Everyone has heard the saying "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." Carriers at my post office aren't about to be fooled again in the second round of minor route adjustments, though they'll probably get the shaft anyway.

Today the station manager called carriers into the office to discuss the second round of minor route adjustments. The first thing she asked was the notorious question "how long is your time in the office and how long is your time on the street." Now, the station manager already has months worth of data to show exactly how long these are for every carrier. But as carriers learned during the first round of adjustments, this question was a trick gimmick to perhaps get a carrier to say a time that was shorter than the "computer's time," and that time, whether correct or not would instead be used to adjust the route. As for the street time the first time (first route adjustments) carriers were led to believe the time they gave management was without lunch time. Yet, according to feedback, management took another thirty minutes out for lunch anyway, thereby making many routes out of adjustment by thirty minutes from the start. So in this second round, some carriers I've talked to are either not answering this question or giving an answer that doesn't include time.

I know this question and answer thing sounds a little silly, but my point in all of this is that NALC negotiated this Minor Route Adjustment process in good faith, yet, some carriers feel they are not being treated in good faith by the other side in this process. But national NALC continues to go along with these onerous route adjustments, despite much negative feedback about the process. One only has to look in the back of NALC's Postal Record Magazine in the notes from the branches section to see how NALC members are very unhappy with many aspects of the adjustments. It seems to me there is a big disconnect with rank and file union carriers and NALC officials, and not just with national NALC. Here in Dallas for example there is much distrust of the minor route adjustment program and process. Yet, the local union official "in charge of" minor route adjustments on the union side said recently in the branch newsletter that perhaps more minor route adjustments will be needed in the future. Unbelievable! I don't mind someone saying that (for example if they are in management), but if I'm paying dues so that a union official can represent me then that is something they shouldn't be saying. By now, having supposedly learned lessons from the first round of adjustments, that is the last thing the union official should be saying.