PostalReporter.com Blog

MESSAGE from National Association Of Letter Carriers’ President WILLIAM H. YOUNG

 You can’t pick up a newspaper these days or turn on the news without finding another report of law enforcement abuse. Unauthorized surveillance, illegal searches, suspension of civil liberties, beatings—all the way from wiretaps to water-boarding. Call that the Bad Cop side.

Of course, in today’s world, our personal security is on the line and we need effective law enforcement. Whether it’s the neighborhood cop or a super-spook, we need that “Thin Blue Line” to protect us from the worst that human nature can deliver. That’s the Good Cop side.

What has this got to do with the Postal Service, and letter carriers, and the NALC? Plenty. We have our own Good Cop/Bad Cop syndrome—and increasingly the Bad Cop is in the driver’s seat. And NALC is not going to sit still for it.

Now, we are not stupid. With 800,000 USPS employees, there are bound to be some bad apples. Even among our own 225,000 city letter carriers there will be some who do not deserve to wear the uniform.

Because of those rare bad apples, all postal employees have been subjected to surveillance throughout the history of the Postal Service—peepholes and catwalks, cameras hidden in bathrooms and supervisors hiding behind trees. You name it, we’ve seen it. Sometimes professional; all too often, Keystone Kops-like; occasionally outrageous and completely unacceptable.

In that last category we have entered a new era, the era of the “Office of Inspector General,” which has taken over from the Postal Inspectors—and from the Postal Service itself—key elements of employee monitoring, investigations and law enforcement.

How is the OIG doing?

In the past year, in just three cities—Houston, Texas, and Battle Creek and Grand Rapids, Michigan—OIG agents brought charges that resulted in more than 100 removals. In virtually every case, the improperly suspended carriers were returned to work with full back pay, including lost overtime.The total cost to the rate-payers was well over $1 million, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars for replacement labor during the wrongful suspensions and the high cost of litigating the removals through the grievance-arbitration process.

In Houston, a 35-year carrier, less than a year from retirement, was placed on emergency suspension, and then removed, in a case that the arbitrator ultimately stated was “so lacking in substance that it bordered on an unconscionable act.” The arbitrator not only reinstated the employee with full back pay, but also awarded an extra half-day’s pay for each day he was off the clock for a four-month period, noting “there is not a remedy that can give back to the grievant what he lost.” (He “lost his home, alienated his family due to the mental strain he endured, had
his phone cut off….”)

In addition to bungling “investigations” of letter carriers, the OIG also has appointed itself a “health oversight agency” and is going after personal, legally protected health information without the consent or authorization of carriers. The OIG secretly contacts doctors for the information and tells them to keep their letter carrier patients in the dark about the loss of privacy. Outrageous!

I have directed NALC’s attorneys to pursue this matter relentlessly through litigation. But trashing letter carriers, trampling on their rights, snooping into their medical records, and generally acting like an out-of-control Bad Cop isn’t enough for the Inspector General. He thinks he’s a management guru, too, testifying before Congress in favor of contracting out, an “incentive-based letter carrier performance system” (read: “if we like you, we pay you”), and “a slow, de facto privatization of the Postal Service.”

Who knows what’s next: The color of our uniforms? The design—or price—of stamps? But remember, Inspectors General come and they go. The NALC stays because its job is to make sure that the Bad Cops do not get away with their excesses—that they stay within their proper jurisdiction, and when they step out of bounds, that the USPS pays for it. Every nickel. Every dime. Every million dollars.

source: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS Postal Record - December 2007

Related links:

NALC Young: It’s time to stop the ‘run amok’ Postal OIG

APWU Questions Postal Inspection Service Transition to OIG

Burrus Update

When President Bush signed an Executive Order granting non-essential federal employees a day off on Dec. 24, 2007, I requested that the Postal Service follow the same spirit of holiday cheer and grant postal employees the day off as well. Postmaster General Potter has informed me verbally — and information published in the USPS Newsbreak confirms — that the Postal Service will operate on a reduced schedule on Dec. 24 [PDF]; but postal employees who desire to be off will be required to use leave.

Employee schedules are governed by the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and the 2006-2010 agreement, which was ratified by APWU members early in 2007, does not include provisions granting APWU-represented employees holidays simply because they have been granted to federal employees. Even though the postal holidays are also days that the federal government recognizes for federal employees, the source of holiday recognition for postal workers is the negotiated agreement.

The union will address this issue in future rounds of bargaining. Because the cost of closing the Postal Service for a day is estimated by management to be nearly $175 million, we can expect resistance during negotiations.

Although APWU-represented employees will not be able to enjoy Dec. 24 as a scheduled off-day unless they use leave, 2007 has been a productive year for us. Perhaps our most outstanding achievement was the elimination of Part-Time Flexible employees in 440 postal installations.

For many of the newly-converted employees, Christmas Day 2007 will be the first holiday of their careers for which they will be paid without working. Congratulations!!!

And to all APWU members and your families

The APWU family wishes you: Happy Holidays

William Burrus
President

Largest Implementation of its Kind Anywhere Gives Employees Unprecedented Informational Access
 
WASHINGTON, DC — Postal Service employees everywhere now have access to a new cutting-edge human resources (HR) system to meet the demands of the information age. Rollout of the technology phase of the PostalPEOPLE initiative, the largest implementation of its kind in the federal government or private sector, was completed in October. 

“This massive undertaking is helping the Postal Service to increase efficiency and reduce costs while giving employees individualized information and access to human resources-related applications, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Anthony Vegliante, chief human resources officer and executive vice president

Using SAP software, the new platform replaces a system that once consisted of more than 3,800 Postal Service HR professionals relying on more than 200 processes and some 70 systems to support nearly 700,000 employees.  Now, those HR professionals, free from repetitive, manual processes, can focus on the Postal Service’s strategic focus to better align the workforce and meet present and future challenges, head-on.

“The result is a single view of the employee that improves service to our employees, customer satisfaction and our ability to conduct business,” said Vegliante.

Completion of the nationwide rollout enables the Postal Service to introduce two significant new services to employees. First is a new self-service tool for managers, which provides managers, postmasters and supervisors with information and resources online to help manage the workforce, perform administrative tasks, and assist their employees with skill development.

A second service has been launched on the organization’s intranet site, allowing employees to perform job bidding anywhere they have access to the Internet. This enhances ease of use for bargaining unit employees and provides them with a new way to access the job-bidding system.

The PostalPEOPLE initiative most notably includes the Shared Services Center in Greensboro, NC. The full-service facility is staffed by professionally trained career postal HR personnel who provide assistance to employees who need to speak directly with a person.

Additional functionality will be added in the coming year, leveraging this technology platform to further streamline and enhance HR functions within the Postal Service.

Jim Letten, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana announced Friday the indictments of nine postal employees for conspiracy to steal from the United States Mail.

Among the indicted were:

52-year-old Timothy B. Dede
36-year-old Benson V. Dabney
53-year-old Clyde Lee Caston
33-year-old Louin Seabrook Jackson
44-year-old Kim Yvette Hester Martin
42-year-old Felicia Danielle Tanner
48-year-old Tyrone Lewis
43-year-old Tanya S. Payton-Lewis
47-year-old Anthony Martin

Dede and Dabney were also charged with a single count of theft by postal employees, Letten said.

The indictment alleges the nine postal workers conspired to buy, receive and/or unlawfully possess stolen mail.

If convicted, the defendants could each face a prison term of five years, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. Dede and Dabney each face another five years in jail, along with a $250,000 fine, for the other charges.

source: WWL-TV

NALC Presdient William Young released the following message:

My thanks to all of you who responded to my call over the weekend to contact Senators Bill Nelson, Ben Nelson, Mark Pyror and Blanche Lincoln. At present, Senator Harkin’s amendment to the Labor-HHS appropriations bill that would make it easier for FedEx workers to organize a union remains in the draft Labor-HHS appropriations bill. A related provision will be included House appropriations legislation as well. We are now well-positioned to win this important battle for a stronger middle class and a level playing field for the Postal Service in the express delivery business.

Earlier this week, we activated the state association’s legislative phone tree to request activists in your states to contact Senators Inouye, Stevens and Cochran regarding Senator Harkin’s amendment to the Labor-HHS appropriations bill that would make it easier for FedEx workers to organize a union. My thanks to all of you who responded.

It is not known at this time when the appropriations legislation will be taken up on either side of the Capitol. Other spending disputes between Congress and the White House (on the Iraq war and domestic spending) have stalled consideration of the legislation for now. If these disputes cannot be resolved, Congress may forgo the appropriations process altogether and enact a continuing resolution to keep the government running through the rest of the year. In any event, I will keep you informed.

Please suspend calling the Senators’ offices until I contact you again. Thank you again for your activism and your commitment to improving the lives of all working Americans.

In Solidarity,
William H. Young
President

The letter below is USPS’ response to an inquiry by NALC  on Postal Employees entitlement to 22 days additional paid Military Leave in support of contingency operations:

The following are excerpts from Lawson A. Rose v. United States Postal Service (Merit System Protection Board [MSPB] decision issued December 10, 2007):

Effective January 31, 2007, the agency removed the appellant from his position as a preference-eligible PS-4 Regular Mail Handler with the agency’s Cardiss Collins Postal Facility (Cardiss Collins) in Chicago, Illinois, based on a charge of Unacceptable Conduct/Violent and Threatening Behavior Towards Co-Workers. The agency based its charge on a November 5, 2006 incident in which the appellant went to Cardiss Collins’s attendance control office and allegedly shouted at Mail Processor Clerks Janice Dean and Roslyn Oliver, “Give me my [time] card before I blow your brains out.”  After Ms. Dean and Ms. Oliver informed him that his card was not in the office, the appellant left the office, then returned about ten minutes later and allegedly acted as though he was “holding a machine gun/firearm and making machine gun sounds while pointing at Ms. Dean and Ms. Oliver. He then allegedly laughed and walked a way.

footnote: the AJ noted that Ms. Dean and Ms. Oliver attempted to retract their complaints against the appellant about three weeks before the hearing and informed the agency that they would not testify at the hearing absent a subpoena from the AJ. The AJ found that, “based on their testimony during the hearing, it is clear Ms. Dean and Ms. Oliver requested not to participate in this appeal because they remain afraid of the appellant.”

The appellant appealed his removal to the Board and requested a hearing. He denied threatening anyone and argued that the agency’s action was taken in retaliation for his prior equal employment opportunity (EEO) activity. The administrative judge (AJ) apprised the appellant of the burden and elements of proof as to his affirmative defense.

After a hearing, the AJ issued an ID affirming the agency’s action. The AJ found that the agency proved its charge by preponderant evidence, that the action promotes the efficiency of the service, and that the penalty of removal is reasonable,  The AJ further found that the appellant failed to prove his affirmative defense.

The appellant has filed a PFR in which he asks the Board to consider documents that he filed in another Board appeal.

The AJ erred in analyzing the charge.

We have reopened this case because we find that the AJ erred in not analyzing the charge under Metz v. Department of the Treasury, 780 F.2d 1001,1002-03 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The AJ correctly noted that, in deciding whether statements constitute threats, the Board applies the reasonable person standard, considering the listeners’ reactions, the listeners’ apprehension of harm, the speaker’s intent, any conditional nature of the statements, and any attendant circumstances. Metz, 780 F.2d at 1002-03;. However, the AJ then incorrectly identified the charge as “making statements that caused anxiety and disruption in the workplace” and stated that, “because intent is not an element of the charge, the appellant’s intent is irrelevant to determine whether he engaged in the charged misconduct . . . .” Accordingly, the AJ did not analyze the charge under Metz.

In assessing the reasonableness of the agency’s penalty, the AJ considered the relevant documentary evidence and the hearing testimony of Mr. Muse and noted that the Board has repeatedly upheld removal penalties in threat cases. She reviewed Mr. Muse’s reasoning and found that, although the agency failed to present evidence which would explain Mr. Muse’s assertions concerning the notoriety of the appellant’s conduct or his lack of rehabilitative potential, removal did not exceed the bounds of reasonableness in light of the seriousness of the offense and the Board’s precedent finding that removal is a reasonable penalty under similar circumstances. Recognizing that the Board must accord proper deference to the agency’s primary discretion in managing its workforce, we see no reason to disturb this finding.

Rose vs USPS (PDF)

According to Inside Indiana Business:

The U.S. Postal Service Remote Encoding Center in Fort Wayne is adding workers. The center has added 111 jobs since the same time last year to handle an increasing workload as other centers around the nation close. The City of Fort Wayne recently awarded the Fort Wayne REC a $70,000 grant to assist with facility improvements.

Once numbering 55, just 8 Remote Encoding Centers are now maintained by the Postal Service across the country. That number is expected to continue to decrease over time. Located at 2980 East Coliseum Boulevard since 1995, the Fort Wayne REC currently employs a total of 584 workers, up from 473 at this time last year. The workload has grown by approximately 20% as well. Over 500 million pieces are expected to be processed this year in Fort Wayne, up from 427 million in 2006.

Full story from Inside Indiana Business

The American Postal Workers Union released the following: 

After President Bush issued an Executive Order granting non-essential federal employees a day off on Dec. 24, 2007, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) quickly announced that the order did not apply to postal employees.

OPM wrote, “The Executive Order excuses most Executive Branch employees from duty on Dec. 24. The day off does not affect Postal Service workers, nor does it include Executive Branch employees whose agencies determine they cannot be excused for reasons of national security, defense or other essential public need.”

Despite the exclusion of postal employees from President Bush’s order, I have officially asked [PDF] the postmaster general, in the spirit of the season, to grant postal employees a day off on Dec. 24, 2007.

As I reminded the PMG, postal employees are no less deserving of recognition for their outstanding service than other federal workers.

The Appeals court has upheld the demotion of a Postal Customer Services Supervisor, EAS-17 for altering timekeeping records.

According to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals:

Prior to his demotion in October 2005, Richard Davis was Supervisor, Customer Services, EAS-17, responsible for supervising mail carriers at the Burlington Station in Knoxville, Tennessee. One of his tasks as a supervisor was to ensure that all mail carriers returned to the station by 5:00 p.m. each day. Under the agency’s timekeeping system, every mail carrier would “clock in” upon returning to the station, creating a daily “clock ring entry” indicating the exact time of his or her return.

A June 2005 review of timekeeping records revealed that  Davis was responsible for a high number of changes in his subordinates’ clock ring entries. In each instance, it was determined, Davis had changed the return time from after 5:00 p.m. to exactly 5:00 p.m. or some time before that, in order to comply with the agency’s target deadline. Davis made seventeen such clock ring alterations, substantially more than any other supervisor.

As a result of its investigation, the agency demoted Davis for unsatisfactory work performance for improperly altering his subordinates’ clock ring entries. Davis appealed his demotion to the Board. Following a hearing, the administrative judge to whom the appeal was assigned issued an initial decision in which he sustained the agency’s action.

Based upon the evidence presented to him, the AJ concluded that the agency had met its burden on all three criteria. First, the AJ found preponderant evidence of Mr. Davis’s unsatisfactory work performance due to his improper clock ring alterations. Davis testified that the clock ring alterations in question were in fact proper because he only made them when a mail carrier had actually returned before 5:00 p.m. but did not clock in until after that deadline. The AJ was not persuaded by this claim, which contradicted separate testimony by mail carrier witnesses who stated that “as a matter of course, they clocked in when they returned.”

Davis asserted disparate treatment. His claim is that, while several allegedly similarly situated supervisors also engaged in questionable clock ring adjustments, he was the only one demoted. We reject this argument. Davis was not similarly situated to the other supervisors since he had committed a substantially greater number of questionable clock ring adjustments. For example, it was determined that Davis made seventeen questionable changes, while the next highest total for any supervisor in the area was ten.

The court determined that “since Mr. Davis had abused his supervisory authority to manipulate important agency data the demotion” was justified.

Davis vs. USPS (PDF)