DMAL Candidates for Election
President | John A. Ancona Gary L. Scott |
Executive Vice-President | Sonda Goss Bobby J. Rollins |
Director of Industrial Relations | Paul Pearman – Unopposed |
Asst. Director of Industrial Relations | Mark R. Kirby – Unopposed |
Recording Secretary | Gail E. Kirby Dave Villalva |
Human Relations | Phil Desautels – Unopposed |
Maintenance Craft |
Director of Maintenance | Miguel Salazar –Unopposed |
Trustee – Maintenance Craft | Charlie Garcia – Unopposed |
Clerk Craft |
Director of Clerk Craft | Sandy Garcia Brian Thomason |
Assistant Clerk Craft Director | Dave Coker Lawanda Davis Jackie Fleming |
Trustee – Clerk Craft | Ruben Valdez - Unopposed |
Motor Vehicle Services |
Director of Motor Vehicle Services | Robert Helmig Warner M. Leeds |
Trustee – Motor Vehicle Services | None Eligible |
MVS Issues
On January 11th, DMAL President Gary Scott and MVS Director met with Occupational Health Nurse Administrator Lori Chamberlin, Manager of District Labor Char Ehrenshaft, and District Labor Representative Dean Linenberger. Discussed were many DOT issues and how they apply to us. We negotiated what would constitute issuing a post accident DOT urinalysis as well as how return to duty DOT physicals and random drug testing would be administered.
The return to duty DOT physical grievance that was filed, and has been settled. Management will not send you to get a return to duty DOT physical. Under the ELM, management does have the right to send you for a fitness for duty physical. This is a different physical than a DOT physical and it is important that you are aware of this. If you are sent for a return to duty DOT physical after being out for any reason, let a steward or me know immediately.
If you are involved in an accident, there are three qualifiers that would require you to be drug tested. They are:
1.You were issued a citation from a local law official
2.You are injured and require medical treatment
3.One of the vehicles involved in the accident needs to be towed
If you are required to submit to a post-accident drug test, and one of the previous mentioned things did not happen, please contact a steward or myself immediately.
On a separate note, it has come to my attention that the DOT has announced a federal ban on texting for commercial truck drivers. This prohibition takes effect immediately. If you are caught texting and driving, you could face a fine up to $2750.00. I know you guys don’t do this, but I wanted to keep you updated on changes with DOT.
Maintenance Craft Facing Realignments
The Postal Service is rolling out a nationwide agenda to reduce work hours in the maintenance craft. Staffing levels that are non-custodial are what is being targeted now. The APWU prevailed in arbitration that returned custodial staffing requirements to the 1983 levels. The Service had modified the MS-47 Handbook by reducing the frequencies of tasks and therefore, reducing the number of custodians needed for a facility. The Aurora APWU has informed me that notification has been made of the intent to abolish and excess 10 maintenance jobs in the Aurora facilities, to include four custodial positions. Since Aurora is not in the jurisdiction of the DMAL, information is still unclear as to the intent of the loss of these four custodial positions. An information request has been made to provide the names and employee I.D.’s of the anticipated impacted employees as confirmation that these jobs were necessarily withheld. Once the anticipated event in Aurora has occurred, the withheld jobs are to be released with intent to fill. I should also add it has been reported that the District Manager has informed the Aurora APWU that ‘machines’ are being removed from Aurora. That’s all well and good except, Aurora doesn’t have ‘machines’. So we have our work cut out for us trying to figure what they are up to!
OIG Says USPS Overpaid
Federal Government $75 Billion
Burrus Update 03-2010, Jan. 20, 2010
William Burrus, APWU President
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a stunning announcement: The USPS has been overcharged $75 billion in contributions to the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) pension fund. After an in-depth investigation, the OIG has concluded that an inequitable system for computing the Postal Service’s CSRS pension responsibility has caused the dramatic overpayment. The OIG Study was conducted in conjunction with the Hay Group, a well-known economic consulting firm.
The funding error follows two previous findings that the Postal Service had been required to overfund its pension obligations. In 2002 it was determined that the Postal Service was on track to overfund CSRS by $78 billion, and in 2003 the USPS was overcharged $27 billion for CSRS military service credits. The earlier overpayments were corrected by legislation adopted in 2003 and 2006, respectively.
The newest overfunding debacle, if corrected, would more than offset the Postal Service’s deficit from Fiscal Year 2009 and the expected shortfalls in FY 2010 and 2011. The doomsday predictors of the imminent demise of the Postal Service must now find a new rationale for their efforts to dismantle postal services.
The cry for a new business model and legislative relief rings hollow when USPS financial difficulties could be fully resolved by returning to the Postal Service the overpayments made to date. Realigning the network, reducing employee compensation and benefits, and transferring the cost of universal service to individual mailers can now be exposed for the fraudulent exercises they represent. Instead, we can engage in a meaningful dialogue about the future of hard-copy communication and the role of postal service in the 21st century — without the looming threat of bankruptcy. This report is good news for a beleaguered government service. USPS service standards and productivity have remained at high levels; the economy is recovering, and the black cloud of fiscal insolvency could be removed.
All parties in the postal community who wish to be of assistance must join in an effort to correct the inequity and relieve the Postal Service of the unjustified funding requirement. In the meantime, we can take a deep breath and stop the momentum for another round of harmful postal “reform.” And after the attrition of 115,000 APWU-represented positions since 2002, we would appreciate a public recognition that our members have contributed their share.
January Membership
Meeting Incentive Award Drawing
At the conclusion of every membership meeting, an Incentive Award Drawing is held to encourage membership attendance. This drawing is designed to be randomly selected from the membership roster, the winner who is present to receive a $200 door prize. If there are no winners, the amount is increased $25 for the next month’s meeting. The twenty names are randomly selected by our office manager and placed in a sealed envelope to be opened at the end of the meeting. All names were read and we had no winner at this meeting The names read are as follows:
James Mercure | Clerk | Erie |
Michael L. Frazee | MVS-TTO | VMF |
Deborah L. Vader | Maintenance | GMF |
William B. Noal | Clerk | Golden |
Betty V. Aranda | Clerk | Brighton |
Sandra L. Gladney | Clerk | GMF |
Obed T. Afrasa | Clerk | Valmont |
Hung M. Dang | Clerk | Lakewood |
Behrouz Kabiri | Clerk | Valmont |
Niva Pointer | Clerk | Wellshire |
Lassiter M. Jackson | Maintenance | GMF |
Bruce Wainwright | Clerk | Indian Tree |
Brian Orcutt | Clerk | Glendale |
Michael D. Yarger | Clerk | Englewood |
Carla Lockhart | Clerk | GMF |
Theresa Udry | Clerk | Montbello |
Daniel Engdahl | Clerk | Dist. Office |
Andrew Duong | Clerk | Arvada |
Gregory Kapulka | Clerk | Evergreen |
Donald O’Meara Jr. | Clerk | Boulder |
You have to be present to win, so I hope to see you at the next meeting!
A Call to All Members
2010 started out with a bang as our first union meeting of the year came to order. During the January meeting of even numbered years, the membership nominates candidates for the National Convention. Because this is an election year for Local Officers, nominations for office also occurred. Due to financial constraints, an Executive Board recommendation to send no additional delegates to the National Convention was brought to the floor. After much debate and discussion, the motion to accept the Executive Board’s recommendation passed.
As per our Constitution and By-Laws, there are 12 automatic delegates to the National Convention. These are the 10 Executive Board members and two Associate Office delegates. Elections to determine which nominees from the Associate Offices will become delegates, will occur at the February Membership Meeting.
Most important to the general membership was the first reading of three Executive Board recommended Constitution and By-Laws Proposed Changes. These proposed changes will be reviewed by the Constitution & By-Laws Committee on February 12th. At this meeting, the Committee will make a determination on recommendation of these changes and whether or not to amend them.
At the 5:00 PM, February 24, 2010, General Membership Meeting, Three proposed Constitution & By-Laws changes will be read for a second time and a vote to accept or reject will be taken. It is imperative that all members make every possible effort to attend this meeting.
The three Proposed Changes concern the following:
§ Reduction of Full Time Officers
§ Reduction of Full Time Officers’ benefits
§ Reduction of the number of yearly issues of the Mountaineer
I can’t stress how important this meeting is! We need to take affirmative action to keep this Local strong. We hope to see you at the February meeting. The future of the Local depends on you!!
AFL-CIO Massachusetts
Post Election Survey
The results of the Massachusetts Special Senate Election have settled and Organized Labor is trying to learn from what appears to be a reversal from just one year ago. An overnight survey of 800 interviews with voters revealed staggering information. The Democratic Candidate lost the non-college vote by 20 points. This was a huge swing among non-college voters from 2008, when Obama won by 21 points, a 41 point change. This represents a working-class revolt and reveals the danger to Democrats of not successfully addressing workers’ economic concerns. 79% of the polled voters stated they still have the same goals they had in November 2008, fix the economy and provide affordable healthcare. They don’t see the job getting done. They stated a candidate who would strengthen the economy and create more good jobs as their single most important issue. 61% said government efforts on recession have helped large banks and Wall Street too much. Only 18% said the government has helped average working people and only 15% said government has helped them and their families. The Republican won voters in households where someone has lost a job in the past year by a 50%-45%.
If anything, Democrats have under-reached not over-reached. 47% of voters’ bigger concerns about Democrats is that they haven’t succeeded in making needed change, rather than to make too many changes too quickly (32%). Even the Republican voters are more concerned about lack of changes (52%) than too many changes. Voters who thought their health benefits would be taxed under the Obama/Democratic plan voted 2-1 for the Republicans. Voters who think the plan would not tax their benefits voted Democratic 54% to 40%. Not only did young people drop from 17% of the electorate to 10%, they voted Republican after giving Obama a 58 point margin in 2008.
Unless Democrats demonstrate that fixing the economy is their overriding priority and begin to create more jobs for working-class Americans, the results in Massachusetts demonstrate that far greater losses can be expected across the board in November 2010.
/jd
opeiu #5
afl-cio
