
negotiations, one manager even pointed out that using excepted
service or noncompetitive hires was desirable because using the
competitive processes through HR takes too long. Thus, there is a

desire to circumvent competition and use non-competitive hires

because they are faster and easier. In a system that is built on
Merit Principles, slow HR processes are not the reason to
circumvent competition. Yet, the Agencys most recent proposal
will allow them to fill any vacancy they wish without offering it to
employees through Merit Promotion, regardless of how many
employees may be interested in the position.