Joint Grievance-Arbitration Committee

COST-CUTTING TO CONTINUE AT APWU HEADQUARTERS

The Union Flash has learned that the American Postal Workers Union and the Postal Service will soon announce a 6-month moratorium on arbitrations as one of several new APWU cost-cutting measures to offset declining union membership. According to national union sources, the union is losing 2,200 members a month.

The moratorium on arbitrations will be in conjunction with a nationwide ‘grievance shake-out' - meetings between union and postal management officials to resolve the backlog of grievances where they exist - and will be explained as an attempt to fix the broken grievance procedure. The hold on arbitrations will not affect removal cases.

"The moratorium will probably begin in February, because the January schedules are already out," according to one national business agent.

The union will also spend up to $1.6 million to renovate and then lease two-floors of the 12-story Moe Biller Building in downtown Washington, DC to provide additional income to the union.
 

Sources at union headquarters say other cuts will be passed on to state and local unions by charging them for supplies previously provided at no charge, such as contracts, manuals and training materials.

Along with $1.5 million in negotiations costs the union saves next year by the membership's recent ratification of the contract extension, these latest cuts in representation paint a picture of a worsening financial crises at APWU headquarters.

It's hard to measure exactly how bad the union's financial condition is because the national union keeps most of its current financial records closely guarded. But at the 2002 APWU convention in Minneapolis, President Burrus alluded to a possible deficit this past year when he promised to cut costs at headquarters by more than $2 million next year and predicted a surplus by 2003.

The latest government required annual financial disclosure report shows the union's yearly revenues declined by almost $2 million between Dec. 31, 2000 and Dec. 31, 2001, from about $124 million to about $122 million.

(source Dept. of Labor)

Requests for restricted duty are reviewed by postal medical personnel and postal management to consider the availability of accommodated work assignments.

(posted 8/4/02)

posted July 14, 2002

The postal attendance terrorist taking the sick call demanded to know the worker's symptoms.

"I started crying when I hung up because she didn't believe me and thought I was lying. I was embarrassed and angry."

The employee said she went into work that night and the next even though she wasn't feeling well because she was afraid of being disciplined. She had a doctor's appointment scheduled on Tuesday, but went to the hospital instead when her chest pains worsened. She's now awaiting the results of further heart tests and is still working.

The worker's run-in with the postal attendance Gestapo is the latest in a wave of terrorist acts since the Postal Service revised its Kalamazoo attendance policies in May by requiring employees calling in sick to talk to bosses trained in sick leave harassment, coercion and intimidation

Postal attendance terrorists have demanded documentation in violation of the contract, discriminated against workers with certain medical conditions and retaliated against workers when they've exercised their rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Other employees have been told they couldn't return to work without medical documentation and some have been threatened with AWOL charges and discipline when they call in sick.

The union has filed a class action grievance over the attendance policy and numerous individual grievances have been filed over acts of harassment committed by the postal attendance terrorists in Grand Rapids.

The Postal Service's own Employee and Labor Relations Manual requires employees to notify management as soon as possible when they're too sick to work and how long they expect to be absent. There is no requirement that they explain their symptoms or the nature of the illness when they call in.

"No one should be intimidated by the postal attendance terrorists," said Local President Mickey Elmore. "No one should not call in when they're sick out of fear of discipline. No one should be threatened or coerced into coming into work when they're sick. Everyone should ask to see a steward when they are hassled, harassed or threatened by the postal attendance terrorists."

Minority Report
COMMITTEE'S REASONING UNPERSUASIVE

Their support echoes an October 28 endorsement by the National Presidents' Conference, which was briefed on the details of the accord by President Burrus three weeks ago.

Since the committee acted unanimously, there will be no minority report contained in the Rank and File Bargaining Advisory Committee's endorsement. It's now left to the rank and file membership to dissect the accord and offer dissenting views.

THE DUE PROCESS ARGUMENT

The union often wins discipline cases by arguing that management has failed to provide due process to an employee prior to discipline. This simply means that management has failed to follow the orderly rules that ensure an employee is treated fairly when management proposes discipline.

Just as in discipline, contracts are also subject to a due process requirement. There are laws and rules that govern when and how we negotiate.

The current contract expires November 20, 2003. The union would normally begin negotiations on a new contract next summer, presumably to advance the goals and aspirations of the membership through an orderly negotiations process with management. By agreeing to an unprecedented extension of the contract for two years, the union waives its legal right to negotiate a contract next year for the membership. The membership can certify this waiver by ratifying the tentative contract extension. But they shouldn't do so blindly and they shouldn't do so without considering the consequences of such a waiver.

During talks on extending the contract, USPS officials refused to open negotiations on any of the issues the union is allowed to address during contract talks except for the length of the contract extension, wages and a few other items of interest to management. Our concerns were not brought up. Postal Attendance Terrorism, plant closings and consolidations, the grievance procedure and improvements in benefits and working conditions were not discussed.

These and any other issues of importance to the membership will now have to wait for another day. Actually, they'll have to wait for another thousand days, until 2005, if the tentative extension is ratified by the membership. The membership will have to set aside their goals and aspirations for not one, but three more years. That is the price the membership must pay to get 1.3 percent pay raises in November 2003 and November 2004.

That's too high a price to pay. The extension is unprecedented in the history of the American Postal Workers Union. Union negotiators have never before short-circuited the negotiations process - in effect delaying negotiations, in this case for two years. Unless we have no goals and aspirations for improvements in working conditions and benefits, unless we have achieved all we can reasonably hope to achieve, we have sold out the membership by delaying negotiations until 2005 for a pittance. We have thrown up our hands and said negotiating a contract next year will be too difficult. Let's not even try. That's the politics of defeatism and despair. That's the politics of hopelessness. It's a failure of nerve on the part of the union leadership. The membership deserves better than that.


THE EARLY OUT BONANZA MYTH
The first argument the Rank and File Bargaining Advisory Committee makes in favor of ratification of the contract extension is that it contains an agreement requiring the Postal Service to ask the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for permission to offer early retirements. President Burrus has said employees aged 50 with 20 years of service or employees with 25 years of service at any age will be eligible. But the devil is always in the details and neither the union nor the Postal Service is providing any details on how many or when early outs will be offered. Will you be offered an early out? When will you get it? Members are being asked to buy a pig in a poke. It's never a good idea to sign a blank check.

Consider also that the early outs are only being offered because the Postal Service is planning on downsizing the workforce through plant closings and consolidations. Under the law, if the Postal Service plans to transfer you to an office more than 50 miles from where you work, they have to offer you early retirement if you're more than 50 years old with 20 years of service or if you have 25 years service at any age. That doesn't need to be negotiated. The only early out bonanza will be for those not under the threat of excessing who may be offered early outs. No one has said how many will be offered an early out and when the offer will be made.

But perhaps the best reason to ignore the early out bonanza myth is that early outs are the most efficient way for management to downsize and management can request authority from OPM to offer early outs without union approval. Management can't lay employees off. They can excess employees hundreds of miles from their workplace, but if the employee chooses to accept the assignment, the postal service incurs the cost of moving the employee and doesn't reduce its overall workforce.

Early outs aren't a good reason to ratify the contract. They're coming with plant closings and consolidations anyway.

MORATORIUM ON EXCESSING

President Burrus expects "considerable" excessing as a result of plant closings and consolidations. During a tele-conference with state and local presidents, he mentioned Postal Service plans to cut 18,000 jobs next year, mainly through plant closings and consolidations. He has given no indication the union will fight these closings and consolidations at the national level. From his silence, we can reasonably infer that local unions will be on their own in fighting the closings and consolidations. But what Burrus does offer the membership is a temporary moratorium on excessing beyond 50 miles until May 15, 2003. That means a 6-month reprieve. The agreement establishes a national level joint labor-management committee to ensure that the rules of excessing are applied uniformly across the nation.

Giving a condemned man a 6-month reprieve doesn't sound like any great benefit. And establishment of another national level committee to agree on interpretations of the contract begs the question of what we will do when local managers violate these prospective agreements on excessing, as they've done with so many other agreements in the past. Shall we address our complaints in the grievance procedure? The one that's still broken and can't be renegotiated until 2005?

There is no good reason to extend the contract based on this impotent response to excessing and plant closings and consolidations. The current contract requires that management give the union as much as 6-months advance notice at the regional level and employees at least a 60-day notice when it's proposed to excess them out of an installation. The moratorium adds little to current protections in the contract.

MINI-PAY RAISES

The committee is impressed by the 1.3 percent pay raise we'll get each year of the two-year contract extension. I'm not. Especially in light of the $27 billion dollar windfall the Postal Service is sitting on as a result of years of over payment into the Civil Service Retirement System. Nobody expects huge pay raises, but we should be able to do better than 1.3 percent a year. In fact, during the last negotiations then Vice President Burrus rejected a 2.9 percent pay raise over 18 months.

Much is made of Arbitrator Goldberg's assessment that postal workers are paid well compared to the private sector. It's significant that he still gave us 3 percent in pay raises in the first two years of a 3-year deal and 1.4 in the last year.

Proponents of the contract extension also ignore a crucial aspect of Arbitrator Goldberg's private sector comparability analysis. Goldberg said postal workers weren't required to "subsidize the long-term structural deficit of the Postal Service." That was up to Congress to fix. But he agreed the terrorist attacks, their economic aftermath and the anthrax threat should have a bearing on postal worker wages.

"Private sector employees whose employers are faced with a short-term crisis have frequently moderated their financial demands to enable their employer to weather that crisis, and, taking the comparability analysis one step further, it is not inappropriate to require Postal Service employees to do likewise." So he gave workers a 1.2 percent raise in the first year and a 1.8 percent second year pay hike as a concession to hard financial times.

Conversely, Arbitrator Goldberg tried to teach us that the private sector comparability requirement allows postal workers to make greater financial demands at the bargaining table during good financial times, as is the common practice in private sector negotiations. Unions increase their demands during good times and moderate them during hard times.

The Postal Service is in a lot better financial shape today than it was in 2001, reeling as it was from the unexpected costs of the anthrax attacks. Today, its financial condition is much brighter. It's sitting on a $27 billion dollar windfall caused by its over payment to the Civil Service Retirement System and a projected surplus next year of $3.5 billion. That's real money. We deserve some of it.

UPGRADES

Electronic Technicians PS 10 and 11 will get a one level upgrade next November. CFS level 4 clerks will get an upgrade to level 5 in November 2004. The ET upgrade is clearly a positive gain. The CFS upgrade is a mixed blessing. Along with the upgrade in 2004, CFS clerks will now be eligible for excessing out of their section to higher level jobs early next year. Without the upgrade, management can only excess CFS clerks to level 4 jobs. That makes it much more difficult for management to place CFS excess clerks elsewhere, as there are few level 4 jobs left in the craft. On balance, though, this is the most positive aspect of the tentative extension.

EXTENSION OF NO-LAYOFF PROTECTION

The Rank and File Bargaining Advisory Committee considered extension of the no-layoff protection through Nov. 2005 important and we agree. But it doesn't follow that we would lose that protection if we reject the tentative contract extension and open negotiations next year on a new contract.

OVER FUNDING OF THE RETIREMENT SYSTEM

The committee's assertion that the $27 billion dollar over funding of the Civil Service Retirement System doesn't provide the Postal Service with real money must be disputed.

The fairy tale that the over funding is just some sort of Enron accounting error and doesn't provide the Postal Service with real money was started by President Burrus, and the committee's belief in it is testimony to his political skills and considerable powers of persuasion. But let's look at the facts.

The Office of Personnel management has discovered that the Postal Service currently has only a $5 billion liability to the Civil Service Retirement Fund instead of the $32 billion everyone thought it owed. To correct for this over funding, OPM is recommending that Congress change the formula the Postal Service uses to pay into the fund. If Congress does change the law, as it's expected to do, the Postal Service will free up $2.9 billion in funds next year and $2.6 billion every year thereafter.

Burrus claims that if legislation passes, the Postal Service will have to use the money to pay down its $11 billion debt. In fact, Burrus can no more foresee what the final language of the law would require the Postal Service to do with the money than anyone else can. Congress could give the Postal Service a free hand to use it any way it wants to. It could put requirements on how it's used. It could even agree with President Burrus and require that not one dime of it go towards improvements in postal workers pay and benefits.

But right now no provisions have been made for where the money will go. And Burrus' unwillingness to lay claim to any portion of it is a sellout of the membership's interest.

There is no good reason for the membership to ratify this proposed contract extension. Fear of negotiating a contract next year is not sufficient reason to ratify an extension that is unacceptable in terms of real wage increases and which denies us the right to negotiate over improvements in wages and benefits until 2005.

The Postal Service faces long term challenges, but is in pretty good financial shape today. We deserve better than what we're getting in this tentative contract extension.

A no vote sends a message to President Burrus to go back to the bargaining table next year and fight for a fair contract for postal workers.

Burrus' ‘new math' won't wash now anymore than it did in 1998 when he passed off unprecedented pay cuts to employees in steps A-C as a correction to the promotion pay anomaly.

We can't depend on local or state presidents to educate the membership on details of this sellout agreement. They were snowed in Seattle at the Presidents' Conference and endorsed the tentative contract extension before news came out about the Postal Service's cash windfall.

We obviously can't depend on Burrus or national officers to tell the membership the truth about this garbage offer.

We can't trust our elected leaders, so we all must become leaders now.

I urge everyone reading this board to immediately contact the Rank and File Bargaining Advisory Committee and urge them to veto the sellout contract extension. Put pressure on your local president and officers to recommend a no vote on this sellout agreement. Print and distribute postings from 21CPW telling the truth about the sellout agreement in your post office break rooms. Post messages on this board in opposition to the extension. Educate your friends at work.

A massive propaganda effort is already underway by Burrus and other national officers to stampede the membership into ratifying this dismal tentative contract extension. We can stop this sellout agreement and send a message to national union leaders that we want a decent contract next year if we all pull together. But time is short. We all must act now.

Sources at the Oct. 28 Presidents' Conference in Seattle say local and state presidents voted overwhelmingly to go on record in support of the contract extension, but reserve the right to call an emergency meeting to reconsider their endorsement if the terms explained to them change when the actual details are revealed to the membership.

Burrus told the presidents the tentative two-year extension contained pay raises of 1.3 percent each year and continuation of COLA increases. In an October 28 News Service Bulletin - which was briefly posted on the APWU web site, then taken down - he said pay raises "equal to those granted to other postal bargaining units" were under consideration.

In his November 1 update, Burrus said talks will focus on a "limited agenda", including pay and COLA raises, special retirement opportunities, developmental training and a moratorium on excessing until "special retirement opportunities" occur. The broken grievance procedure, Postal Attendance Terrorism and plant closings and consolidations are not on the "limited agenda" listed in his report.

The October 28 News Service Bulletin stated a Rank and File Bargaining Advisory Committee will begin its deliberations in Washington DC, on November 6 or 7. The committee has not yet been appointed. In his November 1 update, Burrus said the committee will be empaneled if a tentative agreement is reached.

Under the union's constitution, (postalreporter: Article 13, Sec. 9) the purpose of the Rank and File Bargaining Advisory Committee is to "recommend and advise the National Negotiating Team on bargaining demands." The committee is supposed to be convened "not less than 60 days prior to the submission of the proposed contract demands and at such other time(s) as the President might deem necessary to keep the committee adequately informed on the progress of the negotiations, but specifically when any tentative agreement has been reached."

October 28, 2002 - President William Burrus will be announcing today at

 the President's conference in Seattle the results of secret negotiations between the APWU and the Postal Service to extend the contract by two-years. Burrus plans to call the rank-and-file bargaining committee back to Washington next week to approve the new tentative agreement and then quickly send the proposed new contract out to the membership for a ratification vote. No details on the new agreement are available yet. Sources also tell us that the Postal Service will offer early retirements without incentives and that negotiations between the union and management are close to conclusion on a moratorium on excessing until the Postal Service consolidates facilities sometime next year. There is no word on which facilities the Postal Service plans to close or whether or not the union has agreed in principle not to oppose the closings. Under the law, any closings are subject to congressional oversight.

     demands for documentation rise as management cracks the whip

By Dan Sullivan
Editor
Southwest Michigan Area Local

Postal attendance control watchdogs are making more demands for medical documentation from Kalamazoo postal workers calling in sick and, in some cases, refusing to accept doctor statements certifying an employee was unable to work when he called in for sick leave.

This latest attack on workers' sick leave rights follows an earlier edict requiring return-to- work medical documentation from employees with certain medical conditions before they're allowed back to work from sick leave.

It's all part of a new attendance control policy in Kalamazoo based on an attendance monitoring system called Resource Management Data (RMD)

In the first week following the start of the attendance crackdown, management figures showed sick leave dropping from more than 5 percent to 2.5 percent of scheduled work hours at the Kalamazoo plant.

The American Postal Workers Union has filed national level grievances over elements of RMD at the national level, but hasn't publicized the issue in the national tabloid, The American Postal Worker. The local union is filing grievances on a case-by-case basis when employees are denied sick leave, required to submit medical documentation or denied the right to return to work after an absence.

The new policy, which went into effect on May11, requires Kalamazoo postal workers to call an 800 number to report all absences from work. An attendance control supervisor in Grand Rapids answers the call, pulls up the employee's attendance record on a computer monitor and questions the employee about the reason for the absence. The attendance control officer also determines whether or not the employee will be required to provide medical documentation to obtain sick leave.

Employees who indicate the absence is related to an FMLA condition have been told they can't return to work without providing medical clearance from a physician if their condition is for "communicable or contagious diseases, mental and nervous conditions, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, or seizure disorders or following hospitalization."

An internal USPS document obtained by the Flash states, "The fact that the employee is under the protection of FMLA against attendance issues does NOT supersede the basic requirement for RTW (return-to-work) clearance."

The new policy discriminating against workers with certain medical conditions violates postal regulations which requires workers to provide return to duty medical documentation only after extended illness or injury.

Some employees report they have called in sick and weren't hassled by the attendance Gestapo in Grand Rapids. But others say medical documentation has been demanded when they called in for more than a single day of sick leave or when they refused to explain their symptoms over the phone to the attendance bosses.

In one case a tour three worker was told to bring in medical documentation for an absence of one day. When he turned in a note from his doctor saying he was "unable to work due to medical condition," local attendance control officer Gerry Reeves rejected the doctor's note as "insufficient documentation."

Citing a section of the postal Employee and Labor Relations Manual, Reeves told the Flash that medical documentation must contain information about the nature of the illness sufficient to indicate the employee was unable to perform his regular duties. In the past, postal supervisors haven't challenged doctors' opinions stating employees are unable to work.

Local Clerk Craft Director Mark Cornelius says postal bosses are also violating the Privacy Act by giving attendance control bosses access to employee medical information. President Mickey Elmore has scheduled a meeting with a local attorney to discuss the union's concerns about medical privacy rights.

In the meantime, the union is urging all employees who have been ordered to provide return-to-work medical documentation after an absence to file handicap discrimination complaints through the EEO process as well as grievances challenging the arbitrary and discriminatory nature of the new attendance control rules.

The union reminds members they don't have to reveal their symptoms or any medical diagnosis to any postal supervisor and they shouldn't argue over the phone with the Grand Rapids Gestapo. Instead, when disputes arise over the attendance control policy, employees should demand to see a steward.

Union officials are also warning employees not to provide too much medical information when they call in sick. It's enough to tell the bosses the general nature of your illness - such as "I have a headache" - and when you expect to return to work.


Dan Sullivan
Southwest Michigan Area Local

Editor

"Garrard, predictably, claimed that Stoll was his ‘girlfriend,'" Judge Reinhardt wrote in his opinion.

The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) who initially ruled on her EEO complaint "found this assertion ludicrous, and concluded that ‘there was absolutely no evidence presented to indicate that the complainant and Garrard were romantically involved at any time during complainant's employment.'"

In ruling in her favor, the ALJ recommended that the Postal Service pay her back pay as well as front pay - the wages she would have earned over the rest of her postal career had she not been driven from her job by the sexual harassment.

Of course, the Postal Service didn't see things the way the judge did. They agreed to give her back pay, but refused to cough up the front pay.

Stoll's attorneys appealed to district court to get the front pay and lost. But on January 15, 1999, appeals court Judge Reinhardt, calling the facts of her case "gruesome," ruled in Stoll's favor and remanded the case back to the lower court, where her front pay claim is to be considered on its merit.

Stoll still suffers from severe depression and other mental ailments brought on by her humiliation, harassment and rape and continues to be heavily medicated. Judge Reinhardt says she "was severely psychiatrically impaired." The administrative law judge says she was "obviously scarred for life."
As for her boss, John Garrard? He did better than the Kinki postmaster.

Judge Reinhardt, in a comment dripping with contempt, noted that the Office of Federal Operations "without any evident trace of irony, directed the Post Office to ‘afford EEO sensitivity training' to supervisor John Garrard, ostensibly because he had raped a Post Office employee."

"The manager received 3 hours of sensitivity training," says Stoll's attorney, Elaine Wallace.

"He remained at work, received his EVAs and bonuses, and even got higher level details. Nothing happened to him but the minor inconvenience of a 3 hour sensitivity training."

Three hours of sensitivity training for ruining someone's life? Justice is supposed to be blind, not deaf and dumb.

The Postal Service still doesn't get it. And probably never will.