New: Settlement on 2008 National Mail Count
Shortly into the 2008 national mail count the National Office started to receive calls with concerns of low volume. Just a few days following the mail count there were numerous calls of concern about mailings with in home delivery dates for the mail count period that were now being received after the mail count. The National Board decided that a national level grievance needed to be filed to address this mail flow issue. Shortly after filing the national level grievance, an all call went out to the state stewards to gather and provide the National Office with documentation so that a full investigation could be conducted by the National Board. After receiving the documentation from the field, many hours of research up to and not limited to contacting mailers and tracking mail from entry point to delivery by the carriers.
The burden of proof with a contractual grievance lies with the union. The union needed to prove that management manipulated the mail flow, mainly the requested in home delivery dated mailings during the 2008 national mail count. Although we had a tremendous amount of documentation provided from the field on dated mailings, we were unable to prove that management was the cause of these dated mailings arriving outside of the in home requested delivery dates.
www.divshare.com/direct/6... />
www.nrlca.org/membershipU...
just a thought folks...they couldnt prove manipulation...with thousands of documneted cases...time to relook at our current Evaluated system...past time actually...its all heading straight down the tubes from here!
Many of the other craft employees (e.g., APWU, NALC, NPHMU employees) in the Postal Service are not aware of the significant erosion to the rural carriers' livelihood over the past 6 years. Many career rural carriers have seen their routes adjusted to the point where their annual salaries have been reduced as much as 20 percent, some even higher. Furthermore, there have been some rural carriers who have had their routes cut several times over this 6 year period.
SteveSome of the reductions of rural carriers’ routes over the years have been related to declining volume, while some were related to both the time of year the routes were reevaluated and some based on allegations of inaccurate or manipulated mail counts. It's no wonder that many of our nation's rural carriers like many employees in the other crafts, have become angry and demoralized with the unilateral management approaches of the Postal Service.
Also, it is no wonder that the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA) unilaterally severed its Quality Work life/ Employee Involvement (QWL/EI) program with the USPS this past January. One of the central reasons for severing this program, as cited by the NRLCA, follows: “We have concluded that the Postal Service’s commitment to im¬prove the workplace environment has been pushed to the bottom of the list of concerns. More and more, the Postal Service has insist¬ed that the QWL/EI process work exclusively on issues that support its corporate goals.” At one time, the vast majority of our nation’s rural carriers were satisfied with their working environment. Unfortunately, today that is not the case for many of these dedicated carriers who serve our rural communities.
Beth: I am sorry that you and your craft are experiencing this economic upheaval and that the Postal Service becomes more "human" in how they approach mail count and pay for rural carriers.
10:57 AM EST