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December 21, 2025
More on New FECA Regulations
The March-April 2012 issue of The American Postal Worker addressed significant changes to the administrative policies of the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA). Other important changes are outlined below.
December 21, 2025
BQnet Settlement
This settlement concerns the Postal Service’s creation of an electronic database to replace the Handbook EL-303, “Qualification Standards – Bargaining Unit Positions.”
December 21, 2025
Retiring? Get Counseling From the Postal Service
Postal workers are retiring in greater numbers now than at any time in history.
December 21, 2025
Barbara Easterling, Ruben Burks Re-elected as Leaders of the Alliance
The Alliance’s 2014 national convention took place in Las Vegas, Nevada on Monday through Thursday of this week. On Tuesday, Barbara J. Easterling, who has been President of the Alliance since February of 2009, was re-e...
December 21, 2025
Another Biased Report Calls for Privatizing Mail Processing
Another conservative think tank has jumped on the “privatize everything but the last mile” bandwagon, reports APWU Executive Vice President Greg Bell. A June 2013 report by the Information Technology and Innovation Found...
December 21, 2025
National Award on Validity of Step 2 Decision After Progression to Step 3
In a national-level award over the validity of a USPS Step 2 grievance decision letter issued after the grievance has progressed to Step 3, Arbitrator Dana Eischen sustained the Mail Handler Union's position that the dec...
December 21, 2025
100 Years and Still Counting
As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of our union it is important to remember the men and women who established the union a century ago and the struggles they encountered. The struggle, of course, continued for their su...
December 21, 2025
The ‘Revamped Maintenance Selection System’
As a result of several rounds of intense discussions, the APWU and the USPS have agreed to modify the Maintenance Selection System (MSS), the process by which many Maintenance Craft duty assignments are filled. We feel t...
December 21, 2025
e-Team Report, Feb. 24, 2012
Service Standards Crucial to Saving USPS Jobs H.R. 3813 Update Romney Blasts “Labor Stooges”
December 21, 2025
An Epidemic of Insanity?
Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.So the abuse, fraud, graft and corruption associated with USPS outsourcing makes management’s subcontr...
December 21, 2025
Drug and Alcohol Testing – USPS
In a Step 4 settlement dated July 19, 2006, the APWU and USPS agreed that the Postal Service will not require employees to participate in DOT drug-and-alcohol-testing pools when the employees are unable to perform safety...
December 21, 2025
The Decision: Quit Smoking
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 44.5 million American adults are smokers, 24 percent of men, and 18 percent of women — slightly more than one out of five overall. The breakdown by race/ethnic...
December 21, 2025
USPS Partners With Align Networks
The Postal Service has notified [PDF] the APWU that it has established a relationship with Align Networks to provide physical therapy services for employees with work related injuries and illnesses. APWU strongly discour...
December 21, 2025
What’s Different About Staples?
Many APWU members have asked, “What makes the Staples program so important? How is it different from the other programs that outsource postal retail functions – the grocery stores that sell stamps and the Village Post Of...
December 21, 2025
Staying Active, Organized
What are APWU retirees doing these days? Retirement is a lustrous and valuable two-sided coin. It is a stage on which to enjoy the liberties of free time and leisure, of relaxation and pleasure. Retirees are seizing the...
December 21, 2025
Dispute Filed Over Sunday Premium For Administrative Leave
The union has initiated a national dispute over whether an employee who is on administrative leave is entitled to Sunday Premium pay for hours he/she would have otherwise worked on Sunday.
December 21, 2025
e-Team Report, May 24, 2013
Support the Postal Service Protection Act Lawmakers ask PMG to stop accelerated consolidations and wait for postal legislation Obama Cabinet picks still waiting for Senate confirmation U.S. Treasury Dept. to dip into Pos...
December 21, 2025
Cancer Research Project Deserves Union Support
We’ve all been touched by breast cancer. Whether we’ve personally experienced the disease or have a relative, friend, or co-worker who has had to deal with the challenge head on — we know the devastating effects of breas...
December 21, 2025
e-WHEP Staffing: Coming to a BMC Near You!
Last year, the Postal Service tried to pull a slick maneuver on Maintenance Craft employees at Bulk Mail Centers (BMCs) by improperly changing staffing models – and implementing a new program before notifying the union o...
December 21, 2025
Dispute Over Sunday Premium When on Administrative Leave Appealed to Arbitration
The Union has appealed to arbitration a dispute over whether employees on Administrative Leave are entitled to Sunday Premium pay for any eligible hours they would have worked if not for being placed on administrative le...
December 21, 2025
Retail Robberies: Staying Safe
There has been a rash of armed robberies of retail clerks recently in the Eastern Region, including a number of situations where clerks were confronted while having guns pointed at them. In another case, the perpetrator...
December 21, 2025
Priority Mail Sales Down, Parcel Post Up… Troubling?
December 21, 2025
Memorial T-shirts
These shirts pay tribute to our APWU-family members who have been killed in action. To our knowledge, 17 members of the APWU family have paid the ultimate price while fighting in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
December 21, 2025
New Online Tool for OWCP Claims
The Employees’ Compensation Operations and Management Portal (ECOMP) is the newest on-line tool created by the Department of Labor Office of Worker’s Compensation Programs (OWCP) to assist with claims processing and trac...
December 21, 2025
Article 1.6.B Merit Award
A national-level award by Arbitrator Das on the issue of "whether consistent with the exception in Article 1.6.B of the National Agreement ... a supervisor at a small post office, whose position description includes the...
December 21, 2025
Important Retiree Legislation Mired in Congress
By the time you read this, a full year will have passed since Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) introduced H.R. 1231, a bill that would allow federal, civilian, and military retirees to pay health insurance premiums on a pre-tax bas...
December 21, 2025
Aging Baby Boomers Expected to Almost Double Nation’s Senior Population
Two newly released reports from the U.S. Census Bureau project that the 65-and-older population in the United States will nearly double by 2050. That segment of the population is expected to jump from 43.1 million in 201...
December 21, 2025
Our Retail Units Are Not for Sale!
As the old adage says, “the handwriting is on the wall!” The message, “privatize America’s Postal Service,” is in bold print. Just take a look at the retail side of the USPS and you will see a shift from traditional post...
December 21, 2025
Raising Awareness to Save Lives
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported that every 13 minutes someone in the U.S. commits suicide. More than 38,360 Americans died by suicide in 2010.
December 21, 2025
Arbitrator Rescinds ELM 546 Changes Agreed to in APWU-USPS 2006 MOU
Arbitrator Das, ruling in an NALC grievance in which the APWU intervened, ordered the Postal Service to rescind changes agreed to by the APWU and the USPS in a 2006 MOU "Re: Limited Duty and Rehabilitation Assignments Wi...