The U. S. Postal Service has reached an agreement with the American Postal Workers Union and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union about reassigning to temporary work locations employees they represent who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

As the end of Summer is here, so is the end of the Shorts MOU. The Shorts agreement was extended until September 30^th for the facilities covered by the Denver P&DC. October 1^st we will be required to wear sensible, properly fitting clothing to work (pants) in accordance with the EL-803. This handbook does state “Your facility may have a dress code for summer or very warm weather”. Therefore, we will be discussing this matter with management again late in March. I believe we have a good chance in being able to wear shorts again because according to Maintenance Manager Nimrod Salazar we had no accidents in relationship to wearing shorts. Thank you for being safety conscious.

Tour 1 Denver General Mail Facility steward Rudy Apodaca recently negotiated a grievance settlement that resulted in 37 employees receiving payments for missed overtime opportunities. Rudy put a lot of hard work into this complex class action grievance to ensure that our members received justice under the terms of the National Agreement. The next time you see Rudy, I hope you take the time to thank him for his excellent efforts on this case. It pays to have a strong union!

Vacation bidding season is upon us. Please start planning for next year. At the request of some union members I am trying to get the process started early and perhaps we, as maintenance employees, can do our part by making our selections in the time frame allowed to us so that others will have a chance to make their selections in a timely manner. The Local Memorandum of Understanding states that “the vacation selection period will begin November 1^st and conclude not later than December 31^st.” However, due to the size of some sections I will try to begin the process early to meet the deadline.

Each year, National APWU President William Burrus asks local presidents to recommend individuals to serve as national arbitration advocates. Advocates represent the union in formal arbitration hearings during which grievances receive final adjudication from an impartial arbitrator. 

At the recently completed Colorado AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, former Denver Metro APWU President Paul J. Mendrick was re-elected as Secretary-Treasurer of the Colorado AFL-CIO, and Field Coordinator Joe Quintana was re-elected to serve on the Executive Board as a Vice-President representing the APWU. Please join me in thanking and congratulating those two individuals for their continued service with the Colorado AFL-CIO. With the recent disaffiliation of several large unions from the AFL-CIO, the work of this organization becomes much more challenging and important. I am confident that Paul and Joe will work hard and do everything in their power to ensure that the voice of organized labor remains dedicated and strong!

The Denver office has only 20 remaining Part-Time Flexible Clerks. We are currently working on a process that could result in the conversion to regular status of most or all of these 20 individuals. There are a number of residual vacancies in the CFS unit that we hope to make available for a procedure called PTF “Preferencing” that has rarely been used. Eleven of these PTF Clerks are currently employed in the CFS unit and could quickly be converted. The remaining nine will need to be trained and qualify before accepting a residual duty assignment. If we succeed, all of Denver’s PTF Clerks could be converted to regular status at the end of the process. We will keep you posted on the progress of this effort.

We continue to monitor management’s ongoing efforts to trim costs for the next fiscal year. Of particular interest is the initiative to short staff the Denver GMF’s FSM 100 machines by using 4 person crews. We have received mixed reports about this plan. Many employees report that productivity has suffered along with employee morale. It hasn’t helped that this change was implemented concurrent with a sharp spike in volume. Some reports suggest that the plan runs smoothly under certain limited circumstances. Only time will tell. We continue to urge all employees to work in a safe and steady manner. We are obliged to perform a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. Please see your steward if you observe supervisors or Mailhandlers performing our work, or if you observe or experience safety violations, harassment or intimidation. Please help us to ensure that our contractual rights are fully protected.

The Denver Metro APWU has decided to proceed with negotiations to modify the terms of the Local Memorandum of Understanding in several offices under our jurisdiction, including Denver, Englewood and Lafayette. A 30 day period of negotiations must be completed sometime between October 3, 2005 and December 1, 2005. Under the special terms of the 2005 Extension to the National Collective Bargaining Agreement, if the parties cannot agree upon any proposed modifications, the existing language will remain in effect until at least November 20, 2006. We will keep you posted on our progress.

Remember “Postal Reform” legislation? You probably haven’t thought about it much lately because there’s been very little news about it for some time. It was moving full speed ahead just a short time ago until the Senate got sidetracked by the Iraq war, hurricanes and Supreme Court vacancies. Another funny thing happened along the way. The Postal Board of Governors took a good look at the proposed new law and decided it would weaken their power to run the Postal Service. Then the Board did what any self-respecting bureaucratic entity would do – they decided to protect themselves by coming out in vociferous opposition to the bill. They went so far as to say that “no Postal Reform Bill is better than a bad one.” Unfortunately, this means that the Postal Service will not be able to use the $27 billion that lies uselessly in an “escrow account” that Bush uses to pretend that his budget deficit is smaller than it really is. It also means that our employer will continue to be denied the rate-setting flexibility enjoyed by our competitors. On the bright side, it also means that our pay, benefits and job security should be safe for one more year. The Postal Service has now requested a two cent rate increase for 2007. The need for this hike would disappear if the Congress would simply allow the Postal Service to spend the excess funds it is required by law to deposit into this useless escrow account. We need good postal reform legislation as soon as possible. Please remember this as we go into next year’s federal election.

The next regular membership meeting is scheduled to begin at 5:00 PM on Wednesday, October 26, 2005 at the union office. On the agenda is final action on proposed amendments to the local’s Constitution and Bylaws. We will also continue to sell tickets for our ongoing COPA raffle. You could win an Apple iPod! You can also help us to continue our successful 2005 COPA fundraising drive. Food will be served. Please plan to attend!

After much consideration, we have decided to go forward with a request to be considered for any future 4-10’s pilot programs. I have transmitted our request to APWU Regional Coordinator Omar Gonzalez, who will carry it to a headquarters level meeting at which the eighteen pilot sites will be chosen. If we are selected, we will identify good candidate offices and move forward.