Rural Carrier Casuals Assigned to APWU Duties

Burrus UpdateUpdate #17-02, Oct. 3, 2002

As I reported in Update #15-02, agreement has been reached at the national level to identify rural carriers who have been designated as "dual casuals" and are therefore authorized to perform work in APWU assignments as casual employees.

On Oct. 2, the USPS provided me with a list showing the designated rural carriers, identifying them by name, office, finance number and performance cluster. Because the information could not be easily disseminated on the union's web site, I have mailed copies of the information to all APWU state presidents and regional coordinators where dually designated casuals were listed, and I have asked the state presidents to disseminate the information to all affected locals.

APWU locals that encompass offices employing rural carriers should review the list to determine whether or not rural carriers assigned to their offices are authorized to perform APWU work. Rural carriers who are not listed are not eligible to perform APWU work.

The number of casual employees, including dual rural carrier casuals, is governed by the limit in our Collective Bargaining Agreement, 5.9 percent of the total number of APWU career employees. These numbers are reported and monitored at the national level.

All of the rules governing the assignment of casuals apply to the dual-appointed rural carrier relief employees. Restrictions decided by previous national arbitration decisions are as follows:

Part-time flexible employees must be utilized at the straight-time rate prior to assigning such work to casuals. Casuals may be assigned to work during the same hours as part-time flexibles (PTFs) but may only be assigned to work during hours that the PTFs are non-scheduled if the PTFs will receive 40 hours work during the service week

Rural carrier relief employees may not be assigned to work in APWU crafts if full-time APWU employees have been excessed from the craft or installation and the excessing would have been minimized by the removal of the rural carrier relief employee from the APWU craft. When reassignment to other installations occurs, excessed career employees are entitled at the time of reassignment to exercise the option to change to part-time flexible in the same craft and installation and may perform the hours worked by the rural carrier relief employees.

Casuals are limited to two 90-day terms of dual employment in a calendar year.

William Burrus
President

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