After stonewalling for more than two months, the Postal Service has taken initial steps to enforce an arbitration ruling that was a major victory for the APWU.
The arbitration award, [PDF] which was issued on March 29 by Arbitrator Shyam Das, settled a dispute about the amount of bargaining unit work postmasters and supervisors may perform in Level 18-and-below offices. Arbitrator Das upheld the union’s position, ruling that the “Global Settlement” Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the union and management set absolute limits on the number of hours postmasters may perform bargaining unit work in small offices. The award will greatly benefit clerks in small offices by increasing the number of hours they work.
Unfortunately, on April 3, 2013, the USPS Vice President for Delivery and Post Office Operations sent a memo to managers in the field [PDF] instructing them that no changes should be made as the result of the award.
After repeated demands by the APWU, the USPS Vice President has taken initial steps to enforce the arbitrator’s ruling, directing managers on June 6 [PDF] that the work-hour limitations on postmasters in Level 15, 16, and 18 post offices “must immediately be observed” if an office has the ability to utilize part-time flexible (PTF) employees or Postal Support Employees (PSEs), including by borrowing them from other facilities. “We will be discussing other strategies to ensure compliance at next week’s Area Vice President’s meeting,” the notice says.
“This is a beginning, finally,” said Clerk Craft Director Rob Strunk. “It is disappointing that it took the USPS this long to partially comply with a final and binding arbitration award.” Several issues remain unresolved regarding implementation of the award, he noted. “We intend to make sure that management fully complies with the arbitrator’s ruling.”
A dispute regarding the remedy for contract violations that occurred before Arbitrator Das issued the award has been returned to him and is awaiting his decision.
Actually it’s the opposite. You don’t want to tie up a smaller office with an occasional passport. Larger offices have a dedicated clerk to do that and handle business customers accounts (BME etc.) Works great!
The problem I see is that in the Long Island District they do not let level 18 and below offices schedule passorts application so it ties up a clerk for about an hour by letting all offices schedule passports you will be able to more control and schedule when you have the most clerks on duty which will reduce the time Postmasters and Supervisors need to assist the window area.
Jackie why don’t you sell yours, or maybe that’s where you got your money.
No Jackie strikes me as a person who has so much money to burn that she doesn’t mind paying for online transactions, higher mailing cost because of profit driven company’s. When she pays her bills on line she pays a fee to the bank and to the company whom she is paying because to mail a letter will only be around 5 dollars to go across state and more if it has to go to a small town.
In the 1800’s private companies were allowed to deliver mail. The problem was they only delivered where it was profitable and charged what ever they wanted. In 1840 congress stepped in and gave the Dept. of the Post Office a monopoly on letter delivery.
Today the post office charges less than UPS or FedEx,delivers where they won’t (parcels from FedEx and UPS are taking to the post office everyday and delivered by the post office).
UPS is so sure that the Post Office is going to be privatized, they are already telling their managers they plan to raise rates by 20%.
The post office is non-profit, while UPS and FedEx have to pay investors dividends. They will never be allowed to just break even.
The current postal plan is already hinting at what will happen in the future if allowed to privatize, (postal management works closely with large mailers allowing them to be subsidized by 1st class mail). Small town post offices are being closed or hours greatly reduced. Mail that used to go to the nearest processing plant is now traveling extra hours each way to go to the super plants in large cities. This will delay mail at both the office that receives the mail and the office that will deliver that mail. Parcels have been processed since Christmas at the super plants already being delayed by 2-5 days per parcel. Letters just started being processed at the super plants then moved back to the old plants. Mail is being stored by many truck loads at the super plants. Denver ran out of room at the dock parking, and now is using the employee parking lot to store that mail.
Jackie you can remain ignorant, or maybe your just a large mailer and expect to make money from privatization the post office. If you are a large mailer, just remember that if the P.O. is privatized they will not be subject to cost controls mandated by congress.
Be honest/ethical, stick to the contract, problem solved.
sell it, private it, problems solved