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Court Favors APWU in Latest Round of AMS Dispute
(This article first appeared in the May/June 2009 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)
In the most recent legal action in a long-running dispute, a federal appeals court has ruled that a U.S. District Court must reconsider arguments over whether postal supervisory personnel or APWU-represented employees should be performing the work of the Address Management System Specialist position.
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While the dispute dates to the 1990s, the APWU has consistently based
its position on the National Agreement and an April 29, 2003, ruling by
Arbitrator Carlton J. Snow, which concluded that the duties performed by
the AMS Specialist must be assigned to the Clerk Craft. The USPS has refused
to honor this award, and a Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney ignored Supreme
Court precedent and our contract in persuading the U.S. District Court
that the decision did not really address which craft should do the work.
This latest ruling addressed the Postal Service’s attempt to once again justify its ongoing refusal, but the appeals court also upheld the clear meaning of Arbitrator Snow’s award, and asked the district court to consider whether there is merit to the Postal Service’s argument that giving the work to the APWU is the legal equivalent of an unlawful addition to the bargaining unit.
Because Arbitrator Snow so easily dismissed this argument before, we are hopeful that the ruling will ultimately lead to another victory in court.
‘Position’ vs. ‘Work’
In his 2003 award, Arbitrator Snow concluded that the AMS position is part of the APWU bargaining unit and that it is a violation of Article 1.2 of the National Agreement to exclude either the “position” or any disputed “work” from the bargaining unit. In making what was intended to be a final and binding decision, Snow, who passed away in late 2004, weighed the following APWU contentions:
Snow also looked at the USPS assertion that although APWU bargaining-unit members performed the same or similar duties, the work of the AMS was not exclusive to the bargaining unit and could be assigned by the USPS to any employee it wished.
But after studying the arguments, Snow declared that the Postal Service is not justified in having the AMS Specialist position perform any duties that do not fall within the exclusions of positions or work set forth in the contract.
After failing to persuade Snow that his award should be withdrawn, the USPS filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board seeking a ruling that the AMS Specialist classification was excluded from the bargaining unit.
The NLRB’s Regional Director, although initially dismissing the USPS petition in light of the parties’ agreement to arbitrate disputes about the assignment of work to the bargaining unit, granted the petition on Feb. 23, 2007, after it was remanded by the full NLRB. On remand, the APWU disclaimed interest in representing employees in the AMS Specialist position , but again emphasized that this stance was not to affect that part of the 2003 award that covered the work. The Postal Service violated the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the APWU argued, “by failing to assign non-supervisory and non-managerial AMS duties to the bargaining unit.”
We will continue our fight for our right to perform the AMS duties, and to keep all work that we have been doing — our work — in the bargaining unit. We think the courts ultimately will support us.
