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Miles to Go
(This article first appeared in the May/June 2009 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)
We typically view each new year as a renewed opportunity. We examine our past accomplishments, how we survived, and our prospects. But this year began a little differently. We ended 2008 in a recession, with record unemployment, escalating job loss, high prices for food and other necessities, less disposal income, and — lest we forget — news of corporate bailouts. Every day — literally — brings more reports of layoffs or companies closing. No one has gone entirely unscathed.
As postal employees, we also ended the year feeling the pinch, along with continued excessing, abolishments, reversions, and the threat of layoffs. Excessing for APWU has been mainly in the Clerk Craft, with little impact on Maintenance and MVS employees. Even postal managers are facing a 20 percent reduction in positions, with few options. We hate to see anyone lose their jobs or be displaced, but considering the reduction in the workforce overall, it had to happen.
Well there is good news to go along with more of the same (bad) news.
The November election ushered in a whole new world. We’ve all been witness to historic change in our country. It’s not just that our 44th president, Barack Obama, is our first African-American chief executive, but that we proved this country is of the people, by the people, and — again is — for the people. There is finally another chance to get it right. I guess it’s true that “hope blooms eternal.“
Carte Blanche
Then there is the Postal Service. Not enough employees took last year’s VER (Voluntary Early Retirement), so in addition to another VER, we are faced with Plan B: Bogus discipline and more reassignments. Needless to say, grievances are escalating proportionally. Management believes that its pre-determined urgency to complete mandated tour compressions and other initiatives gives it carte blanche to trample contract provisions and sidestep the union.
One such initiative is TAIP (Targeted Allied and Indirect Positions), which targets what the Postal Service describes as “jobs that don’t directly touch the mail.” In some cases, TAIP documents listed jobs identified not only by position numbers, but with the names and seniority of the employees in those jobs — in lists sent from the Area as mandated by USPS headquarters.
Once the union got wind of the TAIP program, things changed, with management backpedaling on its blatant automatic abolishment policy and instead advising managers to look at the necessity of these positions based on individual office conditions.
Management has misrepresented the facts, finagled figures, and ignored contractual timetables, all in an effort to make the means justify the ends. Though there is no denying the reduction in mail volume, it’s not always what you do but how you do it. Even when the excessing reassignments are to the craft or installation, management uses veiled threats to pressure the union to adhere to management’s self-imposed timetables instead of the contract. Be we insist that Article 12 and other appropriate contract provisions must be complied with.
Up until recently, the Clerk Craft has borne the brunt of excessing. Now, however, an increasing number of Mail Handlers and Letter Carriers are being impacted. The mile-radius for reassignments is constantly being expanded as more and more employees are thrown into the mix. The usual 50- to 100-mile radius is now 500 to 750 miles. Since the Central Region sits in the middle of the country, we are overlapped on all fronts.
The expanding radius is due to the lack of residual vacancies for impacted employees. It doesn’t help that when positions become vacant they are reverted, as it often sets up another local battle over improper reversions. The question is: Where is there to go? Residual vacancies are scarce and at a premium.
Right now in areas of the Central Region we are seeing overlapping excessing within a 100- to 250-mile radius, with Clerks, Mail Handlers, and Letter Carriers all being impacted. Since reassignment must be to the same or lower level, Mail Handlers are not vying for Clerk or Letter Carrier residual vacancies, though they can be reassigned to custodial residuals. Clerks and Letter Carriers, however, can be excessed to some of the same positions.
Employees with retreat rights to their former installations must be allowed to exercise that right before anyone else is excessed into those positions. Employees excessed from the craft within the installation also must be returned. We monitor all residual vacancies and are vigilant about requesting updated lists from management, though we don’t rely on them. We want accuracy, so we ask locals to provide us with information on residuals they may be aware that are not on any lists.
It’s a Tough Job
All the different management actions are hitting fast and furiously. Local leadership is always under fire, barely getting through one action before being hit with one or two more. Much too often, members chastise local and state officers for management’s decisions. How often have you heard, “What’s the union going to do about it?“ The answer is: “Everything that can be done is being done on every level of the union. ”When I was a local president, my mantra was, “I hoop, holler, and cuss, but they won’t let me hit them.”
You know the drill. The union does not excess, abolish, revert, or consolidate, nor change hours, or mismanage the mail. Place the blame where it belongs, squarely, on the Postal Service. Even before there were legitimate reasons for its decline, the USPS had offered decades of mismanagement and improper staffing. Management has created an atmosphere filled with grievances and discontent.
Your local and state officers and stewards enforce the only document that stands between us and management doing it their (the wrong) way. That would be the contract. It is a tough job, but good people are doing it. They need your help and support. We all need your help and support. The union is worthy of your thanks and appreciation, but we can’t do it without you.
Regional Coordinators Liz Powell, Omar Gonzalez, Bill Sullivan, Mike Gallagher, and I are working together more than ever. We are motivated to preserve jobs, limit impact and inconvenience, and enforce contractual protections during this time of uncertainty. We will continue to work hand in hand with local, state, and the other national officers. Together we will persevere.
