Section 1. Preamble

The purposes and intent of this Article are to ensure that employees are given full and fair consideration for advancement and to ensure selection from among the best qualified candidates. The Agency and Local 2419 agree to fill positions in the bargaining unit on the basis of merit in accordance with systematic and equitable procedures adopted for this purpose. As a general rule, depending on the requirements of the job to be filled and on the number of highly qualified candidates within the Agency, positions will be filled from within the NIH. It is further agreed that this Article must be administered in such a way as to develop maximum possible employee confidence and to achieve the purposes of this Article as simply and efficiently as possible.

Section 2. Introduction

A. Statement of Objectives. The statement of objectives and the principles governing merit promotion in the NIH Merit Promotion Plan are hereby incorporated into this Article by reference. The Parties specifically affirm the goals of maximum utilization of employees, of the necessity of providing incentives for improved performance, and of the need to deal fairly with employees, while avoiding undue delays and unnecessary paperwork.

B. Exceptions to Merit Promotion. Competitive merit staffing procedures apply to all personnel actions to fill positions in the competitive service in the bargaining unit, except as otherwise indicated below.

1. Appointments Excepted from Competitive Merit Promotion Procedures.

a. Re-employment of persons exercising re-employment rights whose names were submitted for consideration and who were selected for promotion while absent for military duty or whose positions were reclassified upward during such absence.

b. Re-employment to former positions when employee is exercising re-employment rights.

c. Re-employment from the Reduction in Force (RIF) Re-employment Priority List to same or lower grade.

d. Appointments required by law, regulation, or as a remedy or voluntary settlement reached in connection with a grievance complaint, or appeal.

e. Conversion of employee serving under VRA or disabled appointments when the statutory or regulatory requirements have been fulfilled.

f. Reinstatement to the same or lower grade to a position with no further promotion potential.

2. Promotions Excepted from Competitive Merit Promotion Procedures.

a. Upgrading as result of new classification or new classification standard.

b. Career ladder promotions.

c. Promotion under approved training Agreement.

d. Re-promotion after demotion without personal cause.

e. Temporary promotions not to exceed 120 days.

f. Promotion required by law, regulation, or as a remedy or voluntary settlement reached in connection with a grievance complaint, or appeal.

3. Other Actions Excepted from Competitive Merit Promotion Procedures.

a. Reassignments provided the reassignment is not to a position of greater known promotion potential.

b. Reassignments under an approved training Agreement to the target position. .

c. Demotions to positions of no greater promotion potential.

d. Details not to exceed 120-days within one year to higher grade positions.

Section 3. Definitions

A. Entrance-Level Position - Entrance-level position is the lowest grade of the position.

B. Positions with Known Promotions Potential - Positions with known promotion potential include:

1. Career-ladder positions below the level of full performance;

2. Positions filled at a grade below the established or anticipated grade; and

3. Trainee positions.

Career Ladder - A career ladder is a series of positions of increasing difficulty in the same line of work through which a group of employees may progress from the entrance levels to the first level of full performance. They are all given grade-building experience and are promoted as they demonstrate ability to perform at the next higher level.

C. Full-Performance Level - The grade level in an occupational career ladder to which the employee has noncompetitive promotion potential based on satisfactory ability to perform at that level.

D. Apprenticeship-Trainee Position - An apprenticeship-trainee position is one involving a well defined training program (which includes both on-the-job and classroom training) of a definite duration, and the performance of assigned tasks on a rotating or non-rotating basis under close guidance and instruction with promotion scheduled upon satisfactory completion of the training period.

E. Detail - A detail is the temporary assignment of an employee to a different position for a specified period, with the understanding that the employee will be returning to their regular duties at the end of the detail.

F. Advertising - Advertising is the timely posting of vacancy announcements on appropriately placed bulletin boards, or the circularizing of special issuances to employees with sufficient notice to allow qualified employees within the area of consideration to learn of the vacancy and to apply for it.

Section 4. Locating Candidates and Publicizing Vacancies.

Agency candidates shall be normally located through advertising. No position in the bargaining unit, except those specifically excepted herein from merit promotion competition, will be filled except as a result of the advertising for the particular vacancy or vacancies. In addition to applying for advertised vacancies, any employee may make advance application for a particular vacancy by providing the appropriate completed application materials to the supervisor prior to the employee going on leave or other authorized absence from the work place for submission to the appropriate Personnel Office. The supervisor's obligation to submit the application ends when the employee returns to duty.

A. Local 2419 and Employees Copies of Advertised Vacancies: Copies of all advertised vacancies shall be furnished to Local 2419. A copy of any NIH vacancy announcement for the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area will be furnished to employees upon request.

B. Area of Advertising: The area of advertising for positions within the bargaining unit, at a minimum, will be ORS or CC wide as applicable.

C. Extending the Search: The minimum area of advertising will be extended to the extent practicable, when the minimum area is unlikely to or fails to produce any highly qualified candidates and further advertising is likely to produce additional highly qualified candidates.

D. Vacancy Announcement: A vacancy announcement shall be used in advertising and shall include the following information about the position to be filled.

1. Title and grade

2. Geographic and organizational location

3. Summary statement of duties

4. Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) or Job Elements

5. Qualifications (including any special qualification requirements)

6. Where applications and required forms should be sent.

7. Where additional information may be secured.

8. Vacancy announcements shall be open a minimum of 21 calendar days.

9. If the position to be filled is one with known promotion potential, this shall be explained in the announcement.

10. Salary Range/Grade

11. Whether any special requirements or conditions exist, shift work.

12. NIH is an equal opportunity employer

13. Area of consideration.

D. Announcement of Entrance Level Position: Vacancy announcements of entrance-level positions and those for which sustained recruitment outside the Agency is the practice, shall be issued or posted periodically.

E. Open Announcements: At the option of management, announcements may be open for up to one (1) year for positions for which it appears there will be a number of vacancies over a period of time.

Section 5. Determining Basic Eligibility

Each employee who submitted an application shall be given notice in writing by the appropriate personnel office as to their eligibility for the position, and whether or not their application was referred to the QRB or selecting official.

A. Any selective factor(s) and/or screen-out factor(s) required in addition to mandatory Office of Personnel Management (OPM) standards must be approved by the appropriate personnel office and be included in the announcement. Such additional requirements must be essential to the proper performance of the duties of the position and shall be documented. Additional qualifications concerning condition will be approved only when required by the actual duties and working conditions of the position under requirements established by OPM. Changes in basic qualifications standards shall be available to employees for their inspection upon request. No candidate may be eliminated from consideration on the basis of an additional standard not specified in the announcement or listing.

B. All candidates shall be rated against the same standards without prejudicial regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, politics, marital status, non-disqualifying handicap; age, or membership or non-membership in an employee organization. Sex or physical condition will be a factor in determining eligibility only as specified in Subsection A. above.

C. An employee's present classification, per se, shall not be cause for disqualification from any vacancy in a higher level position in a different series if the employee otherwise meets the requirements for such vacancy.

Section 6. Grouping of Candidates

C. General. Candidates shall be evaluated by a Qualifications Review Board (QRB) or personnelist. Standard application forms SF-171, OF-612, or resume, and the performance record and other required forms as noted on the vacancy announcement will be used for this purpose. Promotions made under merit promotion shall be in accordance with applicable NIH Merit Promotion Plan , Agency rules and regulations, and this Article. The QRB will be used for all WL, WD, WG-11 or higher, and all GS-10 or higher Bargaining Unit positions.

D. Qualifications Review Board. The QRB is composed of at least three (3) persons who are expert in, or have a significant knowledge of, the discipline or occupational category of the position being filled. They must be familiar with the qualifications required for the vacant position and with the provisions of the promotion plan. These persons will be at least one grade higher than the vacancy unless it can be clearly documented that they are not now and will not ultimately, be in competition for the position, in which case they may be of the same grade as the vacancy. Evaluation of a candidate's training and experience requires considerable judgment.

Therefore, the employees who serve on the QRB must be selected carefully and be well trained in the use of the promotion evaluation rating plan so that the evaluations by different raters will be comparable and dependable. A representative of the appropriate personnel office and an EEO representative will serve as advisors to the QRB and ensure that the deliberations are carried out in a manner consistent with the objectives and procedures of this program and EEO objectives. The QRB will be appointed by the appropriate personnel office.

E. Procedures to be Used by Raters

1. Evaluations are to be made without prejudicial regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, politics, marital status, disability, age, or membership or nonmembership in an employee organization.

2. The QRB members or personnel specialist will confine themselves to the factors and their relative importance shall be applied uniformly to all candidates and made a matter of record. The summary evaluation for each candidate must be consistent with the factor evaluation.

3. Evaluations may be made jointly by the board or individually by the members. If the latter method is used, the board will prepare a composite rating from their individual ratings. The method used must be preserved.

D. Employees and Outside Candidates. Evaluation of all candidates, both employees and outsiders, will be based on a review of each individual's total background to determine the extent to which each meets the following criteria:

1. The best combination of education and experience required for the specific job to be filled; and

2. Past and present job performance as related to the requirements of the job to be filled.

Section 7. Certification and Selection

A. Certification

The QRB will evaluate merit promotion candidates to determine the highly qualified group and forward the list to the selecting official. The selecting official and an interview panel, which normally consists of two subject matter experts (one of which is outside the work unit), will interview the highly qualified candidates and assign an overall score following a standard Interview Point Plan. Candidates' applications will be numerically rated and their names entered and ranked on the selection certificate in scoring order highest to lowest top to bottom. Ties in the numeric rating will be broken by seniority in the Bargaining Unit with the most senior employee entered first. Management has the discretion to interview all highly qualified candidates referred to on a valid merit promotion certificate. The interviews will be conducted utilizing a standard set of questions. Normally the selecting official will utilize the highest scoring candidate from the QRB list and interview process to fill the position. The selecting official may choose not to fill the vacancy with the applicant who has the highest score, but in such cases, the selecting official will provide, upon request, bargaining unit applicants who were bypassed with a written explanation as to why such a determination was made and what the applicant can do to improve for future selections.

B. Selection

The selecting official is entitled to make their selection from the candidates on the certificate. Unless circumstances prevent the filling of the vacancy, the selecting official is expected to make their selection within a reasonable time following receipt of the certificate, normally thirty (30) days.

C. Validity of Certificates

1. Merit promotion certificates are valid for ninety (90) days. If a selectee declines or vacates the position within ninety (90) calendar days of the issuance of the certificate, the list of eligibles may be used again. Additional selections may be made from a properly issued promotion certificate within ninety (90) calendar days of the date the certificate was issued, provided the position(s) to be filled have the

same title, series, grade and are in the same geographic location as the position originally announced; and the qualifications requirements are the same.

2. Actions under a merit promotion plan, whether in identification, qualification, evaluation, or selection of candidates or any other phase of the promotion process, shall be made without regard to political, religious, or labor organization affiliation or non-affiliation, marital status, race, color, sex, national origin, disability, or age, and shall not be based on any criteria that are not job related, including favoritism based on personal relationship, patronage, or nepotism.

3. All competitive selections made in the bargaining unit shall be posted in the area of the vacancy.

Section 8. Selection for Details

See Article 27.

Section 9. Career Ladder Promotion Process

Identification of grade-building assignments. When the performance plan is prepared and discussed with the employee at the beginning of the appraisal period, the supervisor will discuss the type of grade-building assignments that may be assigned to the employee during the appraisal year, as well as what the supervisor expects concerning the employee's performance in order to be promoted to the next grade level.

A. Notification

Each employee will automatically be notified in writing by the appropriate personnel office as to whether an application was received and whether selected/non selected for a vacancy for which he/she applied.

B. Review and Explanation

1. If a vacancy cannot be filled for any reason, once a list of candidates has been certified for the vacancy, the agency will give an employee who has made inquiry under this Section or their designated representative the reason why the position cannot now be filled. .

2. A Merit Promotion Plan vacancy announcement shall not be canceled for the purpose of avoiding conformance with the merit promotion plan or this Agreement.

3. Upon request, the Personnel Office will advise Local 2419 of the official with authority for a specific personnel action.

Section 11. General

A. This Article is applicable to all personnel actions filling competitive positions in the Local 2419 bargaining unit subject to the categories of exceptions stated in Section 2.B. of this Article.

B. This Article shall be interpreted in accordance with OPM regulations. Nothing in this Article shall in any way abridge the rights of the individual employee under such regulations, specifically, the employee's right to file a complaint.