The Local Line
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American Postal
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Phone: 630-833-0088 Fax: 630-833-0248
Jackie Engelhart – President Alan Czerwinski - News Director
December 27, 2007
Locker Inspections to be Conducted
12-29 to 1-4.
Management will be conducting inspections
of all employee lockers in the Northern IL
District beginning on 12-29-07 and ending on 1-4-08. The reason given by
management for these inspections is that mail was found in the locker of a
retired employee (location unknown). Management should have sent a letter to
each employee's home at least one week prior to the start of the inspection, and
they have notified the Union. All employees should be aware of these inspections
and check your locker before 12-29.
You would think no employee would
keep mail and/or illegal items in their lockers an/or on postal premises but it
happens. The consequences are severe and the punishment invariably is
termination. For someone facing removal the future can look hopeless. An infraction
that would legally result in a misdemeanor at worst, can be used to ruin your
life.
Management drafted on Christmas
Day and Christmas Eve this year, and will do the same for New Years Day and New
Years Eve. Senior Management wants to be on the safe side so they schedule
heavy. When 600 CCD Jack Pyssler and I talked to Senior MDO Bracket the Friday before
Christmas he said he scheduled based on the mail he expected as Wednesday was a
regular delivery day. Jack informed Danny there were 25 tour 1 automation
volunteers who were not taken for other tours while those tours were drafting.
He said he would get with the MDO's but I don't know of anyone being taken off the
schedule.
Happy New Year
For New Years Eve we asked that
employees not be coming and going at midnight as management has agreed to for
many years. The idea is to let employees come in early and get home before
midnight, but Danny said they could come in later. Great minds think alike, as MDO
Wisner has decided to change the starting time for the tour 3 automation Clerks
from 1450 to 1700 on New Years Eve! He is on a long-term detail from Carol
Stream per the Senior Plant Manager.
I wish I had kept the Great Lakes
Area message from Area Vice President JoAnn Fiendt where she talks about the
importance of spending time with your family during the holiday season. For
most of the last 30 years management was able to staff Christmas day with
volunteers and did not draft. Dave and I went to the Plants on Christmas Eve and
it was pretty dead. We file holiday grievances for improper drafting if they
don't take cross-tour volunteers and/or don't maximize the casuals up to 12
hours. We to talk to the MDO's to get draftees off but they don't budge. While
Senior management enjoys their holiday, their message for the craft employees is
spend time with your family after working your holiday.
The American Postal Workers Union
(APWU) is the largest postal union, representing 272,000 career employees and
5,000 transitional employees in the Clerk, Maintenance and Motor Vehicle crafts.
The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) the second largest postal union represents more than 224,000 career employees.
NALC members deliver mail to residences and businesses on city delivery routes.
National Rural Letter Carriers Association (NRLCA) career and part-time relief
workers deliver mail to residences and businesses on mail delivery routes. The
National Postal Mail Handlers Union (NPMHU), a division of the Laborer's International Union of North America
represents over 55,000 career employees engaged in the bulk transfer, loading
and unloading of mail.
Over the past few years an APWU member
could forget that we are still the largest union in spite of management's best
effort to eliminate jobs and take our work. The average hourly rate for APWU is
$22.41, for NALC is 22.46, and for
the NPMHU is $20.80. (Rural Carriers are not paid by the hour.) Management at
the national level has assigned mail processing work away from Clerks to Mail
Handlers for the obvious reason that they make less money than we do. As of
2-16-07 al1 APWU employees will be upgraded one level and this will increase
the cost difference between a level 6 mail processing clerk and a level 4 mail handler.
With management intent on reducing overtime this year, many employees will be
living on their base salary with little OT.
If you are non-scheduled on Saturday/Friday
and management calls overtime for Saturday they must make the call in seniority
order. Management makes the call on Friday for the ODL to work Saturday but
they only call it for the Saturday/Sundays. They think they can skip the
Saturday/Fridays if they make the call on Friday because they say the person is
"absent". Absent does not mean non-scheduled and this interpretation is
incorrect. I spoke with Operations Manager Shanteau Anderson about this and
informed her this was a violation but she defended her position. I don't know where
they got this idea as I have not seen this happen in many years anywhere else.
Leave it to Busse. If this happens to you file a grievance within 14 days and
you should be given a make-up within 90 days of the date of the violation. If
you are not given the make-up within 90 days you should be paid. Management has
been calling in the (tour 3) 1950 Clerks but not the (tour 1) 2000 for pre-tour
overtime. If this overtime is being called consistently they should be rotating
the overtime between the tours as both tours are available towork during those
same hours.
LMOU Impasse Items
Vice President Dave Baskin is
preparing to arbitrate impasse items for Carol Stream on 2-8-08, for Busse on 2-14-08,
and for Palatine in March. Most of the impasse items involve leave and holiday
issues, and at Palatine the movement between upper and lower automation is also
an impasse item. When either party does not agree on an LMOU item either can
appeal is to impasse arbitration. Dave has written all LMOU proposals and
counter-proposals, he has appealed all the impasse items, and he will be
arbitrating the cases.
Anytime I talk to Danny Bracket he
complains about employees not coming to work, and says the Union should be
addressing this. We agree employees should come to work unless they are sick or
have an emergency at home. We know that employees who abuse their leave can
work themselves out of a job if they don’t improve their attendance. The Union
has a good track record of defending employees with attendance discipline but we
need something to work with. Some employees can't even give us a reason for
their attendance and in those cases the Union doesn't have much of a case, but
we do the best we can with what we have. Senior Postal Management identified their
top 3 objectives for 2008 and they are sick leave, managing overtime, and
maximizing the use of casuals. We agree that employees should come to work, but
we disagree on other leave issues. Several years ago management changed the
interpretation of the "choice vacation period" to mean your vacation only.
Management will not approve advance incidental leave even when the 14% has not
been met for that day during the choice vacation period. Every year it is
harder to get incidental leave, and Danny says that's because "people
don't come to work." He also says they need casuals because "people
don't come to work." We agree employees should come to work, but they
should not have to beg for incidental leave. Honor the 14% so employees don't
have to beg and/or call in.