On September 18, 2013 President Hegarty notified Local Presidents of an unfair labor practice filed by the NPMHU against the United Stated Postal Service. Specifically, the Union asserts that the USPS violated Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(2) of the Act through the unlawful formation and domination of labor organizations in the form of so-called Lean Mail Processing Teams. As of now, the matter is being investigated by Region 5 of the NLRB in Baltimore, MD, with NPMHU witnesses scheduled to be interviewed next week. Additional details will be disseminated to the Locals as appropriate.
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Follow link for more information and a copy of the charges filed with the NLRB (PDF)
http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-special-offers-forum/795483-more-page-one-rankings-then-any-other-service-any-forum-must-read-my-clients-reviews.html#post8124829
Let us not forget, it was the Mail Handler Union Leadership that previously embraced the “QWL”, Quality of Worklife scam! For 1 hour of screw off time, certain selected Mail handlers were assigned a designated QWL Supervisor Monitor to discuss issue to improve ones “at work happiness”. Nothing “Contractually” mind you was open for discussion. Basketball Hoop in the Parking Lot? Paper Cup dispensers near the Water Fountains? Toilet Seat Cover Protectors in the Latrines? What a Joke. Another form of “atta-girl” or “atta-boy”, and everyone gets a good old fashion (head rub). THe APWU and Moe Biller decided (not) to participate. I wonder why?
We could assemble a supervisor dunk tank?
With live piranha. Good for a few buck’s.?
A Ferris wheel? Rollercoster’s? A little make up the PMG/ Congress will fit right in.
Congress along with the shipping of spirit’s could aloud fundraiser’s within? all proceeds going back into the kitty.
Let’s say a $5 ticket will get u a week of a extra break?
$10-a week of extra lunch?
$15-off the hook 90 day 1 unschedule?
$20-3 day’s off with your schedule?
$25-weekends off for a month?
Nation wide how much do you think you rake?
Do it like once a month?
Show of hand’s?
Kirstin – Since your 21cpw post focuses mainly on the APPS, I would guess you are a MH working the APPS. Forgive us if we don’t scream with outrage that management “ignored” your 25-page book of ideas. Maybe your ideas were not good.
You are angered that they will not consider changes software for the POS system, or change the color/appearance of Express Mail packaging. The software is what it is. It would cost a great deal of money to make ANY changes to it. As for Express Mail packaging, the USPS will not move away from the red white and blue packaging. That is our “thing” it is iconic and recognizable. Also, what would we do with all of the existing packaging? Throw it away? All because the person working the window (or dock) failed to properly isolate the Express Mail? I say address the person who screwed up, don’t change the packaging!
Captain Jack, we are over staffed by managers and supervisors! Most have never actually done the job to understand the mail flow (most were clerks who may have known their jobs but know nothing of mailhandler work), and they have no clue how to train or communicate. Tell me why during a blizzard that neither the manager or supervisor who showed up was trained to start every machine in the building? Tell me why we have managers who do not know there are scales on the APPS or the difference between 3-digit, 5 digit, and Mixed orginating? WHY? Because there is NO communication and NO training — of anyone! Our former plant manager was actually looking at a label on a hamper that read “Mixed States” and asked the mailhandler twenty feet away, “What is this?” seriously? do you think THESE people get the mail done? NO. Do you think these people are worth keeping since they did not take the initiative to educate themselves? NO. We as workers MUST take the initiative to learn for ourselves. So who is it that needs to be downsized?
The USPS is now combining different crafts into the mailhandler craft with no training. Over the past seven years, more and more workers from other crafts/facilities have joined our P&DC as mailhandlers. First it was the Philadelphia clerks. Then the former Priority Mail Processing Center employees that never had to work with First, Second, or Standard mail or the various types of bundles. Then we got window clerks from the AO’s. Management takes for granted that all workers/crafts are the same. We are not. We are specialized in our craft/area, and you must train from one craft/area to another. What did anyone expect to happen when a third of a building’s mailhandlers are untrained former clerk craft employees? I can tell you… and I’m not management= MIS-SENT and MIS-Handled mail. Period. If superivors do not want/cannot train, then team new workers up with a buddy and let us do their job.
Communication— The USPS needs to stop giving us lectures as to how to mow our lawns (which we receive during the winter with snow on the ground), and how to drive during deer season. They NEED to concentrate on giving us the proper information to do our jobs. They want to set up teams? They should be setting up a team in every building with a person from each area of the building (the most knowledgable of each area), a shop steward, In Plant Support, and the MDO to discuss: problems in the building, problems with mail flow, problems with sort plans, and destination changes in the MTEL. The minutes of the meeting should be recorded then copied as a service talk. That way if a mailhandler or clerk is working in another area, they are aware of any important changes. Currently, the MTEL destinations can change weekly, and the mailhandlers have to scroll through and waste their time looking through hundreds of destinations to get the correct one. How is someone supposed to know to look up Nashua to find White River Junction? Or to look up Deptford Carrier Annex to find Lawnside AO? As a level 4, I’m not getting paid for telepathic abilities! And it is not just the employees who feel frustrated, but the supervisors as well. The favorite saying of supervisors is “I have not worked in this area in (fill in the time frame), so I don’t know”. Fix that with communication! Management gets emails about these changes, then they forget to convey it to the employees. So let’s cut out the middle man. Set up the team, and let us inform and train each other.
Arrrr me hearties, one less captan jackass to shiver me timber’s be ye better!
Sauvey
Anything that cuts union jobs is a great thing. 100,000 less and the PO will still be over staffed.
from http://www.21cpw.com
Kirsten Rothlander
SJ P&DC
– Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 10:12:34 (PDT)
LEAN MAIL PROCESSING IN SOUTH JERSEY
I work in South Jersey, and a year ago, gave the “Blue Team” of engineers a 25 page book, complete with color coded index tabs giving them information on each area of the building. All of the input that I accumulated from various employees throughout the building was ignored. The only thing they did to improve the parcels area was to install mirrors above the APPS machine that assist the culling person on the belt. They have spent $3 Million in the building, and very little to truly show for it. The signs that they are bragging about include signs that say “APPS Break Room”, “Cafeteria”, and “Maintenance Area”. Really? That is not helping the mail flow. The other signs that are “color coded for area” say things like “APPS 81-1” and are in brown, the HSTS is blue, automation is purple. Who cares? the colors mean nothing. Not only have we never needed to know that the APPS machine was called “81”, but they never bothered to explain that the “-1” part meant “side 1”. Who cares? They then spent probably $100,000 on big screen televisions throughout the building.
EVERY belt on the HSTS now has a flat screen tv— all 60 bins. Plus about 5 flat screens that are even larger. You know what these screens says? It says what town is coming down the bin belt. It is useless and totally unnecessary. The larger screens show which feeder is going faster than another… again… who cares? Throughout the building, the larger flat screens have been put up to show “numbers and dispatch times” that none of us care about or need to know. Just MORE wasted money. They painted pretty lines on the floor, and made pretty signs. wow.
Did they change the registry area? absolutely. Not working in that area, I cannot state how that is working. But… in the APPS area, they have made things harder with regard to processing the mail by removing a pallet hopper, and replacing it with a “universal dumper” which takes 5 times longer to dump pallets.
They took NO steps whatsoever to improve the actual mail stream from P&DC to P&DC. For example, if something is not APPS machinable, it goes to the Clerk Manual Pouch Racks. However, the sacks they fill are not labeled as “non-machinable” so it gets mixed with machinable mail then goes to the next P&DC which causes the next worker to sort the non-machinable back out… and INCREASES the possibility of mis-sent mail. When they talk about decreasing the amount of mail the pouch racks receive, they only counted the mail coming off the machine… they did not count the amount of mail that the APPS culling belt workers took off as non-machinable then sent to the clerks– you know, that non-machinable mail that then gets mixed with the machinable.
We suggested to change the software both for the window clerks and for the “clip n ship” type of postage. We suggested that the city must match the zip, and give an alert that they do not match if mis-keyed or entered with an incorrect zip. So often a mis-keyed or wrong zip code causes mail to circulate, sometimes for MONTHS! The APPS machine reads the PVI, so if someone enters “80051” instead of “08051”, the item is headed for Denver CO, instead of Mantua NJ. Until a worker crosses out the PVI on this mail piece, it will circulate around the county– regardless of the fact that the address of the package itself is correct. Another problem is that a mis-key can cause the delivery confirmation barcode to include the wrong zip. We cannot cross out the delivery confirmation because the customer paid extra for it. So we then sent it to the Clerk Manual Pouch Rack, that does not label the sacks as “non-machinable” so when the next P&DC receives the item and does not catch the wrong zip code, it goes on the next APPS machine and gets sorted wrong again. When we suggested the software change, we were told by the “Blue Team” and I quote, “That is more keystrokes. I do not think it is a good idea.”
Another suggestion we made was to change the Express Mail packaging to a fluorescent pink or green– the same colors used for delivery or signature confirmation labels. Seeing these bright colors will allow the AOs as well as the workers in the P&DC many opportunities for the item to be removed from the mail stream. Instead, the Express Mail packaging was changed… but still looks so similar to the priority that it is still mixed in with the mail. One suggestion we made: Program the APPS machine to send any Express Mail that comes through the APPS to be sent to the Clerk Manual Pouch Rack bins, so that the Express Mail can be handled immediately and removed from the main mail stream. Another reason that this software change is a good idea is because customers now use the “clip n ship” to print Express Mail labels and can place them on ANY package, then drop it in a mail box. These types of items are very difficult to sort from the mail stream. So why not let the APPS sort them out? Apparently doing that is too much keying for the programmers of the APPS as well. In 2010, the post office paid a team to investigate how much money was being refunded due to Express Mail arriving late. The report was redacted, yet stated clearly the amount refunded for late arrival is in the millions. So why not take measures to limit some of this money refunded? Apparently it is too many keystokes.
The reduction of floor space taken up by empty equipment is a joke also. Years ago we used to have three mail handler bid jobs that handled and sorted all empty equipment. Those jobs were abolished, and then the equipment was everywhere. Instead of creating bid jobs to again do this, they brought in a team of engineers, wasted money on signs (which would have cost so much less if they used a different material—and some of these signs are already ripped or falling down), and then flew in plant managers from across the country to tour our plant and see all of their “improvements”. The painted lines are pretty, but the roof is still leaking on the electrical outlets and the million dollar machines. The amount of money they spent on engineers, flying people in from across the country and painting the building, and putting up flat screen televisions could have easily paid for three mail handlers for the next decade. Also, they have spent more money on overtime to sort the empty equipment than they would have with the bid jobs.
Speaking of the painted lines on the floor, the Kaban boxes that “time” the mail is a joke too. Boxes were painted on the floor for us to know that mail needed to go into the APPS loaders. Really? I never knew that mail had to go into the loaders. The funny thing is that if we actually placed the equipment that is full of mail in the location they painted the boxes, we would not be able to remove the empty equipment from the loader to place the full equipment in it. They painted the box too close. There are other boxes that are supposed to be “one full hour of mail” to be loaded onto the APPS. When the box is half full, we are supposed to notify the supervisor or drivers we need more mail. The problem? Not every mail container is going to be full. If you get six containers that are half full, it could take ten minutes, not one hour. It is a joke. They could easily have said, “when you get down to 10 containers of mail, call your supervisor” or something like that. But, then they could not paint pretty boxes on the floor that no one looks at but management. They would not have signs and lines to point to when the Post Master General came for his visit.
There are now people from Washington in our building. Again, I am submitting some of my suggestions with pictures to prove my point. Pictures of why some of the things they implemented do not work, pictures of the mail we receive that is from California to Nevada yet wound up in NJ. I will update as to what happens with this.
Whatever happened to the “Tiger Teams” from a year or two back ?
ROFL !!!
What a clown show.
I could care less NPMHU if we lose this one,I’m Teflon,BOG won’t remove me and I can do anything I want!