Following investigation of the Employer’s request for assistance in the case, which arose during negotiations over a successor collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the Panel determined that the dispute should be resolved through an informal conference with Panel Member John G. Cruz. The parties were advised that if no settlement was reached, Member Cruz would report to the Panel on the status of the dispute, including the parties’ final offers and his recommendations for resolving the impasse. After considering this information, the Panel would take whatever action it deemed appropriate to resolve the impasse, which could include the issuance of a binding decision.

    Pursuant to this procedural determination, Member Cruz met with the parties on October 29, 2002, at the Park Headquarters in San Francisco, California. During the procedure, the parties were unable to resolve the issue in dispute. They subsequently were permitted to submit brief statements and rebuttals in support of the final offers they provided at the conclusion of the informal conference. Member Cruz has reported to the Panel and it has now considered the entire record, including the parties’ statements and the Employer’s rebuttal.

    The Employer is responsible for preserving and protecting the scenery, resources, wildlife, and natural historic objects at the Golden Gate National Park for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. The Union represents approximately 250 bargaining-unit employees who mainly work as Park Rangers (GS-5 through -9) and maintenance workers (GS-5 through -10); a few bargaining-unit employees work in human resources, administration, and in specialized trades, education, and interpretation. The parties are covered by the terms of a basic CBA, which expired on June 14, 2000, until the successor agreement is implemented. This request concerns the last item for the successor agreement, and the Panel’s decision will be incorporated into the Merit Promotion Article.

    The parties essentially disagree over whether the Employer should continue to be required to solicit internal candidates using a Merit Promotion Procedure (MPP) whenever it announces a vacancy using delegated examining authority (DEA).⁽¹⁾

    The Union proposes that the following wording be added to Section 1 of the existing Merit Promotion Article as paragraphs 2 and 3:

    The Employer’s proposal, by contrast, should not be adopted because it would not maintain this balance. Furthermore, it "would make Section 4 meaningless because the [DEA] selection method could be used to circumvent the Merit Promotion opportunity of bargaining unit employees who are not voted as one of the top three of the [DEA] certificate." Finally, a review of job announcements in the Western Region of the National Park Service for August 2002 confirms that "the Agency regularly and routinely advertises vacancies through both the [DEA] procedure and through [MPP]." In that month, "five were joint listings through [DEA] and MPP, four were MPP and only two were [DEA] exclusively"; the prevalence of dual announcements refutes the Employer’s position that the practice is burdensome.

    The Employer essentially proposes that it retain the discretion to determine whether to announce a vacancy using DEA,⁽²⁾ MPP, a combination of the two, or some other alternative procedure.⁽³⁾ The ability to choose the announcement procedure or procedures makes it easier to produce a suitable pool of applicants for a particular opening; that is the flexibility that the Panel intended in its 1995 decision. Such a pool can "enhance the park experience for visitors" because it may "produce greater diversity within the Agency and . . . create a workforce that ‘looks like America’ (or more realistically or importantly ‘looks like the San Francisco Bay Area’)." A single announcement procedure is also less likely to cause confusion among potential applicants. For example, employees have applied under the wrong announcement, a mistake that results in the Employer’s being unable to consider those candidates. Moreover, it is inefficient to continue to require two announcement procedures, governed by different sets of regulations, each time a vacancy is being filled, particularly where experience shows that the practice is not meeting the Union’s interests. Furthermore, based on charges at a different bureau within the Department of the Interior, a second announcement can cost an additional $750.

    Even if DEA were to become the exclusive method for filling vacancies, both full-time permanent and temporary/term unit employees will still be eligible to compete along with outside applicants for open positions. An added advantage is that "unit members . . . [who are] on term or temporary appointments and do not have civil service status to apply under Agency Merit Promotion Procedures," can apply under the DEA announcement. Between July 27, 2000, and March 20, 2001, 12 dual announcements were issued. Among those, no qualified bargaining-unit employees applied under seven of the MPP announcements, and the remaining five "produced no more than two qualified bargaining unit employee responses per vacancy." Despite this, "the Agency promoted one unit employee through [MPP] and selected five bargaining unit employees through [DEA]."⁽⁴⁾ The vacancy announcements that the Union cites "are for other parks within the Pacific West Region of the Agency." That mixed group of announcement procedures "is precisely the discretion sought under the Agency’s proposal."

    Having carefully considered the evidence and arguments presented by the parties on this issue, we shall order the adoption of the Employer’s proposal. In our view, the parties’ recent experience with dual announcements, DEA and merit promotion, has not demonstrated an advantage to the interests of either side that justifies continuing a practice that appears unnecessarily burdensome. In this regard, the data presented reveal that despite the consistent use of MPP announcements, in the 8-month period the Employer addressed, the criteria for invoking priority consideration (three certified promotion eligibles) were not met even once. At the same time, however, five qualified bargaining-unit employees were selected under DEA announcements, suggesting that they were not disadvantaged by that procedure, where they compete directly with outside candidates. As to the continued relevance of Section 4, when the Employer chooses to use MPP, it will remain obligated to grant unit employees priority consideration. Based on these facts, we conclude that the Employer should have the flexibility to choose from among a variety of announcement methods when filling vacancies without being required to advertise internally whenever it decides to use DEA.

ORDER

    Pursuant to the authority vested in it by the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute, 5 U.S.C. § 7119, and because of the failure of the parties to resolve their dispute during the course of proceedings instituted under the Panel’s regulations, 5 C.F.R. § 2471.6(a)(2), the Federal Service Impasses Panel, under 5 C.F.R. § 2471.11(a) of its regulations, hereby orders the following:

    The parties shall adopt the Employer’s proposal.

The Employer and the Union recognize that employees are important to continued job satisfaction and employee morale. The Employer agrees to provide priority consideration to unit employees for promotion opportunities within the bargaining unit when three or more unit employees are certified to the selecting official as promotion eligible on a merit promotion certificate of eligibles. This does not preclude the selecting official from filling the vacancy from other appropriate sources as listed in Section 1. Priority consideration is defined as the consideration of those three or more unit employees for the vacancy by the selecting official before the consideration of any other applicants. Priority consideration shall provide that the three or more unit employees shall be interviewed for the promotion opportunity in cases where interviews are conducted and that additional interviews shall only be conducted if the selecting official is not satisfied with the findings of the interviews of the three or more unit employees.