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FOR YOUR INFORMATION
This is the first FYI since our elections have been completed. Many things have happened over the last couple of months which I will try and bring you up to date on with this FYI. As in the past, you will continue to be provided various information through these FYI’s. FYI’s, when published, will be sent to all offices for posting on all Mail Handler Bulletin Boards. First, I would like to thank all of the members who supported me in being the first President from Local 321 to be elected to two consecutive terms as president. I consider the support as a vote of confidence, for which I am very proud. Rest assured that I will continue to do my very best in giving you, the membership, the best service and representation that I can. Local Election Processes LIUNA Elections (held every 5 years): Out of the 47 delegates elected to attend the LIUNA convention from the Central Region, none of the delegates will be coming from our Local. We did have three members from our Local who ran for delegate seats. However, with Locals like Chicago (over 4000 members) within our region, the odds of one of our members making delegate was minimal at best. Once the convention is concluded later this month, information on the proceedings at the Convention should become available to all locals. As this information is received, it will be distributed to your office for posting. Mail Handlers National Convention Elections (held every 4 years): As you should know, our Local sent 5 delegates to attend the 1996 National Convention which was held in New Orleans, Louisiana. I (and a lot of members) have always had an opinion that not much work was accomplished at these conventions and they weren’t much more than a big party. I stand corrected. As one of the delegates, I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised at the amount work that was completed during the convention. In the upcoming newsletter the convention will be covered, as well as the changes which were adopted to our National and Local Constitutions. Local Elections for 321 (held every 3 years): The election processes as a whole went very well and for than we owe a special thanks to this years Judges, Richard Paylor and Luis "Carlos" Rios from the BMC and Yvonne Sedillo, Gil Gomez and Jerry Adams from the GMF. Local 321 would like to thank the membership for their participation in the election process and the turnout at the polls. Still, more than 40% of our members failed to return their ballots for whatever reason. I would like to say that it is important that all of you vote, as the voice of the entire membership is better than the voice of a few. I would also like to congratulate each of our newly elected officers and I hope that the next three years are as productive as the last three, if not more so. The last point I would like to make is that I believe we have a very good group of elected officers to represent our Local during the next three years. Contract Update It is hard to say when they will finalize all of the pay issues with our new contract, but it will probably occur before we get our copy of the new contract. Our contract is currently at the printers, but the Postal Service is arguing over the color of the cover of the book (they will disagree with anything). National informed us around the beginning of September that it would be about 4 to 6 weeks before we receive the new contract in book form. On the pay issue side, September 20, 1996 is the date that all retroactive money owed from our raise in November and our COLA from March are due to be paid. This will only leave the issue of the second waive of lump sum checks, for those who never received the original, which were agreed to be issued nationally. As you should know by now, the parties met Nationally and agreed that the criteria laid out by the arbitrator for eligibility for receipt of the 2.78% was unreasonable. The parties have agreed to a new criteria which qualifies many more members for the payment of 2.78%. The payment date for this payment has yet to be determined by the Postal Service. After that payment is issued we will then have 180 days to appeal any dispute over eligibility which remains. Also, on September 20th the Postal Service will take the retroactive dues increase from your check. For Local 321 this amount is $.25 per pay period versus the $.50 constitutionally required increase. The reason for this decrease in the amount is the Executive Board has agreed to continue to reduce the increases until we get our local back to the minimal requirement of the constitution. It was our understanding that this Local had inflated its dues only $.50, which amount we now have corrected with our most recent waiver of the $.25 indicated above. Just as a point of information, every contract raise is suppose to mean a $.50 increase in dues, $.25 to National $.25 to the Local, the Local $.25 being the portion we have been waiving for the last 3 years. However, at the convention it became evident that sometime prior to the $.50 increase, our Local had made another increase of $.75. Currently we pay $12.75 and the minimal requirement of our constitution is $12.00. Further attempts will be made by this Local to continue to reduce the dues, (as increases occur) until such time as we are back to the minimal requirements of the constitution. The second COLA for 1996 has been determined to be $416 dollars which equates to a $.20 an hour raise. This should first be seen on your pay check issued on September 20, 1996. The effective date of this raise was August 31. Modified Workweeks (4/10’s) All of the offices around the state where modified 4-day 10-hour workweeks were tested are now back to the regular 5-day 8-hours schedules. It is now the responsibility of the Postal Service and the National Unions to tabulate all of the information from the various test sites and come to a conclusion if this type of workweek is beneficial or not. It is anticipated that those calculations and discussions will take more than two years to complete. The general consensus is that craft employees liked it and management did not. Under the new 1994 National Agreement any office where both parties can agree to implement a modified workweek have a right to request to do so through the National Offices. It is the position of this Local that if an office cares to test a modified workweek, and it can be agreed to with management locally, then they are free to apply to National for authorization. Currently no office in the country has applied under the provisions of the new agreement. When and if additional information is released on this issue it will be conveyed to you. Postal Labor Council As most of you know our Local is part of a Postal Labor Council developed here in Colorado, which consists of many of the Postal Union Locals around the state. The main objective of this council is to devote a combined effort in addressing legislative issues with various state and federal representatives. The Postal Labor Council has scheduled the second annual Legislative Breakfast for October 20,1996. Last years breakfast was a big success with a multitude of speakers (e.g., Quinn, Biller and Schroder). As with last year’s breakfast, the Local has agreed to supplement the cost of the breakfast to the members. Tickets are available through the Local for $5.00 each. Watch your upcoming newsletter for further details on the breakfast. Equipment Issues The Local has just leased two new copy machines (which have a one dollar buyout at the end of the 3 year lease) and purchased one used smaller machine. The new machines are much faster and more efficient than the previous ones. The Local now has a total of 8 copy machines. In addition we have 6 computers and a multitude of word processors throughout the state. We will continue to upgrade our offices and their equipment as needed and when funds allow. Grievance Arbitration Issues Recently we went through some changes with our Modified Step 3 process where the Postal Service tried to separate discipline cases from contract cases. They assigned discipline cases to be met on by the Labor Reps at the district level, while leaving contract cases with their reps at the Area level. After much difficulty, we were successful in getting all of the cases returned to the Area level as the district people were too directly involved with the cases to have a non-biased position. This process also slowed down the ability to meet on case in a reasonable time frame. These problems should now be behind us so that we can meet and resolve cases at a more efficient rate. Just as a point of information, the modified grievance process allows us to meet locally on all step 3 cases for the state rather than having them shipped to Chicago for discussion. We have been continually busy with a variety of arbitration hearings. While at the convention in New Orleans, we were notified by our National Contract Administration Department that currently, Local 321 has the best arbitration record around. This is quite an accomplishment of which we can all be proud. In addition to being successful in arbitrations, we have made great strides in being able to settle cases headed for arbitration prior to the date of hearing, saving more the $1,500 (in hearing costs) in each case where we are successful in pre-arb discussions. Training Issues In the last year or so we spent a considerable amount of money on various training programs for stewards and officers alike. Currently over 60% of the stewards and 100% of the offices have received arbitration training. This training is not intended to make every steward a qualified advocate in arbitration. What it does is give the steward considerable insight into what it takes (evidence) to prevail in arbitration, as our record reflects. It is hoped to finalize this training program in the early part of next year. At that time it is hoped to begin to training stewards on various contractual provisions and the "just cause" requirements in removal cases. Initial level training is an ongoing process as we appoint new stewards and will continue to be a viable tool in our goal to represent the membership. It has also been determined to send Ron Lucero (GMF-AVP), and Rich Lujan (BMC-AVP), to arbitration training at George Meany Institute in the early part of January. It is hoped this training will give some much needed support to our Local’s advocacy skills. Arbitrations are very time consuming and costly. It is clearly in our best interest to have as many qualified advocates as possible. In addition the benefit of having an AVP qualified to advocate cases from his office(‘s) can not be overstated. They clearly have the most in-depth view of their office’s and the cases that derive from them. In April, it is hoped to send a couple of addition representatives to arbitration training at the George Meany Institute. Eventually, I would like to see us have 6 qualified and active advocates for arbitrations. This will help avoid any delays and offer us broader representation in arbitration hearings. Recently our Local completed Local Negotiation Training for all offices. This apparently is the first training of this kind to be given in our Local. The representatives who attended had favorable responses to the training and felt as though the training will offer great benefits in this years Local Negotiation process. Local Negotiations Local Negotiations have begun in many of our offices and the others will begin shortly. All Local Negotiations must be completed no later than November 8, 1996. At that point we will have to get the various locals printed and distributed to the membership. The main objective in Locals this year, in addition to trying to gain benefits, is to try and get Locals which are complete and consistent. Many of the current Locals cover only part of what is to be negotiated and leaves out much of what is needed. We have some locals which have not been changed in over 10 years. It is a nightmare trying to keep up with all of the Locals around the state, when not one of them has anything in common with the others. During training all offices were provided with the same packet, which should generally be followed, so we can get all of our Locals synchronized. Miscellaneous Issues There are a few other things I want to mention briefly. I am running out of room and have been requested to keep these postings to 4 pages, based on room on some bulletin boards.
Thank you, David E Ross President Local 321 NPMHU |