In 1999 we advanced the position based on a level of not just seniority, but skills and seniority. If you look at most private sector unions, that's what they have. We were not even advocating a pure seniority, because we do recognize there has to be a level of competence to do the job, and from that the most senior person should be chosen.
I just want to add to Betty's previous comments. I'll give you a quick analogy--and very quick, because I know we're running out of time--to help you understand. There's not just one level of recourse; there are three levels of recourse in the agency.
At 11 o'clock this morning I attended one on a promotion in headquarters. Without getting into names, there was a case where three people were chosen and the person I was representing wasn't chosen for a job. We exercised recourse with the appropriate manager, and the first question we asked was, “What qualifications did you use to appoint them?” The answer we got was, “Additional qualifications linked to work-specific requirements.” We said, “What does that mean?” They said, “Well, we don't really know, but that's what human resources told us to say.” We said, “Can you tell us what qualifications those candidates had that my client didn't have?” “We can't discuss that because that's covered under the Privacy Act; we're not prepared to discuss it.”
When we asked some other questions, the meeting was terminated abruptly, and I was told to speak to human resources. That's recourse in the agency.