If the part-time person is hired for a full-time position from another department, then that person begins to accumulate seniority as of the date that person started the full-time position in the other department. Under that scenario, the answer would be no. Full time people already with the department would always have more seniority than a newly hired part-timer.

The ambiguity arises if the part-time employee is hired into a full-time position in the same department. I would argue the use of "only" suggests an intent that the employee accumulate full-time seniority only after the employee assumes full-time status. I don't think that the preference provision affects this reading.

But, I think your point about "therein" is well taken. The only "in" referred to in that sentence is "within the Group." Under that reading, full-time senority would start to accumulate on the date the employee started working "in the Group", which could be before the employee assumed full-time status "in the Group." This reading, I think, goes against common sense, but it's not completely unreasonable and certainly not frivolous.

These are the kinds of ambiguities that can give rise to litigation. Somebody in your in house legal department should probably fix it. [Edit: Which may not be possible if this is from a collective bargaining agreement.]

Ask your contract admin what the intent of the rule is when they wrote it, then ask the company for their interpretation, if you dont like it then file a grievance and make your case to the arbitrator.

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