The U.S. Postal Service announced yesterday: (2/5/07) 

As part of the new Human Resources Safe Driver program being implemented in early 2007, city and rural carrier applicants will have to pass examination 804 — a USPS-administered initial road test — before they can be selected for employment. The test is designed to determine whether or not a carrier applicant has basic driving skills.

And since they will be the ones administering the test, all new applicants for driving safety instructor, ad-hoc driving safety instructor and ad-hoc road test examiner (a new ad-hoc position, within the new Safe Driver program) also will have to pass examination 804 before they can be awarded the position. No other USPS positions will require this particular test.

But APWU is challenging the new position

‘Driver Safety Instructor’ Challenged
DSI: Simply DIE Cast Anew

The Postal Service last year revised the driving instructor examiner (DIE) position, changing it to Driver Safety Instructor. The new position, DSI, is nothing more than a modified DIE.

It is the union’s contention that the DSI position is merely a modification of the DIE position, and that all past history of the DIE should go forward with this new job description.

The Postal Service did not reject this argument. The real test will occur in the field as the USPS assigns employees to the DSI jobs. Management claims this will create new full-time jobs because every district will have a least one full-time DSI. That is very important because that will give us a Motor Vehicle presence in every state of the union and, we hope, in Guam , too.

The job itself is very similar to the traditional DIE job. Unfortunately, the Postal Service has spent the last 12 years trying to shift DIE work to Letter Carriers and Mail Handlers, and this is merely an extension of that process. That is why we must try to rein in the Postal Service wherever possible – either through grievances or go through local negotiations.

Whether you call it DSI or DIE, this is Motor Vehicle Craft work: Locals should fight to limit the number of non-MVS ad hoc DIEs and “road-test examiners.” This so-called job description was resurrected as part of the new Safe Driving Program, which is, of course, part of our grievance.