My Two Cents

This letter is my opinion formed over the three and a half years I have been in this position. I have been involved with two negotiations concerning Local Agreements for this facility as well as countless grievance negotiations. With this in mind I have developed a pretty good sense of how management is going to react given a certain set of circumstances. I have had the pleasure of talking with a lot of the seasoned union stewards the past few years and there is one thing they have all said. Management doesn’t care about its employees. Being new to the Postal Service and halfway optimistic I took their words with a grain of salt.

Working as a union official has definitely shed light onto management’s practices. My determination is that management, locally, runs each facility based on anger and spite.  If it is perceived, by the plant manager, that the employees on the work room floor are trying to screw him then his only recourse is to go on the offensive. The offensive is done is subtle ways such as posting jobs with bad days off or abolishing and reposting jobs for no apparent reason. A number of you have seen this practice first hand.

Let me start off by telling you that local management really has no authority to do many of the things people think they can do. The most even a Plant Manager can do is move someone’s start time or revert those positions. They can move employees around the building to try to get the mail out. That’s it. The Plant Manager is beholden to his boss and the numbers people at the district and area level. His position pays with a bonus, over $100,000. Is this not ridiculous or what?  

The Postal Service has transformed itself quite a bit in the last thirty plus years since the employees have gained the right to bargain collectively. If you talk with anyone that has been in the service, management positions, whether they are supervisors in plants or postmaster of local post offices, were filled via patronage or nepotism. Which “company” do you know of that has survived in any manner when widespread nepotism is the method used for promoting? None that I know of!  As an organization the Postal Service continues to deal with the remnants of that broken system. Still, there are people employed within management that have neither the skills nor abilities to perform the jobs they are currently doing.  They endured the rigors of the pathetically inadequate ASP program only to be thrown into the meat grinder. What’s that old adage, “If you put crap in, you’ll get crap out!”

The United States Postal Service is the most efficient and cost effective postal system in world. Bar none. That is, the job gets done despite the incompetent management that persists. The reason why?  The workers on the floor. We are the employees that perform the work.  Supervisors and managers make up a fraction of the nearly 700,000 career work force of the Postal Service. The craft workers move and process the mail, management does not (sometimes). You often hear management claim that this is a business. It’s not. The Postal Service is just that.  A service established under the domain of the United States Constitution.

When you have people in management that have only worked for a few months on the floor or have never, how can you expect them to understand the lives of the workers?  Have they had their jobs abolished? Are they single parents worrying about the schedules with their children? No. They take care of their own and have no qualms about throwing bargaining unit employees lives into chaos since they have never experienced it themselves.

So, you may be asking, how do managers in the postal service manage? Well supervisors only answer to being yelled at either by their bosses or the employees on the floor. If no one is yelling at me then I must be doing my job right. Right? WRONG! The plant manager’s/installation head’s only concern in life is to “get the mail out”. How many times have we all heard this screamed by a supervisor or manager when they “need” to violate the contract? This presumed panic usually occurs due to the supervisors or managers having so badly run an operation or work area. As an employee on the workroom floor does this not frustrate you to no end? As union representatives we are just as frustrated especially when we discuss the problems with the offending manager. “Grieve it, I just need to get the mail out!!” is often the slap in the face we receive.

The grievance procedure is the only avenue we have to pursue these matters with the employer and they know it. Without it we are weak and impotent. That’s why it is extremely important that every employee knows what his or her contractual rights are. If you don’t know that you’re being violated how can you fight back?

Why should you care about what I have to say? As union representatives we see behind the curtain. We see the plant managers/ installation heads for what they really are. Buffoons who couldn’t run a 50-yard dash let alone a postal facility with any number of employees.

In the near future, if not already, you will here about a program entitled QWL. I will not take this forum to discuss what the program is, that is the committee’s job. I want to let all APWU members know what the union thinks of it and why we do not participate in such programs.  Let me quote from the APWU’s web site concerning QWL and Employee Participation Programs;

Employee Participation Programs

In regard to the activities that occurred in Asheville, NC, the Postal Service states that local management was attempting to implement a local initiative known as CARE – Communication, Accountability, Recognition, and Environment. This program, the USPS says, is intended as a way to try to improve the working environment; moreover, the USPS policy is that such local programs may be implemented only with the knowledge and consent of the local union.

To reinforce this policy, the USPS Vice President for Labor Relations issued a memorandum on March 1 on the subject of employee participation programs. The memorandum instructs area operations that “craft employees may only be involved in [the CARE program] with the knowledge and consent of the local APWU organization.” These types of “employee participation programs” invariably affect working conditions, and there is no agreement with the USPS that would permit our bargaining unit employees to participate in such programs. It is understood that the national union does not authorize local unions to reach agreement with local management permitting our bargaining unit employees to participate in such programs.

An April 9, 1992, settlement affirms the APWU’s right not to participate in such programs. The agreement reached 13 years ago states: “Management must respect the APWU’s decision not to participate in the EI/QWL [Employee Involvement/Quality of Work Life] process and APWU bargaining unit employees shall not be participants or members of any EI/QWL committee not jointly established by the APWU and the Postal Service.”

Needless to say, the APWU has not “jointly established” any type of EI/QWL process and therefore could not have agreed to participate in any type of EI/QWL process. Therefore, pursuant to the settlement agreement, APWU bargaining unit employees are not permitted to be participants in any type of EI/QWL process or program that affects wages, hours or working conditions.

Contrary to the propaganda being passed out by the committee through service talks the APWU’s position is that these programs do, in fact, undermine the collective bargaining process and only serve to further erode employee’s rights on the workroom floor.  How can that be with all of the positive measures that are mentioned as bulletin items and talking points? The feel good items are;

·         Committing to build better relationships with unions and management

·         Producing a safe, productive and pleasant working environment for all employees

And my personal favorite

·         Through consistent communications, cooperation and commitment, we will succeed in attaining the goals of the QWL program

In the case of the AWPU here in this facility the only sticking point we have had is that management refuses to abide by the National Agreement. The APWU and management will never foster a working relationship as long as management continues to;

·         Perform bargaining unit work

·         Reassign employees improperly

·         Terminate injured employees because they are considered unproductive to the Service

·         Assign work across craft lines in violation of established jurisdictional divides

·         Adjust schedules on bid assignments base solely on retribution

·         Violate seniority rights on an hourly basis

Are we to just imagine that these major issues don’t exist and get in bed with management just for the sake of appearance? I will not succumb to such blatant anti-union activities. Management has all the power to make this a harmonious place to work but chooses instead to deal in anger and spite. Respect will be gained on both sides if management lives up to the agreements they have already signed (The National Agreement). No dog and pony show will ever take the place of the grievance procedure or collective bargaining.

L&DC Director

John Shappy

IN UNITY THERE IS STRENGTH

August 6, 2007

Sisters and Brothers,

After nearly three months of negotiating we have signed a settlement for the PTF maximization grievances we have submitted over the last two years. Converting the PTF’s to full-time regular may seem like an easy process but is in fact going to be some what laborious.

If you all recall last year, management failed to convert the PTF’s prior to the APPS deployment excessing. At the time, we had warned management that if they didn’t convert the PTF’s prior to the excessing than we would be left with a mess to clean up at some point in the future. This is the position we are in now. Throughout the negotiations the length of the settlement was nearly 4 pages long. Certainly one of the longest grievance settlements I have been involved with. We were able to “streamline” the agreement down to just two pages. The majority of our discussions, during negotiations, circled around the time frame involved with getting every impacted employee placed.     

The contents of the agreement, I believe, are straight forward. There is a progression of events that will take place. There will be some disappointment with the fact that there is no specific date as to when the PTF’s will get converted to regular status. The agreement does talk about all PTF’s being made regular as soon as all impacted employees have been either transferred or reassigned back into the clerk craft.

This is a lengthy agreement and if anyone has any questions please feel free to come down to the union office and discuss it with myself or one of the stewards. I have posted two copies, the final draft copy, which is more legible, and the signed agreement.

In Solidarity,

John Shappy

L&DC Director

May 30^th, 2007

Sisters and Brothers,

We have reached a final and binding new Local Memorandum of Understanding (LMOU) with management here at the L&DC. The following highlights are in addition to existing language previously negotiated:

1.      A second round for prime time vacation bidding has established.

2.      Expand timeframe for 3971 submittal from 30 days to 60 days.

3.      The length of Prime Time vacation scheduling was decreased. April will no longer be a primetime vacation month. The week before Mothers Day will now be a choice vacation pick.

4.      Seniority will now rule when putting in for same day leave requests as that are submitted at the same time.

5.      The bidding system will be changing with the movement of Human Resources to Shared Services. You will be able, in the very near future, to be able to bid from home via the liteblue website.

6.      Contractually assigned parking spaces for the maintenance craft.

Managements proposals going into the negotiations would have completely gutted our current contract. Glimpses of their proposals are:

1.      Have employees on extended leave whether it be Annual, Military, Sick, OWCP and union leave for conventions count towards the prime time vacation cap numbers. This would have seriously degraded any employees’ ability to take their contractual right of three weeks of vacation during the prime time vacation period. The smaller sections in this facility such as the Expeditors would have been hardest hit.

2.      Completely abolish the current local leave policy and have the union get the next years leave policy dictated to us sometime in January of each year. I don’t think I have to explain all of the negatives that this kind of change would cause.

3.      Employees would only be allowed to take two weeks of annual leave during the prime time vacation period. This is clear violation of the employees’ rights to take three weeks during the prime time vacation period.

4.      Combine all mail processing sections into one section for overtime considerations. This would have eliminated sectional overtime in our facility.

5.      Realign the overtime pecking order to reintroduce mandating overtime. This is a clear degradation of the gains we have made in this facility. It is not in anyone’s best interest to start mandating people on a nightly basis for management’s ease of administering the OTDL.

6.      Have the annual leave percentages decrease by 2% for both Choice and Non-Choice vacation periods. This would only allow less people off during the whole year which only serves to deny people there right to take their accrued annual leave.

7.      Revert the Holiday Schedule back to fall in line with the National agreement. We won this concession from management in the last round or negotiations and I did not want to give up previous gains.

8.      Combine all current mail processing clerks into one section, i.e.; Flats and all automated sections would be come one for excessing purposes. The mail processing clerk job description mandates day-to-day seniority in terms of movement out of sections. To us this was a clear potential violation of seniority rights in your current job bids.

All things considered I believe we came away with a better agreement. We had to give up our current bidding language but I feel allowing management in this facility to use the Shared Services bidding process only serves to enhance your bidding options and ease of use for bidding.

Our agreement is by no means a perfect one but I feel we have made major strides in our last two bargaining sessions to have an agreement that serves the membership well. There will be future opportunities when new national agreements are signed to advance any new issue that may arise in this facility. I would like to thank the members of the negotiating team Local President Pat Ahern whom acted as our teams lead spokesperson, Director of maintenance craft Keith Moore who represented the maintenance craft well and Steward Dale Metzler who kept copious and orderly notes as the teams recording secretary.

We will be putting forth a motion at our next union meeting to have new booklets printed and made available to ALL UNION MEMBERS in this facility. It is the support of the membership that allows us to negotiate our local agreement and I want to thank you for your continued support of us.

In Solidarity,

John Shappy