Why won’t they do what they promised to do?
Part 1- The Hiring Freeze
(Scroll Down for Part 2 - The ITO Settlement)
(July 30, 2013) On March 27, 2013, Acting NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan implemented a hiring freeze “for all types of civilian appointments in all funding programs, except for those currently advertised.” But in order to avoid “mission failure,” she directed NOAA line offices “to determine which of these vacancies/positions are assigned to mission critical activities” and to submit “a prioritized list of all vacancies they believe necessary to fill” to a “NOAA Hiring Freeze Board” that was given authority to approve exceptions to the hiring freeze.
Dr. Sullivan’s Hiring Freeze Directive also contained two other exceptions which would permit NOAA line offices to continue to fill certain vacancies. Positions that had been advertised prior to the March 27 date would be automatically exempt from the freeze and would continue to be filled: "Job Opportunity Announcements (JOA) that have been advertised and closed by the date of this memo will continue to be processed to completion of hire.”
Dr. Sullivan also wrote that NOAA was going to seek authority from DOC to advertise promotional opportunities in-house. This authority would allow NOAA line offices to promote internal candidates into vacant, higher graded positions.
Regrettably, however, National Weather Service leadership is not complying with Dr. Sullivan’s Hiring Freeze directive instructing NOAA line offices to continue to fill positions through the three exceptions contained in the March 27 directive.
On July 19, NWSEO learned the NWS has failed to proceed to fill several dozen critical operational positions at Forecast Offices across the country whose vacancy announcement closed prior to the freeze even though line offices were instructed to “process[ ] to the completion of hire” those positions for which job vacancy announcements closed before March 27. In many cases, certificates of eligibles were sent to selecting officials, but no selections were ever made.
Last week, we also learned the Department of Commerce granted NOAA line offices the authority to advertise and make promotions from in-house candidates. However, the NWS still refuses to make any promotions even though this was included in Dr. Sullivan’s March 27 directive. There are dozens of critical GS-13 lead forecaster and GS-12 general forecaster vacancies at forecast offices which could be filled immediately by internal candidates through internal promotion of general forecasters and GS-11 meteorological interns.
Finally, the National Weather Service failed to submit the prioritized list of vacancies to the NOAA Hiring Freeze Board, as required by Dr. Sullivan’s directive. In contrast, other line offices have done so and NOAA is currently recruiting to fill scores of other positions in its other line offices as well as nearly twenty positions in NOAA program support, including several grants management specialists and fifteen Human Resources Specialists or Assistants. Few of these other positions appear to be those that typically would be designated as “emergency/essential” as NWS operational employees.
-NWSEO-
Why won’t they do what they promised to do?
Part 2- The ITO Settlement
(August 1, 2013) In the spring of 2012, NWS unilaterally froze the hiring of ITOs after the Administration proposed to eliminate these positions. NWSEO filed a grievance alleging that the agency’s failure to backfill ITO vacancies violated a 2000 agreement with NWSEO to have an ITO at every WFO. The NWS denied the grievance and NWSEO scheduled the matter before a Federal Labor Arbitrator. In August 2012, just before the case was heard, the NWS settled the grievance by agreeing to resume the process of filling the ITO position “effective immediately.” There were ten ITO vacancies at the time, including Key West, New York, Pittsburgh, and Flagstaff. As part of this agreement, the NWS promised to provide a monthly update on the progress of filling these positions.
The NWS never sent the monthly reports. In March 2013, NWSEO demanded the agency begin sending these reports and one report was sent. This report revealed that the agency had not filled the Key West ITO position and had placed the filling of that position on hold. NWSEO filed a grievance alleging that the NWS had violated the August 2012 settlement agreement by failing to fill the position. This grievance was denied on May 1, 2013. In the response, the NWS claimed “there were no specific deadlines identified in the agreement as to when the positions would ultimately be filled” (even though they did promise to resume filling these positions “effective immediately.”) David Murray, the NWS designee for Labor Relations also wrote in this May 1 grievance response that:
“[T]he agency filled all of the vacancies listed in the agreement with the exception of the Key West ITO position.”
On July 19, NWSEO learned that this statement by Mr. Murray was simply not true. In response to a follow up information request, submitted by NWSEO in preparation for an arbitration hearing over the May 1 grievance denial, the agency disclosed that in addition to Key West, it had not filled the ITO positions in New York, Pittsburgh, or Flagstaff and has suspended any actions to do so.
NWSEO has filed a new grievance over this additional failure to live up to the August 2012 settlement agreement. These two grievances will likely be heard by a Federal Labor Arbitrator this fall.
-NWSEO-
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National Weather Service employees.
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National Weather Service employees.
We are NWSEO.