The issue in this National Level Arbitration was whether the Postal Service violated Articles 3 and 12 by improperly excessing a clerk craft employee into a full-time city letter carrier position. The APWU and NPMHU intervened because of the potential impact on their represented employees. A 2011 MOU between the APWU and the Postal Service that provided for the use of Non-Traditional Full-Time (NTFT) duty assignments. The MOU allowed the Postal Service to create NTFT assignments in the clerk and motor vehicle crafts consisting of 30-48 hours a week. The object of those assignments was to give the Postal Service more flexibility while providing more work opportunities for APWU employees, and thereby reduce the possibility of layoffs (termed "excessing" in this agency). In return, the Postal Service agreed to convert clerk craft part-time flexible (PTF) employees to full-time status. In the three-month period provided, about 9,000 employees were converted. The parties differed about what those changes would mean. The APWU thought that the converted employees would all be placed in traditional 40-hour, 5-day schedules. Instead, the Postal Service classified them as unassigned regulars and gave them NTFT schedules of less than 40 hours. That left many of the 9,000 converted part-time APWU employees working NTFT schedules for fewer than 40 hours a week. That alone would not have affected the NALC. What happened next did. The Postal Service excessed many of those employees about 700-750 into the carrier craft. As a result, the NALC filed about 70 grievances, including this one.
Award Summary: Arbitrator Nolan ruled that the Postal Service may not reassign into a full-time carrier position any clerk craft employee who does not meet the definition of full-time employee specified in the Postal Service's Agreement with the NALC.
Document Type: National Arbitration
APWU National Grievance Number: Q06N4QC12114440
Arbitrator Name: Dennis Nolan