This Step 4 grievance was filed after the Inspection Service issued notices to several employees indicating, in part, that their "recent conduct involving a Postal employee has been brought to the attention of the [Postal Inspection] Service" and information was being provided "to place [the employees] on notice of possible criminal violations of Federal law and their penalties."

Though the parties agreed that no national interpretive issue was fairly represented in this case, they agreed that the Memorandum of Understanding on the Role of the Inspection Service in Labor Relations Matters is applicable in this dispute. As cited in the settlement, such an MOU provides in part that "[t]he Postal Inspection Service has an obligation to comply fully with the letter and spirit of the National Agreement . . . and will not interfere in the dispute resolution process as it relates to Articles 15 and 16. " In addition, referenced language from the MOU provides that "[i]nspectors will not make recommendations, provide opinions, or attempt to influence management personnel regarding a particular disciplinary action...." (source: APWU)

The Postal Service violated the National Agreement by assigning timekeeping duties performed by the grievant to supervisors in the Great Falls, Montana Post Office. Because of the change in the actual duties that were affected by new technology, Arbitrator Escamilla did not order any back pay. Rather, the arbitrator directed the Postal Service to meet and negotiate with the union about the impact of the new technology on the grievant’s bid position description and  return the function of inputting, reviewing, and correcting the data to the grievant.

This case Great Falls, Montana after the Postal Service introduced new technology that permitted supervisors to enter timekeeping data from their own computers. The grievant performed all timekeeping data entry duties as a "Time and Attendance Clerk" until the new technology was implemented in 2001. The Postal Service then eliminated the grievant’s job and transferred the timekeeping duties to supervisors. The grievant then had to bid to a new position of "general clerk."

The union argued in arbitration that the  elimination of the grievant’s position violated the National Agreement by transferring bargaining unit work to supervisors and by unilaterally changing the historical past practice of assigning the disputed work to bargaining unit employees. The Postal Service, on the other hand, argued that the implementation of the new technology permitted it to change the old manner of timekeeping because the technology increased the efficiency of the timekeeping process making the grievant’s job unnecessary.

After finding that the timekeeping functions at the Great Falls postal facility had historically and exclusively been performed by bargaining unit employees, Arbitrator Escamilla ruled that the Postal Service could not change that past practice on the ground that the grievant’s job had disappeared because not all of the grievant’s timekeeping duties were eliminated by the new technology. While the new technology did impact the specific duties of composing and distributing reports, the technology did timekeeping technology did not impact the remaining timekeeping duties performed by the grievant (i.e. inputting, reviewing and correcting employees’ hours of work and pay status data). Those duties continued to exist after the new technology was implemented and were even performed by bargaining unit employees. In fact, the Postal Service temporarily promoted the grievant to the position of a 204(b) supervisor so that it could continue to assign him to perform the same timekeeping duties he performed in his bargaining unit position. There was no feasible explanation for that temporary promotion other than to appear consistent that only supervisors should perform the timekeeping function. Furthermore, the Postal Service created new TACS clerk positions to perform these duties.

Arbitrator Escamilla also ruled that the purpose of efficiency did not justify changing the past practice of assigning timekeeping duties to bargaining unit employees because the technological change was not actually made for efficiency purposes. The union showed that many supervisors input data normally inputted by one individual; the supervisors spent more time performing timekeeping duties than the grievant spent; supervisors continue to seek assistance from the grievant and TACS clerks for inputting data; and that the grievant was temporarily promoted to a 204(b) infers that bargaining unit employees can input the data as efficiently as supervisors; and several TACS clerk positions were created to perform timekeeping duties normally performed by one individual. Furthermore, the arbitrator found that even if the change made the operation efficient, it did not justify the complete erosion of bargaining unit work. While the new technology created a more efficient means to provide the collected data to supervisors for review, it has not eliminated the need to input, review, and correct the data.

Arbitrator Escamilla indicated that to what extent and how the grievant performs timekeeping duties because of the new technology is best left to the local parties for determination. He, therefore, remanded the case to the parties to negotiate over the impact of the new technology on the grievant’s timekeeping duties with the guidelines that the grievant no longer has the duty to create reports, but still retains the duty of inputting, reviewing and correcting pay and leave status data. Moreover, although the record was silent on this issue, the Arbitrator directed that, if the function of downloading the data to the regional/district servers is still being performed by supervisors on Saturdays, then that function should be returned to the grievant. Finally, the arbitrator ordered that to the extent that a national agreement exists that allows timekeeping functions to be delegated to supervisors when TACS became operative, the parties were directed to consider such an agreement and the award shall be modified to conform to that agreement. No back pay was ordered because the union had not shown that the grievant would have continued to work the same hours.