The Local Line
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Jackie Engelhart – President Alan Czerwinski - News Director
April 02, 2007
Local Update by Jackie Engelhart
Thank You Lynn Pallas-Barber!
Lynn Pallas-Barber is our junior Clerk Craft National Business Agent for the Central Region. She has done several arbitration dates for our Local and I have assisted her in two of them. She always does an excellent job and one of management's advocates calls her “The Shark”. She is good! She was successful with the long-running cross-tour holiday issue, where management would draft on one tour but refuse to take volunteers from another for the same day of a holiday schedule. She was successful with one of the first “OWCP fraud” cases, where management was clearly overstating their case to fire a career employee unjustly. Her most recent success was for a contract case for a clerk whose bid was abolished, while management continued to assign others to perform the same work. Management settled the case after their first witness had concluded her testimony. Management's witness did not appear credible to anyone in the room, as Management's Advocates called a halt to the hearing and agreed to settle the case. The grievant will be made whole after almost four years waiting for her day in court. This, unfortunately is what it takes for a simple matter like getting your bid back when management is back-filling your abolished duty assignment with other employees. The grievant is a senior clerk and well regarded for her job performance, but the Management Witness claimed she did nothing and the job was not needed. Again, the Arbitrator did not believe it. It is a shame that we must go to arbitration to get one employee's job back, but management knows it takes years for a contract case and a year or better for discipline cases. So they do what they want and roll the dice. Sometimes they get away with it and sometimes they don't. In this case. The grievant got justice.
Justice for the AFSM?!
As we can close out the three grievances settled by Lynn
Pallas-Barber, we turn to the grievances being filed for the AFSM clerks being excessed and abolished due to a much larger management lie.
The lie is that work on the AFSM is not clerk work because of the addition of
AI. Again, management's strategy is to do what they want and hope that when the
grievances and/or dispute is finally heard they may
win. If not, they got away with it for years. They could care less about how
the violated employees feel, because they would just as soon that you quit so
they can hire someone who make less money. They can't do what
Palatine Impact Incorrect?!
We attended the Palatine Impact meeting with Area Management on March 29, 2007. Central Region Coordinator Sharyn Stone and Article 12 NBA Lynn Pallas-Barber joined Dave Baskin, Jack Pyssler and I for this meeting. The Palatine In-Plant Support Manager, Esther Smith, informed us that the Impact Statement we had been provided was not correct but she began to explain it. I asked her if she just said it was wrong then why are we here. At this point, Human Resource Manager Phyllis Lingenfelser agreed the Impact Statement would be redone and the meeting rescheduled. Ms. Smith said there were two Impact Statements for Palatine, one done by USPS Headquarters and one done in-house by In-Plant Support, and that the two do not match. We asked why and she said employees on allied don't clock on the AFSM operation, and because we have ATHS.
Meeting with Danny Bracket
We met on March 28, 2007 with Lead MDO Danny Bracket concerning inaccuracies in the list provided for each tour AFSM section, and to discuss where bids need to be posted. We need our bids reposted in Central Dispatch but we are being lied out of that unit. We will be meeting with Danny again on April 2nd. We know affected AFSM Clerks are bidding out prior to having their bids abolished. The contract awards retreat rights to employees whose bid was abolished but does not protect employees who bid under threat of abolishment. Employees who are told their bid will be abolished are in a no-win situation, they can wait and have no bid or bid and lose retreat rights.
Chuck Olson informed me that management has ordered all
custodians (on all tours) to report for work on April 2, 2007 to wax the floors
in the Green Quadrant. Management has continued to delay the filling of 19
residual custodial vacancies at Chicago Metro Surface Hub because we are in
withholding. Withholding means employees are being excessed
and the withheld positions are being held for the excess employees. This state
of limbo has existed for approximately one year as management has yet to move
anyone in the Chicago District. We have employees within Busse
who are on a waiting list to become custodians, and we continue to run the
facility 19 custodians short, because management either cannot or will not get
their act together. Now management is ordering custodians not on the ODL to
work overtime to wax floors because they refuse to fill year-old custodial
vacancies. We met with Melvin on posting clerk bids and he stated he intends to
post SPBS bids on April 18th to run Return to Sender mail that cannot be run on
the APPS. He intends to post FSM bids in May. Employees who were excessed from these units will have retreat rights to their
former bid section, and both units will run Monday thru Saturday with Sunday
off. Starting time will probably be 1600. We will be starting LMOU negotiations
this week at
National Reassessment Process Phase 2 Implementation
USPS is preparing to implement phase 2 of the program whose ultimate purpose is to separate some (number unknown) limited duty postal employees. USPS is changing their position on accommodation of employees injured on the job from "we have to find work" to "we don't have to find work". The new position is that modified assignments must consist of "necessary" work. This new position contradicts the historic position taken by USPS in regards to their obligation to accommodate employees injured on the job. The goal of the NRP is to separate career employees to relieve the USPS of responsibility for their pay & benefits. Employees with the greatest restrictions are those most likely to be targeted for "No Work Available" status. In this cold-blooded scenario, the injured employee will be given Forms CA7 and CA2 a, told to clean out their locker & turn in their badge, and walked out of the facility. This will set the wheels in motion for the USPS to separate the employee from their postal job. For those craft employees I know who work like maniacs to get the mail out, my advice to you is work at a safe pace. The USPS does not appreciate you working like a fool, and when (not if) you get hurt, you too can be told to clean out your locker, as you're no longer of any use to us. More in next Local Line.
NWIAL to Host IPWU
Off-Year Conference May 16 - 19
It will be held at the Sheraton Hotel in