In what has been termed the first case of its kind in the federal workforce, the MSPB has barred the Justice Department from filling two vacancies, an action the merit board took at the request of the Office of Special Counsel, which is investigating whether the department manipulated the process to avoid hiring a veteran.
The case involves two job openings for which two veterans were placed in the “best qualified” category; the OSC asserted that departmental officials told them that the highest-ranked candidate was a non-veteran who couldn’t be hired unless they withdrew their applications. They did not, according to the MSPB, and the office “attempted to hire its preferred candidate anyway, but was prevented from doing so by human resources officials.”
The hiring office eventually canceled the vacancy announcements without hiring anyone, rewrote the job requirements to stress a qualification the preferred candidate had but that the two veterans lacked, and then found them unqualified, said MSPB. In the meantime, the OSC started investigating, leading to OSC’s request that MSPB block any hiring for the positions while that probe continues.
In granting a 45-day stay, the MSPB said there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that the Justice Department violated federal personnel law in several ways.
The OSC said that this was the first time it had sought a stay in a case involving an alleged prohibited personnel practice that did not involve a claim of retaliation.
