Floor Edition

November 2, 2011

Update by Jackie Engelhart

Health Fairs ...

Chicago Metro Surface Hub is on first 11-2-11, Carol Stream will be on 11-15-11, and both will be from 6am to 6pm. Palatine P&DC is under the Lakeland District and they say they do not do Health Fairs because they do not have staffing but the other districts do. What staffing is needed to move some tables in the cafeteria for Health Care Representatives to set up their information hand-outs and answer questions. After I called Palatine Plant Manager Chuck Sciurba he called Lakeland and was told that all the information is now available online at USPS Liteblue, but I don't know if that's true. I'm not sure if you can download the packets of information available at the Health Fair tables. You certainly cannot get your question answered online like you can by talking to a representative at the Health Fair. I called the Lakeland HR Manager about this and sent him a letter asking him to reconsider.

Postal Support Employees Support the Union!

There has been no new employee orientation for our Local since CMSH hired some veterans for custodian jobs several years ago. With the new contract and creation of the Postal Support Employee, USPS is hiring. 601 CCD Calvin Taylor and I attend each orientation at Carol Stream for PSE employees who are eligible to join the union. These young people get it when we talk about the importance of joining the union and 99% of them sign the 1187 right away. These new employees are the future of the Union and of the Postal Service. A PSE is a non-career position but they must take an exam and pass a background check to be placed on the hiring register for career position. USPS must use this list for career appointments to APWU craft positions. In the meantime a PSE has a right to join and be represented by the union. In return they make a lot more than a casual and they have union rights.

Changes March 2012

Management continues to say first class overnight will change to a two day service which will allow plants to be closed and mail consolidated in 2012. Management continues to say that when this happens the remaining plants will be running all three tours and tour 2 will again be a mail processing operation. Clerks with retreat rights to tour 2 will then be able to retreat to their section. Management has provided the union with a list for all retreat rights at Palatine. The list for tour 2 Automation was incorrect as it only had six Clerks but we contacted In-Plant Support and Gail Towner provided an updated and corrected list for tour 2 Automation. We have requested a list for Carol Stream Clerks with retreat rights from InPlant Support so we have it to track all retreat rights, and prior to any bids being posted back on tour 2. When management wiped out tour 2 mail processing in January of 2009 in the tour compression no one expected to see a return of mail processing on tour 2. Never say never!

Bi-partisan Postal Reform Plan

A bipartisan group of senators will announce a plan to reform USPS at a news conference that is scheduled for 11-2-11 at 11:30am The senators are members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The bipartisan plan would provide USPS with needed financial relief. The details of the plan include:

1. Returning the 9 billion FERS overpayment to USPS although the bill will set no numbers for how much of it has to be used for buyouts, that will be one of the goals to help incent, through added service credits or up to the federal limit of $25 thousand per worker, 100,000 workers to retire over the next three years.

2. Retiree health pre-funding will be foregone for one year, and then re-amortized for forty, saving USPS approximately 5 billion per year.

3. Workers Compensation will be fixed across the face of the federal government to transition those well beyond retirement into pensions.

4. Saturday delivery changes will have a two-year moratorium, followed by a study by GAO on true savings in the wake of downsizing that will be further reviewed by the PRC for a final decision.

5. A process would be created to close facilities with a notice and comment period.

6. Arbitrators in postal labor negotiations the financial health of the USPS in any decision.

7. No Solvency Authority

8. No breach or override of collective bargaining agreements.

*From PostCom

Snow Day Grievances...

VP Dave Baskin wants all APWU employees to know that timely grievances were filed at all three plants on the February snow day for administrative leave but no arbitration dates have been set.

Unilateral Changes in Tour 1 Automation at Palatine

VP Baskin reports that A/MDO Bharel has instituted a number of unilateral changes in the unit. The Union provided a list of these changes to Plant Manager Sciurba at the Labor-Management meeting and he said he would look at it. The Clerks are being threatened with "consequences" for failing to

1. Sweep bins when the get 25% full.

2. Perform 3-point checks.

3. Pulling bins 2 (DBCS) and 3 (CIOSS) and placing the mail on a centralized hand truck.

4. No wash-up at the end of the day.

Item 1 of the LMOU states "The Employer shall grant reasonable wash-up time to those employees who perform dirty work or work with toxic materials." Any work performed on the work room floor is dirty work and the past practice is employees are allowed a wash-up at the end of their tour. Grievances have been filed on all of these instructions by VP Baskin and we will continue to challenge any and all unilateral changes. There will always be a few on the management side who supervise because they like the authority. We have talked to Chuck Sciurba and he says Roger is a very good supervisor who gets push-back because he holds the employees accountable. It seems to me that a good supervisor would work with and not against the employees.

Save America's Postal Service Petition....

With the fate of the Postal Service now in the hands of congress, APWU is mounting a petition drive with the goal of collecting 2 million signatures by 11-14-11. Locally our members can get the blank petitions and information sheet to use when asking for the signatures. Signed petitions must be returned to your Local Union office so the Local can mail them out to APWU headquarters to be received by the 11-14-11 deadline. Each sheet holds ten signatures so if each member makes the effort to get ten signatures we should be able to send 1700 petition forms with 17,000 signatures. We ask the each member return at least one page of ten signatures so we do our part locally to support this. The petition should be filled out with the name of Senators Durbin and Kirk and your Congressman.

Point of Information...

Article 14.2.b of the NWIAL constitution states "Dues shall be payable through the automatic dues check-off payroll deduction. In the absence of the dues check-off, dues shall be payable on the first day of each month. It shall be the responsibility of each member to pay his dues promptly. Any member two (2) months in arrears shall be notified in writing by the Secretary." The issue of myself, VP Dave Baskin, and Secretary Retel not being dues paying members is being pushed by one person for the sole purpose of disqualifying me as a candidate for President to make herself the "winner" by default. A full time officer does not receive a postal check and pays their dues directly. Therefore a full-time officer is not listed on the dues check-off list.