A postal employee in Little Rock, Arkansas reports that a station manager has developed an alternative program to DOIS, and is using that program instead of DOIS to manage letter carrier times. The employee states the program cuts carrier times even shorter than DOIS. According to the employee, the program has gained the notice of the Southwest Area, who are singing the station manager's praises.

"From what I am hearing, it is almost certain that Dallas MPO and North Texas P&DC will be combined in some fashion due to the approval of the consolidation study.  There will be a town hall meeting on July 1 to discuss the findings." - Dallas Clerk

Source: NALC

The subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia marked up H.R. 22 today and passed it by a unanimous vote. This legislation will allow the United States Postal Service to pay its share of contributions for annuitants' health benefits out of the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund.

I commend the hundreds of letter carriers, state presidents and congressional district liaisons (CDLs) who worked tirelessly, both here in Washington and back at home, to bring us the 337 co-sponsors of this bill. No other pending legislation in Congress has as many cosponsors and such bipartisan support.

For purely technical reasons, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) "scored" the bill, which means they gave it a projected cost of about $12 billion, even though the bill does not require any taxpayer funds. Nonetheless, this was a threat to passage on the floor due to the "pay-go" rules currently enforced in the House.

With major input from the NALC and with the leadership of Committee Chairman Stephen Lynch (D-MA) and Full Committee Chairman Ed Towns (D-NY), an amended version of the bill was crafted, which shortens the relief from eight years to three years in order to reduce the score and improve the chances of House passage. Full Committee Ranking Member Darrel Issa (R-CA) and Subcommittee Ranking Member Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) were also instrumental in the passage of the amended bill.

We worked hand-in-hand with the bill’s original authors, Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) and Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), both longtime friends and advocates for letter carriers. Although the bill falls short of what was originally intended, we stand firm in our support for H.R. 22 as amended and will continue to work diligently to pass this bill in full committee and to send it to the full House of Representatives for a vote.

When there is an opportunity in the future through other legislative vehicles to strengthen the Postal Service, we will pursue them. However, at this time, I want to thank the above-mentioned committee leadership as well as the other members of the subcommittee who took the first step in advancing this very important bill. I will keep you posted on the progress of this legislation. I ask that you continue to thank all the original co-sponsors of the bill and impress upon them the importance of sticking with us as we approach floor action in the House of Representatives.

My sincere thanks again to all of those who worked with us to help protect the future of all letter carriers and the United States Postal Service.

In Solidarity,

William H. Young, President

Heard on the street. This is at least third-hand information, but I'm hearing something about the USPS having delivery supervisors (perhaps only 204Bs) supervise for 4 hours and deliver for 4 hours in an effort to cut costs and increase efficiencies.

Sounds good, but I see at least one problem, at least for my area (Dallas). Many of the 204Bs in Dallas that I've run across are Limited Duty.

On a similar note, some junior (seniority) supervisors in the Dallas area have already received RIF (Reduction in Force) notices, meaning they will be out of a job unless they find one within a certain time period. Currently, they're on their second-round of bidding. One six-year supervisor told me she was frustrated by the job hunt, because she is seeing a number of 204Bs holding down supervisory positions, with no promoted supervisors in sight. In fact, my post office has a promoted station manager, but two 204B Limited Duties that are running the place. I'm not sure exactly what's up with this, but perhaps these positions have a promoted supervisor assigned, but they are detailed to ad hoc positions.

These ad hoc positions were recently addressed by one of the postal supervisor union heads in recent testimony before congress. He talked of the cascading effect that detailed positions cause in the Postal Service. Detail a person, and that person's position needs to be detailed, and so on down the line. I'm wondering if the USPS will eventually put all of these managers and supervisors back in their original positions in an effort to curb management workhours.

From NAPS:

Organizational Changes – March 20, 2009

 

 

• The Postal Service is closing 6 of the 80 district offices, eliminating 521 positions across the country and offering early retirement to nearly 150,000 employees nationwide (excluding Electronic Technicians, MPE Maintenance Mechanics, Part-time Postmasters)

 

• For the remaining 74 districts across the country, there will be a 15% reduction in administrative staffing.

 

• More than 1400 mail processing management positions are also being eliminated in nearly 400 facilities around the country.

 

District Closings

 

• Massachusetts District – 116 impacted employees (105 are eligible to retire)

            Boston District and the Connecticut District (Hartford CT) will assume the    

            operations.

 

• New Hampshire/Vermont District – 75 impacted employees (68 eligible to retire)

           Northern New England District (Portland ME) will assume operations.

 

• Erie District – 63 impacted employees (44 eligible to retire)

            Western Pennsylvania District (Pittsburgh PA) will assume operations.

 

• Central Florida District – 104 impacted employees (79 eligible to retire)

            South Florida District (Miami FL) and Suncoast District (Tampa FL) will   

            assume operations.

 

• Spokane District – 71 impacted employees (52 eligible to retire)

            Seattle District and the Salt Lake City District will assume operations.

 

• Central New Jersey District – 92 impacted employees (63 eligible to retire)

            Northern New Jersey District (Newark NJ) and the South Jersey District

            (Bellmawr NJ) will assume operations.  

 

It will take approximately 5 months to close down the functions performed at the impacted districts. We expect this to be finalized by the end of August 2009.

 

Impacted employees will be given 5 months notice to look for a placement within the Postal Service. If unable to do so, the employee will be given a RIF notice on June 24, 2009.  Once the RIF notice is received, the employee then has 60 days before their employment status with the Postal Service will end on August 28, 2009.

 

Function 1 – EAS positions

 

In excess of 1400 EAS positions in more than 400 facilities will be eliminated in mail processing operations.

 

These positions are being eliminated based on a mathematical computation designed to readjust our management-to-craft employee ratio to factor in the thousands of craft employees who have left the Postal Service in the last several years.    

 

An employee who is impacted by this decision will be given 4 month’s notice to look for placement within the Postal Service. If they are unable to do so, the employee will be given a Specific RIF notice on May 27, 2009. Once the RIF notice is received, the employee has 60 days before their employment status with the Postal Service will end on July 31, 2009.