Contracts, Contracts, Contracts

(This article first appeared in the July-August 2015 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

“Busy” is the buzz word! the support services division is responsible for articles 40 and 41 of the APWU’s Collective Bargaining Agreement with the USPS.

Article 40 covers the Operating Services Craft, which consists of employees at USPS headquarters at L’Enfant Plaza and facility services in Merrifield, VA.

Several proposals were exchanged in an attempt to improve the benefits and working conditions for our members in these units.

Article 41 addresses the Material Support Craft, which encompasses the facility in Topeka, KS. Like Article 40, we submitted proposals that we felt were necessary to improve the all-around working conditions for these members.

Private-Sector Negotiations                                                                                                                 

The APWU’s main agreement is not the only arena where we are holding negotiations. Simultaneously, we have also been involved in negotiations for our private-sector members.

We have had multiple negotiation sessions in Little Rock, AR, for the first collective bargaining agreement for recently-accepted members of the mechanic group at Pat Salmon Trucking. As of the writing of this article, I believe we are close to coming to agreement on a negotiated contract.

The agreement for Mail Contractors of America (MCA) is set to expire on June 30, 2015. This includes two separate agreements – one for the Des Moines group and another for the Kansas City group. As of the writing of this article, we have begun the scheduling process and are preparing our proposals. Hopefully, in our next article we will be able to report that we have negotiated deals on three collective bargaining agreements!

The contract with PAE, the company that owns our MTECH in Detroit, expires in November 2015. We will also have the IT/AS contract expiring in January 2016, so we will begin bargaining at the end of this year.

A Diverse Division

As I have stated in the past, I believe that the Support Services Division is the most diverse division of the APWU. There has always been a misconception about what units and work the Support Services Division represents. I am developing reports that will break down the division by individual unit.

The APWU will hold its All-Craft Conference in October. I will conduct a training and information session during the conference that will identify individual components, breakdown the grievance-arbitration process, labor management, and contract negotiations, as well as the duties of each unit.

The breakdown of the duties is primarily to inform members about which IT/AS facility is responsible for which postal function.