PostalReporter.com Blog

 OIG Report also includes sexual harassment accusations

(Federal Times) As a top executive at the U.S. Postal Service, Azeezaly Jaffer liked to live large. Too large, according to postal investigators.

In one three-night stretch in 2004, he ran up $8,252 at a Washington hotel suite — less than nine miles from his home.

He blew $3,486 in one evening for steak dinners and a bar-hopping binge for himself and other postal employees after the unveiling of the new Ronald Reagan commemorative stamp in 2005.

He tipped two lucky waiters $1,511.66 following a seafood dinner for 20 employees and business partners in 2003.

All on the Postal Service’s dime.

An inspector general’s report on the conduct of the Postal Service’s former vice president for public affairs and communications details more than $46,000 in questionable spending.

The report also includes accusations that Jaffer propositioned two female employees for sex, made lewd comments about several female employees, and offended and embarrassed others with obscene language.

Jaffer resigned June 30 — 11 days after the report was complete. full article

USPS OIG Report On Allegations Against Jaffe(PDF)

APWU Convention Bulletin No. 4 - Following Thursday’s spirited rally at a Philadelphia post office, delegates to the union’s 18th Biennial Convention transposed the regular order of business to approve a measure calling for a nationwide demonstration against consolidation.

Delegates approved an amendment to Resolution #225, “that the National Executive Board support and direct the membership to participate in a national day of informational picketing at post offices nationwide.”

The coordinated rallies are to be held on a date no later than mid-October 2006.

The resolution also urges the union and its allies to demand, well in advance of any final decision, that the Postal Service make public all information underlying consolidation, including the effect on service to the public and on jobs. The USPS will be urged to provide alleged cost savings, along with details on how the data was obtained.

The motion also demands that affected communities, citizens, businesses, and employees be given a full opportunity to provide testimony, ask relevant questions, and receive detailed information before any consolidation decision is made.

The resolution says that the APWU will continue to oppose the outsourcing and privatization of postal work that is accomplished through excessive discounts for presorting mail.

source: Nationwide Deterioration In Service Spurs Rally at Post Office

First Time New Contracts Negotiated Separately With All Four Unions Simultaneously

Press Release — The U.S. Postal Service is about to begin contract negotiations with its four largest unions. Current contracts with the National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO (NALC), American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO (APWU), National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA), and National Postal Mail Handlers Union (NPMHU) all expire at Midnight Nov. 20, 2006. This is the first time the Postal Service has separately negotiated new contracts with all these unions at the same time.

    The following schedule has been set for negotiation opening sessions:
    *  Aug. 21 — NPMHU
    *  Aug. 25 — NRLCA
    *  Aug. 28 — NALC

    *  Aug. 29 — APWU

“We have worked successfully with our unions in the past to help transform the Postal Service and we hope to maintain this momentum in the current round of negotiations,” said Doug Tulino, Vice President, Labor Relations, for the Postal Service. “Our ultimate goal is to continue to make the Postal Service a great place to work and to reach an agreement that is fair to our customers as well as our employees.”

The Postal Service employs more than 676,000 bargaining unit employees, with APWU, NALC, NRLCA and NPMHU accounting for more than 99.5% of these employees.

source: USPS

Footnote: According to National Association of Postmasters of the United States (NAPUS):”Although pay consultations for Postmasters have not yet been scheduled for Fiscal Year 2007, NAPUS leaders are in the process of preparing for talks when they are scheduled by the USPS. The Postmasters Pay for Performance program (NPA) for Fiscal Year 2006 ends on September 30, 2006.

Last year the National League of Postmasters reported: “Pay consultations between the Postal Service and NAPUS and the National League of Postmasters have concluded, resulting in a one-year compensation package that will remain in effect through FY 2006. In addition, pay consultations with the National Association of Postal Supervisors (NAPS) have concluded covering the same time frame.

Cost-of-living adjustment 
The eighth regular cost-of-living adjustment under the National Agreement will be $790 annually based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for July announced August 16 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The cost-of-living adjustment, effective the pay period beginning September 9 (pay date September 29), is the final regular COLA included in the 2001-2006 contract. It was based on the increase in the CPI-W between January and July 2006.

The eighth COLA of $790 annually is equivalent to 38 cents per hour, or $30.40 per pay period.

The latest COLA raised the annual pay for top rate carriers (CC Grade 1, Step O) to $49,218 annually, an increase of $6,583 or $253.19 per pay period since the beginning of the contract.

COLAs have accounted for over 50 percent of the total increase in salary.
 source: National Association of Letter Carriers

APWU Delegates Address Frustration Over Craft Jurisdictional Issues

From APWU: After fervent debate on the 18th Biennial Convention’s third day, APWU delegates adopted a resolution (PDF) to study “efforts and procedures and processes” that would help bring the National Postal Mail Handlers Union into the APWU as a new department.

Eastern Region Clerk Craft NBA Mike Gallagher, who was in favor of the resolution, said that although it had “taken on a life of its own,” the resolution was “fairly innocuous.” This may not be the right time to bring the Mail Handlers into the APWU, he said. “But we will always have jurisdictional disputes if the Postal Service has a convenient workforce to work for less.”

Opponents warned that the resolution would prove harmful. “I believe in the concept of one union,” said Paul Felton, a member of the 480-481 Area Local. “But if Resolution #5 passes, it will set back the prospects of one union. The Mail Handlers will not consider this a study: They will consider it an act of war.”

APWU President William Burrus left the convention podium to speak in favor of the resolution from a floor microphone.

“We must find a way to end the separation [of unions] in the mail-processing environment,” he said. “The Mail Handlers Union is an integral part of the Laborers International Union,” and therefore cannot merge voluntarily.

But Bobby Donelson, Southwest Coastal (CA) Area Local president, said that there is already too much division in organized labor. “We should never go in and attack another union …The APWU should not be a leader in raiding other unions.”

The movement to bring Mail Handlers into the APWU did not start internally, Donelson said. “We shouldn’t throw it down their throats: It should come from them.”

The resolution required a simple majority, which it received in a standing vote of delegates. Consideration of the resolution had been postponed from the second day of the convention, along with action on Resolution #89, which called for the APWU to withdraw from RI-399, the “Regional Instruction” procedure involving the Postal Service, the APWU, and the Mail Handlers, which was intended to expedite resolution of disputes over which craft would have jurisdiction in the workplace.

Frustration over the clear failure of the RI-399 procedures to accelerate settlement of these issues was evident at an informal meeting attended by more than 300 delegates after the conclusion of business on Tuesday.

A substitute resolution, which instructed the national APWU to “pursue all options available, to include but not limited to, the filing of a lawsuit to compel arbitration,” was adopted by a wide margin. The substitute for Resolution #89, offered by Martha Foote of the Indianapolis
Area Local, also urged national officers to “bring this matter to fruition.”

Speaking in favor of her motion, Foote explained, “We are not locking in the National Executive Board or president” to a single course of action.

(NALC Press Release) - William H. Young, a member of Central California Coast Branch 52, was reelected today as president of the 300,000-member National Association of Letter Carriers at the union’s 65th biennial convention at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Young, 60, who is concluding his first term as NALC president, was elected by acclamation to a new four-year term to lead the 117-year-old union that represents all city delivery letter carriers in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.

Young serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the AFL-CIO. In addition, he is a national vice president of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the union’s official charity, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University in Detroit.

He began his postal career in 1965 in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and soon became involved in his local NALC branch. Following service in the Army, Young returned to the post office, quickly rose through local and state NALC ranks, and was elected as a national resident officer in Washington, DC in 1990. He served four years as executive vice president before being elected as president in 2002.

APWU Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) Update

“After the final month of the sixth-month measuring period, the tenth Cost-Of-Living Adjustment will be $812 per year. The adjustment amounts to a 39 cents per hour increase, or $31.20 per pay period. The tenth COLA (the second under the 2005-2006 extension agreements) will be effective Sept. 2, 2006 (pay period 19-06, pay date Sept. 22, 2006).” The annual raise of $812 will be the biggest Cost-Of-Living-Adjustment since mid-1980, surpassing last year’s increase of $728 (pay period 19-2005, pay date Sept. 23, 2005). PR Note: Mail Handlers will receive the same COLA raise.

Latest Pay charts for APWU-represented employees

Full-time Regulars (FTR) [pdf]

Part-time (PTF/PTR) [pdf]

TE Rates [pdf]

Operating Services [pdf]

From APWU:  Latest CPI Rise Will Yield $812 Annual Increase
 

(AP) — Postal workers plan to protest forced transfers and delivery problems that resulted when the U.S. Postal Service moved its regional mail-sorting center from downtown to a more automated facility.

Since the move to Southwest Philadelphia began in November, 600 clerks have had to transfer, while outside workers were brought in to help with the transition. Meanwhile, there have been frequent problems with mail that has been delivered late or not at all.

The American Postal Workers Union is planning a protest Thursday at the historic 30th Street post office, saying the move has simultaneously hurt service and trampled on the rights of mail-sorters and other workers

No workers were laid off, but some were forced to transfer to other cities, said Sally Davidow, a spokeswoman for the union. It is patently unfair to bring in temporary workers while forcing postal employees to transfer, she said.

“It’s just a clear-cut violation of the letter and spirit of our contract,” said Davidow, whose organization represents 300,000 sorters, maintenance employees, drivers and technicians nationwide.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/103-08142006-697875.html

(Press Release) Letter Carriers union President William H. Young warned the U.S. Postal Service today against out-sourcing to private contractors the delivery of mail to American homes and businesses, saying such a move would weaken the nation’s defense against terrorist attacks.

Young issued his warning during a keynote address to some 9,300 delegates on the opening day of a week-long 65th biennial convention of the 300,00-member National Association of Letter Carriers at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

“The threat to the quality and security of the mail posed by low-wage contract workers cannot be overstated,” Young said. “In the midst of a global war on terror, now is not the time to open a hole in the nation’s defenses by giving unscreened, contingent workers access to the mail stream.”

Young said the possibility of such an action by the Postal Service is not far-fetched, citing the Service’s recent announcement that is it considering contracting out work at postal Air Mail Centers. He said that could lead postal management into a right-wing temptation to contract out letter carrier work.

“The Postal Service, as an institution, would make a tragic mistake if it is led astray by these extreme attitudes and views,” Young said.

Young recalled the anthrax attacks on the United States in 2001 and the trust that both mailers and the American people had in highly skilled letter carriers during that critical period. He said contracting out letter carrier work now would backfire on the Postal Service and on the American public.

He said the NALC will be prepared to respond appropriately if the Postal Service chooses back-door privatization by flirting with contracting out.

“We will rally the public, the mailers and our members to resist,” Young said. “There is already one Wal-Mart in America. We don’t need a second one. We simply won’t stand for it.”

In his keynote address, Young also discussed the upcoming contract negotiations with the Postal Service for a new National Agreement, efforts to get final congressional approval to House- and Senate-passed postal reform legislation, and the union’s role in helping pro-labor candidates in this fall’s congressional elections.

Young said that emergence of “a White House that is openly hostile to labor unions” has increased the danger of postal reform legislation turning into an attack on collective bargaining rights of letter carriers and other postal employees.

He said he made it clear to both Democrat and Republican leaders in Congress that the NALC will not support just any postal reform legislation.

“It has to be the right kind of postal reform,” Young said. “That means that NALC will strongly oppose any postal reform that undercuts the collective bargaining rights of America’s letter carriers and their union. Period.”

Regarding upcoming contract negotiations that will begin August 28 in Washington, Young said the union will seek pay increases that reward carriers for their contributions to the success of USPS and also to work to resolve workplace issues including establishing a better system of adjusting postal routes.

“It is my firm hope that we will be able to reach a negotiated agreement this fall, one that I can proudly send out to the members for ratification,” Young said.

Young called for “an unparalleled effort to elect a pro-labor Congress in the fall of 2006, made up of Democrats and Republicans alike, and a pro-labor president in 2008.”

—

The 300,000-member National Association of Letter Carriers (AFL-CIO) represents city delivery letter carriers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam.

(APWU News) APWU-represented employees at installations where excessing is occurring will have an opportunity to be placed on a preferred listing and will receive other accommodations to minimize the impact of reassignments under an agreement signed recently by the union and postal management.

The agreement [link added] outlines provisions for the implementation of the Sept. 12, 2005, Memorandum of Understanding, “Transfer Opportunities to Minimize Excessing.”

Under the modified memo, in facilities where excessing is occurring, APWU-craft employees in impacted crafts may voluntarily submit a request for transfer through eReassign. The eReassign procedure places such employees on a preferred listing by date order and allows them to transfer out of their impacted installation as long as they meet the minimum qualifications for the position being considered.

To accommodate transfer opportunities to minimize excessing, the agreement also modifies the National Agreement’s “Transfer Memorandum of Understanding” (page 305). The modifications stipulate that as a result of impending excessing: (more…)