16 U.S.C. § 79l — Employment of personnel for rehabilitation, protection, and improvements of additional lands

(a) To use the skills of people already working in the woods and mills, and to ease the economic pain of the land takeover while restoring and protecting the newly acquired land, the Secretary could hire and set the pay for 7 full-time and 31 temporary staff to help protect and improve Redwood National Park. (b) To properly run the larger Redwood National Park, protect its resources, and support visitors — easing local economic harm — the Secretary could hire and set the pay for 2 full-time and 20 temporary civil-service employees. The Secretary could also hire 32 more full-time and 40 more temporary civil-service employees once California donated its state park land inside the park's boundaries. When filling these jobs, the Secretary had to give hiring preference, for up to six years after the transfer, to state employees affected by the transfer; permanent state civil-service workers had to be given the chance to move into a comparable federal civil-service job even if normal civil-service rules would otherwise get in the way. (c) An "affected employee" (someone who lost work because of this land taking and who is otherwise qualified) had to be given full consideration for certain civilian jobs — both federal jobs and jobs with private employers that need federal approval or involvement — from March 27, 1978, through September 30, 1984, if the job was mainly located in Humboldt or Del Norte Counties or nearby California counties. (d) Any federal agency creating or filling a covered civilian job mainly located in those counties had to advertise the job in advance and give qualified affected employees full consideration, if two conditions were met: (1) the job involves skills that logging, sawmill, wood-processing, or office workers would reasonably have gained, or could reasonably gain on the job or through retraining; and (2) the applicant has, or could reasonably be trained to have, the ability to do the job — except an agency didn't have to give full consideration to someone needing training if the job would only last a short time after training finished, compared with the time and money the training would cost. (e) Any private employer filling a covered job mainly located in those counties, who was tied to a federal contract, grant, loan, lease, permit, license, or similar benefit that didn't already exist as of March 27, 1978, had to give affected employees the same notice and full consideration described in subsection (d). (f) The Secretary had to try to make agreements with employers so that affected employees who used to work for them would get full consideration for new job openings in Humboldt, Del Norte, and nearby counties. Making or following these agreements did not create any extra legal liability for the employer under federal or state equal-employment law. (g) The Secretary was responsible for carrying this section out, and had to: (1) offer training to affected employees who could reasonably become qualified with it; (2) make sure no affected employee lost full consideration just because they needed training, and encourage employers to hire on a temporary basis during that training when needed; (3) when two or more equally qualified affected employees competed for a job, give preference to whoever had the most years of related service; and (4) investigate and rule on any complaint from an employee who said their right to full consideration was ignored, and fix the problem if the complaint was valid. Agencies had to tell the Secretary in advance about job openings and federal commitments covered by subsections (d) and (e). The Secretary also had to seek cooperation from California and local governments to extend similar preferences to state and local jobs, and had to appoint a liaison, chosen from names proposed by employee unions, to work with employees and their unions and advise the Secretary. (h) An employee, group of employees, union, or authorized representative unhappy with one of the Secretary's decisions under this Act could get judicial review the same way as under section 2395 of title 19, except the case would go to a federal court of appeals, with possible further review by the Supreme Court. (i) Nothing here takes away any other rights people already had under existing laws, regulations, or contracts (including veterans' preference and union contracts) as of March 27, 1978, and everything here must otherwise follow normal civil-service rules. Anyone hired to a federal job under this section could be paid no more than the top rate of General Schedule grade 15.