Common use of Merit Promotion Procedures Clause in Contracts

Merit Promotion Procedures. Section 1 The Employer's policy is to provide a fair and systematic approach for the identification, evaluation, and competitive selection of employees for promotion to bargaining unit positions on the basis of merit principles. Actions taken under this Article shall be made without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, marital status, age, religion, sexual orientation, labor organization affiliation or non-affiliation, or non-disqualifying disability and shall be based solely on job-related criteria. The purpose of this Article is to insure selection of the most qualified candidates for vacant positions. The procedures in this Article do not apply to the Agency's hiring of new employees except where required by law, rule, or regulation; rather the Article deals primarily with internal merit employment. Nevertheless, Article 17 (Reassignments), provides procedures the Employer will follow to enable current employees to be considered for vacant positions. Under the terms of this Article, the Employer is not required to fill a vacant position with a current employee but this Article does provide for promotions to be made fairly, and for promotion practices that will support the Agency's efforts to select the best qualified persons in any given instance. The Employer may choose the method of filling a vacant position so long as civil merit procedures and the terms of this Agreement are followed. In many cases, current employees may fill vacant positions. They are frequently among the best qualified. They are familiar with the work, and the selecting official often knows their abilities. Section 2 The provisions of this Article apply only to competitive merit promotions to bargaining unit positions that are also: 1. promotions to positions that have higher promotion potential; 2. temporary promotions or details to higher graded positions for more than one hundred twenty (120) days; 3. reassignments, details, or demotions or changes to lower grade, to positions that have known higher promotion potential except as permitted by reduction-in-force regulations; 4. transfers-in of federal employees to positions with higher promotion potential than the ones currently occupied; or 5. reinstatement of former career or career conditional employees to permanent or temporary positions with higher potential than the positions previously held. Section 3 The provisions of this Article do not apply to any other competitive merit promotions, including with respect to the following categories: 1. career ladder promotions; 2. promotions resulting from an employee's position that has been reclassified at a higher grade because of an accretion of duties, as long as the duties are included into the higher level position and there are no other employees to whom the higher level duties could be assigned; 3. temporary promotions made permanent without further competition if the temporary promotions were originally made under a competitive merit posting that provided for such promotion; 4. temporary promotions or details to higher graded positions for 120 days or less; 5. promotions that result from application of new classification standards or the correction of a classification action; 6. interns; 7. summer employees; and 8. student temporary employees. Section 4 When the area of consideration for competitive merit promotions is not limited to Agency employees, bargaining unit employees will be simultaneously considered with other applicants. Eligible bargaining unit employees seeking reassignment to a vacant posted position also may be considered for the vacancy pursuant to Article 17 (Reassignments). Section 5 Prior to filling a position through an action described in Section 2 and excluding actions described in Section 3 of this Article, announcements of competitive merit promotions will be announced in SEC Today with a brief description and hyperlink to the full job announcement on USAJOBS with: 1. the announcement number; 2. the title, occupational series, grade, organization and location of the position; 3. career ladder; 4. area of consideration; 5. a brief description of the duties and responsibilities of the position and an indication where additional information may be obtained;