Non-Competitive Promotions

Summary of the Situation

For years the employees of DCMA have benefited from various changes to the duties of their positions.  Because of the changing work environment, some employees have gained higher level duties and responsibilities.  In the past when this happened, the employees position description was corrected to show the higher grade duties and then the incumbent employee was non-competitively promoted under an accretion of duties.  Unknown and unannounced to the union, the Deputy Director for DCMA West decided to change established past practice and to deviate 180 degrees from the provisions of the Onebook and the union contract.  Employees were arbitrarily denied non-competitive promotions of any type and when an accretion of duties situation came up, employees got caught in the middle and were forced to compete for their position and their promotion.  The DoD Stopper list actually stopped one employee from even getting to compete.  The employee had to file a grievance in order to obtain a remedy to this inappropriate and unjustified situation.  The Deputy's no non-competitive promotions policy is still in effect.

The Details

There are several situations that fully justify an employee receiving a "non-competitive promotion".  One example of this is when an employee over a period of time experiences an "accretion of higher level duties".  When this happens, the employee challenges the accuracy of their position description, citing the fact that it no longer reflects the significant duties and responsibilities required to be performed.  Once the position description is corrected to reflect the duties being performed, it must go through classification to make sure the title, series and grade are correct.  If the accreted duties being performed are at a higher grade level, then the employees position is upgraded non-competitively, or at least that's the way it is supposed to work.

When an employee working for DCMA Dallas challenged the accuracy of their position description, the position description was changed to reflect the higher grade duties and the position was upgraded.  The employee should have been non-competitively promoted, but wasn't.  They were told that they would have to compete for the higher grade position once it came out on a Job Opportunity Announcement.  When the position was released for a fill action, an individual on the DoD Priority Placement Program got the position, not only leaving the incumbent employee at the lower grade level, but apparently totally out in the cold without a valid position.  The employee filed a grievance and the union represented them.  When the employee grievance went through all three steps without resolution, the union invoked arbitration.  During the grievance and arbitration process, it was discovered that the Deputy Director of DCMA West had unilaterally and without notice to the union, issued an edict and policy change to all the Contract Management Offices in District West, directing them that there would not be any more "non-competitive" promotions.  It did not matter to DCMA that this unilateral policy change was in direct conflict with higher level regulations, the collective bargaining agreement or established past practice, DCMA insisted non-competitive promotions were purely "management discretion".  The employee was caught in the middle of this poorly thought out and totally unjustified policy change and without the unions backing they would have suffered no telling what kind of career losses and possibly a job loss.

DCMA Dallas and AFGE Local 2128 spent two days in an arbitration hearing and had another day scheduled, before DCMA finally gave in and negotiated a settlement to this grievance.  The settlement did not include rescinding the policy change.

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