*serious Q for those, in the know : Is the staffing for foresters, timber crews, and admin based strictly on probationary employees, i.e. less than one year on the job?
If seasonal (maybe
some of the *forestry tech INTERN positions?), then these people do not retain SF-50 Permanent status, i.e. benefits towards retirement, etc. However, forest engineers, foresters, procurement foresters, etc, the majority of the staffing maintain "Permanent" status.
I know tensions currently keep people in one trench or the other, so likely challenging to get an honest assessment.
Example: base level Forestry tech are "Permanent" positions.
These integrated entry-level Forestry Technician positions coupled with career ladders, provide a sequence of training steps that lead to progressively more advanced jobs and skillsets throughout a Forest Service employee's career. Recruitment Incentives may be offered to qualifying candidates...
www.usajobs.gov
Its a mixed bag really.
Try not to make this a long post, but I think its important for folks that want to know what's happened the past 30+ years.
When I first started the seasonal appointments were 180 day NTE's (not to exceed). No benefits like health or even retirement post 1989. Prior to '89 if you ended up with a career conditional appointment you could buy back your seasonal time. Under the 180 day NTE's the FS and other agencies played all sorts of games to keep people working with no benefits nearly year round. One way was to work 4-10, only 4 days off your NTE for every week.
Then in the early 90's they did away with the 180 day appointments to 1039's, meaning a truly seasonal employee, think seasonal fire crews, trail crews, etc. At the same time, they started term appointments. Terms you could work year round, and the term of the appointment could be up to 2 years and could be renewed one time. After the second renewal, the job either had to be flown as permanent or dropped from the org chart. But with any program, it was gamed. After the second terms expired, lots of managers slightly changed the PD's so the appearance was a different job and flew essentially the same job again, usually going to the same person who had been doing it the previous 4 years.
Didn't take long and HR started catching on and pretty much all the terms were converted to 1039's as the agencies didn't want to hire even PSE 13-13 or 18-8 positions. Some did, and frankly that's the correct way to go. Working as a 1039 is a road to nowhere for both the employee and the agency, in particular on recurring work. The only "benefit" that a 1039 has is non-competitive rehire rights usually limited to the NF or Unit you work for.
For most of the more technical seasonal work, what I currently do, trails, fire fighting, timber, there's a lot of training that goes into it. Hell, even the hiring process is a time suck. So it made sense to convert as many of those 1039's to career conditional 13-13 and 18-8 positions. It makes no sense to put employees through all the required training when they have no promise of a job next year. Most simply don't hang around and find something better, and I don't blame them. Like this year, all the 1039's that have non-competitive rehire rights are f$#@ed, rehire rights to positions that aren't going to be filled or offered.
What the agencies did in the past year is to keep those good employees on that we've invested a ton of money into, by offering them PSE's 13-13, 18-8.
Specific to this new logging agenda, there isn't going to be staffing for it. Lots of Forestry Tech's, Foresters, etc. that were recently hired under PSE's (13-13, 18-8) are toast. One step forward, 3 steps back...what happened recently is a huge mistake, IMO. We're not losing 1 year probationary employees, we're losing long term 1039's that we've invested 10's of thousands of dollars training, that finally got a PSE. I assure you, not one person who made that decision realizes that. I don't think anyone that is tooting their horn about how great of an idea it was to get rid of probationary employees on this board realize that. In fairness they don't know what they don't know and it's impossible to talk any sense into them. The
@rjthehunter types of the world are just ignorant to the facts, completely clueless.
For the record, I've held positions under ever single authority mentioned since 1987, 180 NTE, 1039, terms, PSE 13-13 and currently 18-8.
