It Is Always About the Work

One of the primary purposes of the trade union movement is to nd work for its members. While unions constantly advocate to improve social injustices, equality, and fairness for their members and society as a whole, it is always about getting work, finding work, and keeping members gainfully employed. As the USPS drastically reduces its workforce, requiring fewer employees to do the same - or more - work in attempts to improve its bottom line, these management tactics and strategies will often have crafts and unions feeling the need to defend and protect their work.

Dispatch Coordinator Step 4

The Clerk Division and the USPS recently held national level arbitration hearings on the creation and assignment of the Dispatch Coordinator position to the MVS Craft. Although the MVS Division has also filed national disputes on the creation of this position and the siphoning of other MVS Craft duties, we still believe this is an MVS position. Please review the job descriptions and qualification standards of this position in your facility to determine if crossing-craft or occupation-group violations are occurring and contact your National Business Agent (NBA) to file the appropriate local grievance.

USPS Acronyms

In the ever-expanding world of postal words and jargon, “RTO” and “LTO” are recent additions you may see. These stand for Regional Transportation Optimization (RTO) and Local Transportation Optimization (LTO). RTO replaced LTO. These are part of the Delivering for America (DFA) plan and USPS efforts to reduce transportation costs and find other savings.

The MVS Craft must continue to monitor and protect the assignment of the transportation of mail in bulk quantities to any category of postal employees other than Motor Vehicle Service employees.

LTO is a part of the DFA plan to save the USPS money by eliminating or reducing transportation costs. This began as a pilot program in a few sites in 2024 when the Postal Service eliminated all afternoon trips outside of a 25 or 50 mile radius from an LTO site, meaning that there would no longer be a closeout trip to pick up that day’s mail from those offices, and that mail would be collected the following morning, thus adding an additional day for delivery. In most cases, the pilot program sites where this change occurred were being served by a Highway Contract Route (HCR) supplier.

RTO is the evolution of the Postal Service’s attempts to further reduce transportation costs for the transportation of mail. “Regional” is the key difference, as this evolution now limits the transportation of mail to one trip per day for offices outside of a 25 or 50 mile radius from an RTO site. This has potential for a much larger impact on, not just the delivery of mail, but also PVS duty assignments, due to the elimination of those afternoon closeout PVS trips, as not all PVS operations are within the 25 or 50 mile radius of an RTO. This change to RTO will most likely trigger management to attempt to make changes to all PVS duty assignments and attempt to repost them in accordance with Article 39.2.A.6 bidding procedures.

However, if unimpacted duty assignments are reposted due to a zero base, other audits, or any other administrative reasons, it would be in violation of the APWU/USPS Step 4 settlement for USPS Case# Q10C-4Q-C 14256865/ APWU# HQTV 20140505, signed and dated on Sept. 30, 2015. This language is also contained in the Joint Contract Interpretation Manual (JCIM) questions and answers in Article 39, question #78. According to Article 39.2.A.6, only the union can request a yearly, or bi-yearly bid.

Voluntary Early Retirement

Of the more than 5,000 MVS Craft employees eligible for the Voluntary Early Retirement (VER) incentive, approximately 550 MVS employees have accepted the offer. The officers of the APWU Motor Vehicle Craft wish you a long and happy retirement. ■