District Court Orders Clarification

The Postal Service sidestepped a fight in federal court on March 16 over enforcement of an Oct. 19, 2015, arbitration award on staffing at Bulk Mail Centers (BMCs).  After the USPS filed a “consent motion,” Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ordered interpretation of the award to be returned to Arbitrator Ira F. Jaffe.

The APWU filed a court complaint on Dec. 11, 2015, seeking enforcement of Arbitrator Jaffe’s October ruling, which instructed the Postal Service to “cease and desist” from using Maintenance Management Order (MMO) 112-10 (eWHEP) and to return to using MMO 022-04 (BMC Gold) to prepare Maintenance Craft staffing packages for BMCs (also known as Network Distribution Centers or NDCs).

The APWU filed the complaint because the Postal Service failed to comply with Arbitrator Jaffe’s ruling, which made clear that management should have updated its staffing packages to conform to BMC Gold as of the date of his award. 

“Management applied some twisted reasoning to avoid complying with the award, interpreting ‘cease and desist’ to mean that existing staffing packages did not need updating until such time as a new staffing package is required,” Maintenance Craft Director Steve Raymer said.

Once Arbitrator Jaffe rules on the meaning of his original award, any future noncompliance by the Postal Service will place it in contempt of a federal court order.