14:0183(38)NG - NFFE Local 1694 and Oklahoma Army NG, Oklahoma City, OK -- 1984 FLRAdec NG

 14 FLRA No. 38
 
 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF
 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES, LOCAL
 1694
 Union
 
 and
 
 OKLAHOMA ARMY NATIONAL
 GUARD, OKLAHOMA CITY,
 OKLAHOMA
 Agency
 
                                            Case No. O-NG-633
 
                 DECISION AND ORDER ON NEGOTIABILITY ISSUE
 
    The petition for review in this case comes before the Authority
 pursuant to section 7105(a)(2)(E) of the Federal Service
 Labor-Management Relations Statute (the Statute), and presents an issue
 relating to the negotiability of the following Union proposal.
 
          The following sentence is to be deleted from described position
       descriptions:
 
          "Specific MOS/AFSC may be included when essential for
       successful performance of the job."
 
 Upon careful consideration of the entire record, including the parties'
 contentions, the Authority makes the following determinations.
 
    National Guard technicians are employed pursuant to the National
 Guard Technicians Act of 1968, 32 U.S.C. 709(1970), in full-time
 civilian positions to administer and train the National Guard and to
 maintain and repair the supplies issued to the National Guard or the
 armed forces.  Such technicians must, as a condition of their civilian
 employment under the Act, become and remain members of the National
 Guard (i.e., in a military capacity) and hold the military grade
 specified for the technician position pursuant to 32 U.S.C. 709(b) and
 (e).  In other words, the law requires a compatibility between the
 civilian and military sides of technicians' dual status employment.
 
    The proposal would delete from the description of the civilian
 positions held by technicians a sentence referring to "MOS/AFSC."
 Insofar as the record indicates, the MOS/AFSC means "Military
 Occupational Specialty/Air Force Specialty Code." It refers to a five
 digit code, pertaining to a technician's military employment,
 representing an occupational field, a level of experience and, as
 pertinent herein, a specialty within the occupational field which the
 Union calls the "shred." The "shred" is designated in the proposal as
 the "specific" MOS/AFSC.
 
    The proposal is intended to preclude the Agency's requiring that a
 candidate for a civilian technician position be holding, at the time,
 one or more particular "specific" MOS/AFSC in his or her military
 position.  The purpose of the proposal is to enable positions.  As the
 Union states, in essence, the Agency's use of a specific MOS/AFSC,
 "specifically matched in a particular shred with the technician's
 military position," as a selective factor for a civilian position limits
 the civilian positions for which a technician candidate is deemed
 eligible to compete.  It does not, however, take account of the actual
 qualifications of the candidate in relation to those which management
 has established for the job in question.  In this latter regard, the
 Union states without contradiction by the Agency that the fact that a
 technician does not hold a particular specific MOS/AFSC in his or her
 military position, at the time, does not indicate that the technician
 necessarily lacks the actual qualifications which such code would
 purport to reflect.
 
    The Agency, for its part, does not claim that the use of specific
 MOS/AFSC which is the subject of the proposal is necessary to insure
 compatibility between the military and civilian positions technicians
 hold;  nor are there facts in the record to support a finding to that
 effect.  Hence, the Authority finds it unnecessary to further consider
 this matter herein.  /1/ Rather, the Agency focuses on its claim that
 management must be allowed to include specific MOS/AFSC in civilian
 position descriptions in order to identify military specialities which
 are essential to successful job performance in certain civilian
 technician positions.
 
    In National Federation of Federal Employees, Local 1497 and
 Headquarters, Lowry Technical Training Center (ATC), Lowry Air Force
 Base, Colorado, 11 FLRA No. 92(1983), the Authority decided that
 management's right to select a candidate for appointment to a position
 under section 7106(a)(2)(C) of the Statute includes the discretion to
 determine the particular factors, i.e., the knowledges, skills, and
 abilities necessary to successful performance of the work of a position,
 to be utilized in the process of making a selection.  In the present
 case, the Agency essentially claims that it uses the MOS/AFSC in
 position description to identify specific qualifications, i.e.,
 knowledges, skills, and abilities, which it has determined are necessary
 for successful performance of the work of the technician position being
 filled, and, which can only be identified by these codes.  The Authority
 concludes that the proposal herein would not limit the right of the
 Agency to establish qualifications including selective factors for
 civilian technician positions.  In this regard, the Authority has ruled
 that a proposal which would have eliminated the exclusive use of "SKAP"
 code numbers in ranking bargaining unit employees who applied for
 vacancies was within the duty to bargain.  The effect of that proposal
 was only to prevent the summary disqualification of otherwise eligible
 bargaining unit candidates based on their failure to be registered in
 the applicable career program, but the proposal did not eliminate any
 skills, knowledges, abilities, and personal characteristics (SKAP) as
 elements in ranking candidates for vacancies.  National Federation of
 Federal Employees, Local 1332 and Headquarters, U.S. Army Materiel
 Development and Readiness Command, Alexandria, Virginia, 6 FLRA No. 66
 (1981) (Union Proposal V).  The proposal at issue herein is to the same
 effect as Proposal V in the cited case.  That is, its effect would be
 only to require the Agency to evaluate the actual qualifications of a
 candidate instead of merely relying on a code which may or may not have
 been assigned to the candidate for another purpose.  Hence, it is within
 the duty to bargain.  /2/
 
    Accordingly, pursuant to section 2424.10 of the Authority's Rules and
 Regulations, IT IS ORDERED that the Agency shall upon request (or as
 otherwise agreed to by the parties) bargain on the Union's proposal.
 
    Issued, Washington, D.C., April 6, 1984
                                       Barbara J. Mahone, Chairman
                                       Ronald W. Haughton, Member
                                       Henry B. Frazier III, Member
                                       FEDERAL LABOR RELATIONS AUTHORITY
 
 
 
 
 
 
 --------------- FOOTNOTES$ ---------------
 
 
    /1/ The Authority need not sua sponte supplement a party's incomplete
 analysis with respect to matters foreign to the Authority's area of
 expertise.  National Federation of Federal Employees, Local 1167 v.
 Federal Labor Relations Authority, 681 F.2d 886, 891 (D.C. Cir. 1982).
 
 
    /2/ In so deciding, the Authority makes no judgment as to the merits
 of the proposal.