(This article first appeared in the Sept-Oct 2017 issue of the American Postal Worker magazine)

By Support Services Director Steve Brooks

We reached a tentative agreement for the Information Technology/Accounting Services Bargaining Unit.

The non-economic items in the agreement will shore up some language in the grievance procedure, job postings, voluntary transfers, career development and the voluntary 10/4 program. In addition, we created a task force to review Accounting and IT testing procedures, as well as Accounting duties.

As for economics, we obtained general increases for 2017 and 2018 and retained two Cost-of-Living-Allowances (COLAs) per year.

Two new DCS-18 level positions were created in both the IT Help Desk, and the TACS Help Desk areas. DCS-18 is the highest level in those units. We obtained a career ladder structure for our Quality Assurance DCS-16 to go to the higher level 18 after two years of service.

We achieved another career ladder upgrade in Accounting Services, the DCS-13 will become a DCS-15 after two years, which previously upgraded to a DCS-14. This means all current DCS-14’s who have served two years at that level will be automatically upgraded to a DCS-15. The last increase obtained was to add a Step Q to the end of the pay schedule for all DCS-14, 15 and 16 levels (currently Step P).

In our last CBA, the parties agreed to create 50 new Computer Programmer positions to the IT unit. In this contract, we successfully negotiated to create 20 additional positions. The goal here is to shift the work from contractors to our bargaining unit. This will take some time, but we are taking steps to achieve this goal.

The ratification vote on this tentative agreement took place as this article went to press. Visit apwu.org to see results. 

Support Services Solidarity

IT/AS Support Service Division members rocked Union Gear Thursdays during their contract negotiations. Pictured are members of the St. Louis Area Gateway Local.