Representing over 50,000 SSA employees across the nation, Puerto Rico and Pacific Islands
PO Box 47638
Baltimore, MD 21244-7638
(410) 965-8863
(410) 966-7151fax
September 22, 2009
Milt Beever
Associate Commissioner, OLMER
Social Security Administration
2170 Annex Bldg
6401 Security Blvd
Baltimore MD 21235
Subject: Detail –Office of Automation Support
Mr. Beever:
I just received a copy of a solicitation for a 1 year detail for 6 employees to the Office of Automation Support in Baltimore. The detail is described in the notice as “assisting in the planning for software implementation, coordinating user acceptance testing and developing training materials.”
Article 27, Section 9 (D) of the contract states that any non-competitive detail in excess of 120 calendar days must be posted for a reasonable period of time to allow all eligible employees the opportunity to become aware of and apply for the detail. This detail was posted for only 3 days. The alleged posting was from 9/14/09 to 9/16/09. Such a limited posting violates the reasonable time provision of the contract.
Article 27, Section 9 (E) of the contract requires that all qualified candidates that compete for a detail must be listed in seniority order and Article 27, Section 9 (F) requires that SSA give serious consideration to selecting the most qualified senior employee who filed for the detail. The Solicitation does not require interested employees who apply for the vacancies to supply their service computation date (SCD) date. Thus the selecting official will not be able to comply with the contractual requirements of listing the qualified applicants by SCD date and giving serious consideration to the most senior applicant. This also violates the contract.
Article 27, Section 9 (B) requires that the solicitation be done electronically or posted on bulletin boards. The particular copy of the solicitation attached shows that in Gainesville FL, District Manager Maitland sent an e-mail to all the T-II and T-XVI CRs in the Gainesville office informing the employees at 5:43 PM on 9/15/09 that they needed to contact him by noon on 9/16/09 if they were interested in the detail. Employees couldn’t even receive this e-mail till the next day – 9/16. This “notice” gave the employees ½ day to express interest which does not meet the “reasonable time” requirement for such postings in the contract. It also indicates that, in all likelihood, all eligible employees were not given notice of the alleged “nationwide solicitation”. Apparently, notice may have occurred to some employees who were fortunate enough to have their managers forward the notice. No nationwide e-mail electronic notice was apparently sent to all employees. In fact, Ms Maitland didn’t even send the notice to the Gainesville Technical Experts who, no doubt, qualified for the detail. This also violates the contract.
In view of the numerous contract violations contained in this detail solicitation, AFGE demands that SSA repost the vacancy, suspend any selection process and comply with the contract with regard to this solicitation.
Please provide evidence that SSA has in fact taken the action that AFGE contends is required by the contract.
Sincerely,
Witold Skwierczynski
AFGE/SSA General Committee
Cc: AFGE GC
L. McMahan
R. McDonnell
R. Patinella