Kelly Girl Arbitration Award To Cost USPS Millions
“Kelly Girl” Award Is Issued - $19,717,431.00 plus $128,142.74 in lost union dues. Payout not to exceed $9,694 will be made individually to 2,034 Clerks
From PostalReporter.com reader:
It was just announced by the Arizona local APWU that the arbitrator has awarded the union nearly $20 million ($19.7+). The PO had they’re chance to settle on a dollar amount but balked, so it was sent back to the arbitrator to settle it for them.
No word on what they could have settled at. This concerned people who worked at Postal call centers and jobs that were contracted to Kelly Girl temp services.
Between this case the Mail Handlers, and MVS grievance wins the PO will have paid out nearly $36 million within the last year and a half alone.
Kelly Girl Award Dated August 7, 2007 (PDF)
Note: According to National APWU, “ management has informed the APWU that the contract with Manpower for casuals terminated on April 30, 2007. There is only one office, nationwide, that is still reporting the use of Manpower temporary employees and we are informed that is a temporary situation.
Brief synopsis of Kelly case from the Phoenix, Arizona APWU :
APWU VICTORY!
The Phoenix Metro Area Local has just received the arbitration award regarding the “Kelly Girl” case. Arbitrator Henderson ruled the Employer violated the Collective Bargaining Agreement when it hired over 200 “Kelly Girl” employees to work at the Phoenix Telephone Center in April 1996. The Center remained open for just over 3 years. The APWU argued the Telephone Center should have been staffed by Level 6 Phoenix Clerks. The arbitrator agreed with the Union.
The arbitrator has ordered the Employer and APWU to begin the process of settlement. Steven Zamanakos, National Business Agent, will reach out to Area Management in an effort to resolve the remedy portion in a way that is fair to Phoenix Clerks who worked during this period.
Related link: Previous National Level Award on Kelly Girl
August 18th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Level 6 clerks are no more skilled than untrained Kelly Girls at at $7 per hour. Invest this wisely as you just put another nail in your coffin. More contractors needed. You have proven how overpaid we are.
August 18th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
wait till they have to pay for the outsourcing of our airmail facilities to THS which they are doing right now.When that cash comes in about seven years from now it will make 20 million look like child
August 18th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
hey ant, this isn’t a sweatshop, it’s the postal service. why do you think postal labor unionized in the first place? if you don’t like the collectively bargained wage scale, then why don’t YOU go work for this Kelly Girls making $7.00 an hour? NO? yeah, i didn’t think so..i think your missing the point that the whole reason why laborers unionized, in the first place is because low wages, no benefits, shabby working conditions, and unfair treatment from management….you r probably one o those non-due paying leeches that doesn’t support the union, but doesn’t hesitate to enjoy the benifits negotiated for your craft…..or you are probably a member of management or maybe even one o those sycophantic 204b’s that we gotta deal with everyday…..in case you haven’t heard, contracting has proven not to be cost effective or operationally efficient. uh, wasn’t that a contributing factor to the horrible conditions at the Walter Reed VA hospital. also, i believe the postal aervice has tried contracting out and it was a miserable disaster!!!!! also, federal sector jobs should not be diced up and handed out to a bunch o private companies. all this contractin business is just an attempt of a bunch o rich powerful people drooling over the money that they want to suck out of the post office and a strategy to undermine the unions. WELL, I GOT NEWS FOR MANAGEMENT!!!YOU CAN’T CLOSE UP SHOP AND OUTSOURCE OUR WORK TO SOME THIRD WORLD COUNTRY TO EXPLOIT THE LABOR THERE!!!!THIS IS THE “U.S. POSTAL SERVICE!!!!!!!ANOTHER THING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC SHOULD BE ASHAMED THAT WE HAVE VETERANS COMING HOME FROM THE WAR AND FINDING OUT THAT THEY LOST THEIR JOB BECAUSE IT WAS OUTSOURCED!!!!!!!!NOT ONLY THAT, WHAT ABOUT VET’S PREFERENCE!!!!!!!!!EVEN IF VETERAN’S TAKE THE TEST AND ARE PUT ON THE HIRING REGISTER, THEY PROBABLY AREN’T GETTING HIRED ON BECAUSE OF ALL THE MANPOWER/CASUAL EMPLOYEES PERFORMING BARGAINING UNIT WORK!!!!!!!!!BOTTOM-LINE I DOUBT VERY SERIOUSLY THAT YOU WORK FOR $7.00/HR AND IF THE KELLY GIRLS WORKERS HAD A CHOICE BETWEEN UNION NEGOTIATED WAGES AND THEIR CURRENT WAGES, I WOULD BET MONEY THAT THEY WOULD CHOOSE THE UNION WAGES/BENEFITS. IF THEY WOULDN’T THEN THAT IS JUST DOWN RIGHT CRAZY!!!!!!!!A FAIR DAYS LABOR FOR A FAIR DAYS WAGE, THINK ABOUT HOW MUCH PROFIT IS GENERATED FROM THE PRODUCTIVITY OF UNION CRAFT EMPLOYEES…..IT COULD JUST AS EASILY BE SAID THAT IF THOSE KELLY GIRL EMPLOYEES ARE PERFORMING CRAFT WORK THAT WAS NEGOTIATED TO A CERTAIN WAGE SCALE THEN, GUESS WHAT, YEAH THAT’S RIGHT, THEY ARE JUST BEING EXPLOITED. OH YEAH BY THE WAY, ARE YOU ACTUALLY COMPLAINING ABOUT BEING “OVER” PAID?????WHAT KINDA IDIOT DOES THAT? GET A LIFE WORKER ANT!!!!
August 18th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Guess the idiot PCES will get a promotion and transfer to L’Enfant Plaza.
August 19th, 2007 at 8:34 am
When Priority Mail started, the entire network was contracted out. It ended up being a disaster. So bad in fact USPS had to sue to get out of that contract. The contractor’s “cheap” labor was ridiculously incompetent and the contractor itself was found to be artificially inflating numbers to bilk the PO out of money they didn’t earn.
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. When you offer a decent compensation, you get a decent employee.
B, you ask who complains about being “overpaid”?
When this award notice was posted in Phoenix, I overheard one of the non members say “Great, more money we don’t deserve”. So these people do exist, and they all seem to be non union members - they hate themselves I guess…
August 19th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Sounds like we need to increase PCES pay to ensure more disasterous decisions like this (and CSBCS staffing, and CDS routes, etc…) don;t happen!!??
As long as our customers pick up the tab regardless, and none of the EL&R and PCES dummies that made this decision suffer the consequences they would if they were in private industry, it will continue.
August 20th, 2007 at 1:50 am
When will custodians receive their cash remedy from the MS47 ruling, it’s been a long wait. My 1188 is ready.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Another great acheivement for APWU. You never hear this type WIN from NALC. With all of the
contracting out going on in the carrier craft you would think a good settlemnt like this would come up but it never does. Hey Young ,
we should be represented by APWU. You need to
think about a merger.
August 27th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
This is so awesome! My Chief Steward and I are working on a grievance against USPS for hiring casuals “in lieu of” career employees. Let’s all keep fighting for what is right and rightfully ours!! JUST AWESOME!
September 18th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Sounds like “Workerant” is both a scab and a former Kelly girl. Too bad for you on both of those choices. You should get what you contribute…. nothing. I hope sometime soon the APWU will find a way to keep SCABS from collecting monetary settlements. Management is NOT accountable for making costly bad decisions and as long as upper management continues to let them… then keep on sending the career employees BIG settlement checks… I’ll just keep laughing all the way to the bank !!!!! A GREAT job by our devoted APWU rep’s for a huge pay out to the proud members of the Phoenix Metro Area Local !
Thank You !!
September 28th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
First, I would like to say that I agree that scabs shouldn’t receive a dime. I understand that the APWU must represent them but I feel it should be limited to disciplinary issues and maybe simple things like OTDL bypasses. Second, this issue at hand here is not whether or not we are overpaid, the issue is the fact that the USPS contracted out our work. If the union doesn’t fight for our jobs and our future, who will? The union must grieve these cases or we will all become expendable. The union has such big issues that they must face on a daily basis and unfortunately, they must waste their time dealing with non-dues paying employees. I was a steward for the Phoenix Metro Area Local from March 1999 through Oct. 2005. I found that most of the people complaining or in some kind of trouble were the scabs. Our representatives did an outstanding job on this case. Thank you Steve Zamanakos, JoAnn Gerhart, and Renee Breeden, plus anyone that I forgot to name.
November 29th, 2007 at 7:16 am
USPS has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars for the “in lieu of” settlements, and yet they dont care, because, as usual, no one is held accountable. We have slapped management for millions in Michigan, yet they still continue to be way over the caps for use of casuals, and they claim labor costs… ha ha…
December 31st, 2007 at 12:02 pm
DON’T COUNT YOUR CHICKENS BEFORE THEY HATCH. CLERKS STILL HAVE NOT RECIEVED A DIME OF THS SETTLEMENT. MANAGEMENT HAS FOUGHT THIS EVERY STEP OF THE WAY. RIGHT NOW IT IS BACK AT THE ARBITRATOR FOR MORE CLARIFICATION. WE MIGHT SEE IT IN A COUPLE OF YEARS.
January 20th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Maybe they should take these settlement payments from the retirement funds of those causing the violations. Hopefully that would get rid of their ” I don’t care if it’s wrong, grieve it” Attitudes I bet there would be NO infractions then. Make THEM pay not the consumers.Just a thought
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:53 pm
It is now nearing the end of January and the clerks in Phoenix have yet to see a dime! Seems as if the list of eligible clerks was not presented to the Arbitrator by the APWU prior to him rendering his decision on August 7, 2007.
Therefore the Arbitrator based his decision solely on the 1996 seniority list which was the only list admitted into evidence. When the APWU submitted their list to the Postal Service in September 2007, they included employees hired in 1997 thru 1999 as well as retirees. These employees were not included in the Arbitrators original decision and so the Postal Service is denying payment to these employees. A SECOND brief is to be submitted by the end of the week and then the Arbitrator has 30 days to make a ruling. We have been told that we should hear something by the end of February. My only question is: Why didn’t our APWU submitt the list of eligible employees to the Arbitrator prior to him rendering his decision on August 7, 2007? thereby avoiding all these delays and additional arbitrations? To date, I have not gotten an answer to this question.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Another delay. Grievances have been settled and paid all over the country since this grievance was “WON” but still another delay. And why isn’t the union saying anything. We were told we would hear by the end of February and all I have heard is it is delayed, AGAIN! Its been 1 year since we heard we won this grievance. Maybe the union in writing the original grievance should have been more thorough and we wouldn’t have these delays. Management can’t be all to blame.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:33 am
The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) allows parties four (4) bases to review an arbitral award. The fourth states,”the arbitrators…failed to render a…definite award.” This has been upheld in court (Coast Trading Co. v. Pacific Molasses Co., 681 F.2d 1195, 1198 (9th Cir. 1982) which vacated an award based upon, “awarded remedies barred by the agreement.”
The APWU has itself contended that the original wording of the award violated it’s own by-laws regarding payments to retirees. The PO says the agreement is to pay only current employees.
I think it will be awhile before any award is forthcoming.