The Local Line
“A PPA Award
Winning Publication”
The Official Voice Of The Northwest Illinois Area Local
American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO
194 W. Lake Street Elmhurst IL 60126
Phone: 630-833-0088 Fax: 630-833-0248
Jackie Engelhart – President Alan Czerwinski - News Director
July 22, 2005
President’s Report
by: Jackie Engelhart
Ballots Mailed
220,000 ballots were
mailed between July 18 and 20th to APWU members, as the proposed
contract extension must now be voted on by the members. The votes will be
counted on August 5, 2005. If you do not receive a ballot by July 25th
contact APWU headquarters at 202-842-8505 and request a duplicate. You may also
request via fax at 202-216-2650. You must provide your name, address, craft,
and Social Security number or employee identification number.
Recommend Approval
We recommend
approval of this one year extension negotiated by President Burrus and his
team. He states “Throughout this process, my criteria has been consistent: Will
the extension provide more to APWU members than we can expect to achieve in
full-scale negotiations or arbitration? This tentative agreement passes that
test.” The agreement extends no lay off protection and does not increase
employee contributions for heath benefits. The extension provides for a 1.6
percent wage increase effective March 18, 2006 and two COLA’s, one in March
2006 and one in September 2006. The agreement also calls for upgrades in 14
duty assignments, in the clerk, maintenance, and motor vehicle crafts. Bulk
mail clerks will be upgraded to level 6.
AFL-CIO Rally
You should have
seen flyers for the July 24th rally to support the AFL-CIO. The
rally is scheduled for 12 to 2 pm at the downtown Sheraton Hotel. A bus will
leave the Elmhurst Union Hall at 10:30 am on Sunday and will return at 2:30 pm.
Lunch and drinks will be served on the bus ride. National Officers will be been
attending and some will be riding the bus with us. The APWU is participating in
this rally because achieve several labor unions are threatening to break off
and form a separate organization thus splitting the labor movement. We will be
at the rally on Solidarity Sunday.
New Appointments
On July 11, 2005
Nancy Horan was appointed Legislative Director for NWIAL. She has shown a
strong interest in legislative affairs and COPA. Since this appointment I have received
several letters from members to be added to the Legislative Committee.
Legislative issues are important for us as citizens and as postal employees.
Diane Leighton and Bob LaFoe were appointed Palatine stewards on July 11th.
APWU Wins FMLA Case in Federal Courts
Headquarters
announced on July 20, 2005 that APWU has won a major victory in the federal
appeals court on FMLA. The court ruled that the USPS return-to-work
requirements for absences of more than 21 days conflict with FMLA. USPS had
required employees to provide a detailed medical including diagnosis,
prognosis, treatment, and medication upon return. The court ruled that a
medical from the employee’s doctor stating they are able to return to duty is
sufficient.
New Business Agent Lynn Pallas Barber Gets Rave
Reviews!
Our newest Clerk
Craft Business Agent for the Central Region is Lynn Pallas-Barber and she has
impressed us with her skill in arbitration. She successfully arbitrated a
representative holiday grievance on management’s refusal to schedule volunteers
from another tour prior to drafting during a holiday schedule. Recently she
returned to our Local to arbitrated a removal grievance. The steward who
prepared the case described her as tremendous and I agree. She joins our two
experienced B.A.‘s Percy Harrison, and John Clark from NWIAL. I believe we have
a very good group of Business Agents for our region.
Alan Czerwinski Appointed as a Local Advocate
Palatine Tour 2
Chief Steward and News Director Alan Czerwinski was recently appointed an
Arbitration Advocate by President Burrus. Alan will be available to arbitrate
grievances from our Local as scheduled by the Regional Coordinator Alan has the
skills necessary to perform at this level and we thank him for serving.
VP Dave Baskin Continues Shake-Out With A0 Grievances
Dave continues
meeting with Labor Relations on the grievance shake-out. He is currently
discussing Associate Office grievances and reports that he is working on PTF
conversion grievances for Franklin Park and Glenview.
AO Meetings Scheduled
We have scheduled
Labor-Management meetings at most of the Associate Offices and the number one
issue is staffing. This includes posting of bids, PTF. This past week we met
with Postmasters at Glencoe, Northbrook, and Glenview. Next week we have
meetings scheduled in Lake Forest, Highland Park, Wilmette, and Winnetka. We
are attempting to schedule meetings in all AO’s on a quarterly basis.
Withholding Lifted on June 30.
Management
notified the Unions that full-time withholding actions were cancelled due to
attrition at Cardiss Collins P&DC and Chicago Metro Surface Hub. All
positions withheld for this impact are released. This means vacancies must be
posted for bid and PTF’s who meet conversion requirements must be converted to
fulltime. Our first item at each office will be PTF conversion .
Labor Scheduler Meeting Held at Chicago Metro Surface
Hub
600 CCD Jack
Pyssler and I met with In-Plant Support Manager Adam Nelson and Area Labor
Scheduler staff. The proposed numbers show an increase in full time clerks from
111 to 117 and an increase in PTF’s from 13 to 29. Once the second APPS is
accepted the 30 TE clerks and 36 casual clerks should be eliminated. We agreed
that bids will be posted for the manual flats unit. We will be meeting again
when the Labor Scheduler is approved. The next Labor-Management meeting will be
August 22nd.
Labor Management at Carol Stream on July 12, 2005
We also met at the
Carol Stream Post Office with Postmaster Mike Mayes and his staff. We discussed
the possible conversion of the four PTF’s in the CFS unit We discussed the
possible conversion of the last seven PTF’s in the plant with Plant Manager Ron
Woodall and his staff. We informed him that we request to be kept updated on
Labor Scheduler and the status of APPS deployment for Carol Stream. The
information at this time is that Carol Stream’s APPS is going to Irving Park
Road and some of the outgoing volume will follow. We agreed that the 11
custodial vacancies will be filled in-house as soon as possible. If you are
interested in becoming a custodian write a letter to Plant Manager Ron Woodall.
We agreed to set up a committee to review long-term injured employee bids that
are currently being back-filled by casuals. If an employee is permanently
injured and holding a bid for a job they cannot perform, that employee should
be given an assignment and the bid posted. Casuals may only be used on a
temporary basis. We agreed that the FMLA office will be given help to catch up.
We agreed that tour 3 incidental leave problems will be discussed by Mary
Alexander and tour 3 Chief Steward Walter Elerby. We agreed that an interpreter
would be scheduled on a regular basis.
Casual in Lieu of Settlement List Ready for Signature
601 CCD Taylor reviewed
tour 2 ODL’s and prepared the list of grievants for the casual in lieu of pre-arb
settlement made on May 25th. Ray Wience and I reviewed the list and I prepared
the settlement. We are ready to take it to management for signature and
implementation. All grievants listed will receive a lump sum of $l, 000.00 and
they should be notified within the next week or so.