The Denver Metro APWU and postal management have agreed to settle a grievance that was filed after the March 2003 St. Patrick’s Day blizzard. The Postal Service had maintained that affected employees should receive only one day of paid administrative leave relative to the snowstorm. The union filed a local wide class action grievance asserting that every impacted employee should receive at least two days of paid administrative leave. This grievance, covering well over a thousand employees, consisted of hundreds of pages of documents and took many months and lots of hard work to prepare and present. Clerk Craft Director Brian Thomason volunteered to accept this very difficult and challenging task. Through Brian’s dedicated and excellent efforts, we have achieved a successful resolution. All impacted employees in every office and craft throughout the local will receive an additional day of paid administrative leave. The union and management have assigned designees to identify and properly compensate these employees. Many thanks and congratulations to Brian for this outstanding resolution. We also appreciate the excellent efforts of USPS Labor Representative Judy Ford to help us achieve this mutually beneficial settlement. In addition, we offer our gratitude to Senior Plant Manager Tal Middleton and Denver District Customer Service Manager Ellis Burgoyne for giving final approval to the settlement agreement. 

 

Several months ago the National APWU Executive Board voted to collect a special $8 dues assessment to raise funds for an anticipated prolonged and difficult battle to combat harmful postal “reform” legislation. Through the excellent lobbying efforts of our union officials, it appears that the final bill will be acceptable to the APWU. Based upon this likely outcome, President Burrus has indefinitelypostponed collection of the special assessment. Many thanks to the union officials who helped to achieve this important legislative victory. However, we must remain on guard now and in the future because this issue can arise again at any time. If this happens, the special assessment will be revived if needed.

 

Postal management has designated the mail handler craft as the primary craft to staff the new Automated Package Processing System (APPS). Denver is scheduled to receive an APPS machine in the spring of 2005. APPS could cause the elimination of up to 80 clerk craft SPBS duty assignments in Denver. We had hoped to soften this blow by receiving jurisdiction over APPS. However, our national office will file a Step 4 grievance challenging this initial determination. The APWU believes APPS is a distribution operation, properly assigned to the clerk craft. We ask for your patience and understanding as this dispute makes its way through the grievance process. 

 

The union has received a list of those employees who properly applied for Voluntary Early Retirement, and will receive formal offers over the next few days. It appears our local has approximately 60 employees who returned their Statements of Interest and will receive formal offers. Please remember that the national settlement allowed postal management to select one of three possible effective dates for each eligible employee, and that such designations are not subject to negotiations or grievances. Many thanks to our national officers for achieving this hard won right for all of our eligible members. Good luck and a happy retirement to all who take advantage of this opportunity! 

 

We have received numerous reports that postal supervisors and mailhandlers are doing APWU craft work. The only way to stop this erosion of our job security is through the combined efforts of each and every concerned member to help us monitor and challenge these contractual violations. If you see a supervisor or a mailhandler doing your job, report it to your union steward as soon as possible. Better yet, ask that person to stop immediately. Please make a note about how much time you observe supervisors and/or mailhandlers doing our work, and provide this information to your union steward. We will file grievances as necessary, but we need yourhelp to save our jobs!

 

Please remember that, in accordance with a vote by the membership, applications for the five $500 Moe Biller academic scholarships will be accepted until July 31, 2004. Details about the scholarship appeared in the May 2004 Mountaineer. Applications consist of a letter addressed to the Scholarship Committee at the union office, accompanied by proof of college attendance and a 1000 word essay written by the applicant. Please consult the Mountaineer for more information, or contact the union office at 303-365-1524. Good luck to all applicants!

 

Several delegates from our local recently attended the annual convention of the Colorado Postal Workers Union. This is the APWU’s state association in Colorado. Delegates attended to a lot of important business relative to budgets, resolutions and the election of officers. I am pleased to report the Denver Metro APWU Steward Sonda Goss was re-elected as the CPWU’s Secretary-Treasurer for another two year term, and that Chief Steward Tina Desautels and Assistant Clerk Craft Director Susan Kaminitz were elected as Trustees. Also re-elected by a wide margin was incumbent President George Prusak. Pueblo Area Local President Gil Trujillo was elected to serve as Vice-President. Congratulations to all of these individuals!  We look forward to working with them over the next two years.

 

On May 19, 2004 National Business Agents Chuck Sundgaard and Richard Shepard gave a steward awareness and training seminar to our Maintenance stewards. I believe those in attendance would agree the information received will be invaluable towards future representation.

 

We are carefully examining the issues of job withholding and PTF conversions. We are not comfortable that the information we are receiving is complete and accurate relative to withheld duty assignments throughout the local. Jobs are being withheld in accordance with Article 12 of the contract relative to a number of anticipated automation impacts over the next several years. These include APPs, PARS, and other initiatives expected to reduce clerk craft duty assignments. However, such withholding is commonly used to block PTF conversions under the contention that PTFs cannot be maximized while withholding is in effect. This is simply not true. If a PTF is backfilling a properly withheld assignment, it is true that such work hours generally cannot be used to justify conversions. However, we are working with other APWU locals and regional union officials to determine the validity of job withholding throughout the Denver District. We will aggressively pursue PTF conversions wherever we can. We expect strong resistance from management, so we will appreciate your patience and understanding while we fight this battle.

 

We are currently in discussions with postal management relative to the protection of MVS transportation work. We are aware that management is pushing to reduce MVS staffing, giving more impetus to subcontractiong and crossing crafts. We will do everything in our power to encourage expansion of MVS staffing, and to ensure that mail transportation is performed by MVS employees.

 

/jd

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