Floor Edition

April 6, 2011

Update by Jackie Engelhart

Tentative Agreement Fatally Flawed...

Several NWIAL officers believe the tentative agreement to be fatally flawed based on the new provisions that would allow management to increase the non-career workforce from the current 6% per district and 11% per facility to 20% per district for Clerks and 10% for MVS and Maintenance employees. New work returned to the craft can be given to PSE (casuals) that will not count against the caps. Assigning new work to PSE casuals allows management to exceed these new caps. New work includes Highway Contract Routes for MVS, any Custodial work returned from subcontractors, and Call Center Clerk work. The current prohibition on casuals performing any work that requires testing and training will be eliminated allowing management to use the PSE for qualified work. Management will use the PSE wherever they can up to the new caps.

40 Hour Assignments Negotiated Away...

As bad as the changes are with the new PSE casual, the most ominous change is the creation of the new Non-Traditional Full-Time (NTFT) category in Clerk and MVS crafts. Per the agreement 50% of occupied 40 hour fulltime assignments in the plants can be reposted as NTFT jobs. This opens the door for an end to the 40 hour work-week and will be used against us. The NTFT jobs can be posted with anywhere from 30 to 48 hours per week and with 6 to 12 hours per day with no overtime paid for a 12 hour normal workday. The job of any Clerk or MVS employee could now be changed and any reposting could affect other junior employees in the section. Management can create as many NTFR jobs as "operationally necessary" but full-time employees would not be "forced" to take jobs out of the 40-44 hour range, but reposted jobs could have schedules of 6 to 10 hours per day.

Your Decision...

Copies of the tentative agreement and a yes or no ballot will be mailed out on April 8th and due back on May 10th for the count. Every member should read the changes (in bold print) very carefully as they vote on this contract. One Local Union has put out a 6-page analysis of the proposed agreement and it details the concerns with the new PSE and NTFT categories. The NTFT is considered a new category of employee in Clerk and MVS crafts. Employees are excessed by category and level so management could excess 40 hour employees and keep NTFT employees. The highlights of the tentative agreement put out by the national union looked good at first with continuation of no layoff protection and COLAs, a 3.5 % pay raise, and a 50 mile limit on excessing. The 50 mile limit is not guaranteed as the parties have to consult if there are no jobs within 50 miles. Most of the NWIAL officers polled do not recommend approval of the tentative agreement.

Good Luck Chuck!

Charles Sciurba is the new Plant Manager at Palatine P&DC as he and Greg Johnson switch plants. I said "good luck" as we ended our last labor-management with him at Carol Stream. He asked "Why is everyone saying that?" Before he started his first day I was calling him with problems after management met with us to discuss bid changes they wanted to make from the last BPI impact of 67 Clerks issued on 9-3-10. No bid changes were ever made for this impact because none of these Clerks have been moved. The 23 Busse jobs were awarded and supposed to be effective on 3-26-11 but Palatine management could not afford to lose 11 Clerks from tour 1 Automation so they postponed the date until 4-9-11. In the meantime they called us to go over their proposed staffing changes after they had already mailed out abolishment letters to employees who would become excess to the needs of a section. The person assigned to discuss these changes with us did not have the authority to make any changes so we called Chuck and Greg to request a meeting with someone who has that authority and Chuck agreed to meet with us on 4-4-11, his second official day at Palatine. We explained that many of these abolishments could be eliminated if management was not changing non-scheduled days all the time. He said he would take a look at it to see if more bids could be saved We told him Palatine cannot get the mail out as it is with overtime and cannot afford to lose Clerks. He said he is looking at everything and sees plenty of opportunity. He said he wants stability at Palatine, and we agree on that.

Bid Packet Sent Out on 4-1-11

Since Northern Illinois District (NID) was notified on 3-24-11 that it was being eliminated we thought this might delay the next round of bidding for impacted Clerks but that was not the case. VP Dave Baskin wrote a letter on 3-29-11 to Karen Schenk, who is the District Manager for Lakeland requesting that Palatine excessing be put on hold based on the many problems with moving the mail. As far as I know she has not responded to Dave's letter but the Area has instructed the eliminated Northern Illinois District to continue to place the impacted Clerks who cannot be moved because of the national moratorium. NID management faxed the new set of bids to the Union Hall at 4:11pm on 4-1-11 after they were sent out. Management said they were working on a new set of bids but gave us no advance notice before they were sent out to the employees. Since Palatine has an issue with not having all their Mail Handler residuals and the employees can't be moved there should be no rush. It certainly makes no sense to ask Palatine Clerks to bid out of their facility knowing there will be 40 Mail Handler residuals in Palatine. No Clerks have been placed on stand-by at either Palatine or CS so management has not shown they can do without these Clerks. All of the jobs listed are within the local commuting area and most of them are in the Mail Handler craft due to the deployment of the FSS. None of these Clerks will be faced with the moving out of state or becoming a part-time regular as the last group at Palatine was. Those part-time regulars were given 4 to 8 hours per week while Palatine struggles to get mail out.

Same Story of Understaffing Clerks in Associate Offices...

The story is the same in most of the Associate Offices where they are barely getting the work done while the district is cutting Clerks. In Kenilworth we have one PTF and one regular Clerk who works the window. Management wants to excess the regular which means they plan to staff the window with the Postmaster, in violation of Article 1.6 and the Das Award. In Prospect Heights management is excessing one Clerk while the Postmaster is working eight hours per day on the window because he does not have enough Clerks. Mount Prospect is struggling but is still impacted four Clerks. This was brought to the attention of the NID Manager of Operation Support Ann Kulbeckas who said she would get back to us on these.

Maintenance

Per Maintenance Craft Director Joe Golden, seven brand new ET positions are posted at Palatine. Maintenance employees are reminded to update your Preferred Assignment Register (PAR). Management has yet to cancel the impact for six Palatine Custodians although the latest MS-47 staffing package shows they are needed. In the meantime there are seven Custodian jobs being offered to impacted employees that were not offered to Palatine Custodians.

NWIAL Ballots Were Mailed on March 31st...

The deadline for receipt of ballots is 4-26-11 at the designated PO box. Requests for ballots and/or duplicate ballots should be made as soon as possible before 4-26-11 to American Arbitration Association representative Mr. Mathew Lacy at 312-616-6582 or E-mail to LacyM@adr.org.