NWSEO Grievance Aims to Protect Impact-Based Decision Support Pilot Projects(August 25, 2014) NWSEO is grieving the agency’s plans to terminate the six Impact-Based Decision Support Pilot Projects by April 30, 2015. The pilots were negotiated and developed as a partnership between NWSEO and NWS under the “Weather Ready Nation” initiative to transform NWS operations to work more closely with public and private sector partners in order to make smarter faster decisions to save lives, protect the environment and keep livelihoods secure. Staffing of the pilot projects was intended to be permanent. Even the vacancy announcements for these positions clearly stated that these positions were “permanent.” Since the pilot projects began in 2011 and 2012, there are scores of incidents involving severe weather and/or high-populated planned events that document the pilot projects’ successful collaboration with partner agencies to keep the public safe. The agency is bound to what it agreed and the pilots are not subject to unilateral termination at management’s whim. NWSEO’s grievance demands that the agency cancel its plans to unilaterally terminate the pilots, that the pilots be fully staffed at the original intended levels, and that an independent verification and validation process (mutually agreed upon between NWS and NWSEO) be conducted after there has been a trial period of three years of full and dedicated staffing in accordance with the original execution plans. -NWSEO- No one cares more for National Weather Service employees than
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