The federal district court in Washington D.C. today issued a decision dismissing NALC’s lawsuit that sought to halt the Consolidated Casing Initiative.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg concluded that the court lacked jurisdiction to issue the preliminary injunction that NALC requested, which would have halted the Initiative pending the outcome of the national-level arbitration. The arbitration is presently scheduled to begin November 22, before national arbitrator Shyam Das.

The court reasoned that a preliminary injunction halting an employer action pending arbitration is only warranted when the employer’s action would render the arbitration “meaningless.” The court concluded that a preliminary injunction was not warranted here because Arbitrator Das will have the authority (if he rules for NALC) to find that the Consolidated Casing Initiative violates the National Agreement and to order USPS to end it.

Defendant United States Postal Service has unilaterally reformed the duties and functions of letter carriers in the Annandale, Virginia, Post Office, requiring them to spend less time in the office and more time on the street. To boot, USPS is currently rolling out these test reforms at several hundred other post offices. Plaintiff, t he National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO (NALC) — a labor union that represents postal employees — now moves for injunctive relief to block this new workplace initiative. NALC alleges that these actions constitute a breach of the parties’ operative collective-bargaining agreement and several Postal Service regulations. Later this month, the parties are scheduled to arbitrate this dispute under the terms of the CBA.But the Union asks this Court to intervene now, on the ground that Defendant’s reforms are currently injuring its members’ physical health, damages that a rbitration cannot remedy. It therefore seeks a preliminary injunction pending arbitration. Because such relief is unnecessary to protect the integrity of the arbitral process, the Court concludes that it lacks jurisdiction to grant an injunction and will deny Plaintiff’s Motion and dismiss the case

The conflict here centers around the Postal Service’s Consolidated Casing Initiative(CCI), which is meant to streamline its operations. Ordinarily, a carrier’s daily duties include both office time and street time.  While at the office, a letter carrier “cases” the mail for his route and performs other related work. . More specifically, “[c]asing mail involves sorting mail by address, by placing the pieces of mail for the delivery route into . . . a cabinet-like structure.” Id. After doing so, the letter carrier spends the rest of his shift delivering the mail on a designated delivery route. . According to Defendant, this model of doing business is outdated and has created operational inefficiencies, inflated costs, and reduced workspace. See ECF No. 1

The test consists of assigning some carriers exclusively office duties — i.e., casing — and others exclusively street duties — i.e., mail delivery. In a letter dated March 21, 2019, Defendant notified the Union that the Annandale, Virginia, Post Office would serve as the first “test site.”  The Postal Service also asserted that its initiative complied with Article 34 of the CBA.

This reform, the Union argues, has taken a heavy toll on some of its Annandale members. Those assigned exclusively to street duty are working longer hours delivering mail and carrying heavier satchels. See Pl. PI Mot. at 8. And as they begin work about an hour later each day, they are “more . . . exposed to the heat of the long summer afternoons,” deliver into the night hours in the fall and winter, and no longer can “run necessary personal errands before offices and businesses close.”  Shouldering this burden has resulted in “ physical exhaustion, ailments, pain and mental stress.”  So far, the Postal Service has introduced its initiative at seven other sites, but it will increase that number to over 240, which expansion NALC also challenges.

Source: Case Consolidation Lawsuit Dismissed | National Association of Letter Carriers AFL-CIO