It is Time to Collect on the 2010 Collective Bargaining Agreement!

(This article first appeared in the March/April 2020 issue of the American Postal Worker magazine)

In the 2010 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), monetary concessions were granted to the USPS in exchange for the protection of clerk work and the securing of nonmanagerial/ non-supervisory work being reassigned to the Clerk Craft. Any new positions must be assigned in accordance with Article 1.5 of the CBA. APWU honored their agreement – now it is past time for the USPS to honor theirs. Clerk Craft officers will actively pursue, at all levels of the organization, the work that should be rightfully ours.

Time and Attendance Collection System (TACS) Work

Clerks have always performed TACS, however, in some offices supervisors also performed the work. Under the 2010 Collective Bargaining Agreement, all this work should have been returned or reassigned to the craft via the ‘Clerical Work MOU’, the ‘Clerk Jobs Audit MOU’ and the ‘Job Audits MOU’. While the parties have settled several national disputes on the Lead Clerks performing TACS, it is still all clerk work for the clerk bargaining unit. If supervisors are performing the work, local grievances should be filed. Contact your respective Clerk Craft NBAs for local guidance. If the proper training has not been provided, NBAs have been instructed to file District-wide grievances.

Rural Management Support System (RMSS), formerly Rural Work Hour Tracker (RWHT)

This is data entry work and consistent with the 2010 CBA, this is clerk work and should be performed by clerks. While supervisors have authority to approve entries made by clerks, this is still bargaining unit work. If a supervisor performs TACS clerk bargaining unit work, this is a contract violation under Article 1.6 of the National Agreement.

Within the RMSS is a section called the Ad-Hoc Activity Report which recognizes all hours being worked by rural carriers in other crafts. This report proves that nationally, rural carriers are performing almost 10,000 hours a week in the clerk craft. This report shows how many hours are being transferred per week in each location. This is an Article 7 crossing craft violation and the work should be assigned to the clerk, with a make whole remedy.

Customer Retention (CRT), formerly Sales Retention Team (SRT) Global Remedy

The APWU submitted the final payment listing with amounts to be paid to the USPS for the remaining payment on the $36 million Global Settlement Agreement where the USPS violated the CBA when they improperly used non-clerks to staff the Customer Retention Centers. Payments usually take up to eight weeks to process. More up-to-date information will be shared on apwu.org.

POStPlan Postmaster Relief (PMR) Settlement Agreement

Arbitrator Goldberg ruled the USPS improperly denied employees clerk work as a result of their failure to comply in a timely fashion with the POStPlan MOU. The USPS improperly retained PMRs. Goldberg ruled the number of hours shall be determined, in the first instance by the Postal Service records. The parties agreed to a monetary settlement of $49.9 million. The Postal Service provided the APWU with a listing of offices where the Postmaster Reliefs (PMRs) worked and the clerks in a work hour status during the period of the grievance. The remedy period covered Pay Period 02, Fiscal Year 2015 – Pay Period 15, FY 2017. Postal Support Employees (PSE) and Part-Time Flexible (PTF) clerks in POStPlan Level 4 and Level 6 offices where PMRs improperly worked during the grievance period were indentified.

In the second part of the award, career clerks in Level 18 POStPlan offices where an PSE-818 PMR worked were entitled to a remedy. There were 67 offices identified. All the information relied on was based on the Postal Service’s records, most of which was presented in the arbitration hearing. The union will identify the employees to be paid based on the Postal Service’s records provided to the APWU, and it will be updated on apwu.org.