Legislation has been introduced in the Senate that would make is easier for wildland firefighters to obtain permanent employment.
Below is an excerpt from an article in the Government Executive:
The legislation (S. 1120) would allow seasonal firefighters to use their experience to compete for career jobs that open up at land management agencies. It would also enable those temporary employees to convert to any “successor permanent positions,” or permanent jobs in the same agency with similar duties and qualification requirements.
Eligible workers must have worked as time-limited or seasonal employees, served one or more two-year stints with a land management agency, and received acceptable performance reviews on the job. The legislation identifies land management agencies as the Agriculture Department’s Forest Service and the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Reclamation. There are more than 8,000 temporary seasonal firefighters.
[…]
“Wildfires don’t operate on our schedule, and we need to make sure the folks who manage our outdoors have the resources they need to keep us safe,” said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who introduced the bill and is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs federal workforce subcommittee. “This bill will make sure that trained, experienced workers can stay on the job when they are needed the most.” Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., is a co-sponsor.
Bryan, exactly. Especially with the FS. They preach safety, physical fitness and leadership….but then hire people (minorities or friends of the Forest Sup) without the basic quals needed for the position, people that can’t lead a herd of cows to milking and people that can hump their own gear let alone work 16 or more hours at a time. This all leads to unsafe working conditions for the people working for the unqualified “leader” and low moral.
And most of these people being hired for these positions are doing it on the fire side of the FS just to get their foot in the door. They work for a year then leave. This creates a revolving door of underqualified “leaders” year after year. It’s sad, especially when those seasonals applying for those jobs have more quals and experience then the perm being hired. These seasonals end up usually being in charge of the perm on fires and have to year after year teach the new perm their district.
I’ve seen numerous top notch firefighters leave the FS over the years due to the messed up hiring practices. No wonder the FS is at the bottom of the list for fed agencies regarding moral.
So the age old question is how will the agencies whose budgets are being slashed pay for all these new employees? Most would end up being 13 and 13 and to pay for some, other crews would probably be eliminated as is happening with Vandenburg.
I have been a seasonal firefighter for the past 7 seasons and I just love seeing this article. It has been my experience that being a Caucasian male in the federal system is a disadvantage in every way when it comes to applying for jobs. I am not a veteran of war, I am a veteran of fire, yet that status is strangely disregarded by the federal government. I have been lucky enough through the years to stay in my profession but the lack of job security is frankly ridiculous. I hate to complain about the job i love so much but there are some serious flaws with the way hiring occurs throughout the federal government. This year, applicants were able to apply to an unlimited number of duty stations, which put hundreds of applications in the hands of my employers, some of which retaining War veteran status. Although I appreciate the sacrifice that these vets have made to our country, I think the Forest Service missing the boat by giving them preference over experienced firefighters. It has made the hiring process so hard on my superiors that they have all together dropped some of the jobs that were planned to be filled, leaving a few more Americans without jobs, good jobs. I hope more action is taken to correct the misguided system that is our Federal hiring process.
Is that the Dan Cottrell? or did the USFS pay for a stand in?