1. CONVERSION OF SEASONAL EMPLOYEES TO PERMANENT STATUS

a. The Employer and the Union recognize that employees may want to obtain permanent employment status with Passport Services. When attrition created vacancies exist which will be filled by conversion, the Employer will initiate a survey to find interested employees.  Every reasonable effort will be made to contact employees on non-pay status.  Employees who express an interest in writing will be considered for conversion under this Article.

b.  Each organization will post on official bulletin boards the criteria to be used in ranking employees for conversion to permanent status. Among the criteria to be used are:

-- Most recent performance assessment;

-- Management assessment of initiative, dependability, and potential, based upon observed objective performance;

-- employee must not be on leave restriction at time of assessment, and,

--  employee must not have had any absences without leave for the four months immedi-ately preceding the conversion.

c.  In the event of a tie, length of service within Passport Services will be used.

d.  Each Agency will maintain a list of employees who have shown interest in writing. Conversions will be made from this list based on the criteria in Section 1b above for attrition related vacancies.

e.  The Regional Director shall post the position, title and grade of those permanent vacancies to be filled by this conversion process.

f.  The name of the selected employee(s) will be posted on the official bulletin board at the time of selection.

g.  Seasonal employees serving under career appointment may move noncompetitively to other positions in the same way as other regular career employees.

In considering work requirements, the employer will consider whether recall of seasonal employees will meet the expected needs, and will recall these employees where it is determined this will best meet the needs of the employer.  Seasonal employees shall be given 30 days advance written notice of the projected period they will be placed in non-pay status.  If it becomes necessary for the Employer to extend the non-pay status of an employee, the employee will be notified both by phone and in writing at the earliest possible moment.