GMF/AMC/TA/WAREHOUSE
RON LUCERO 767-7159
GRAND
JUNCTION PHIL ARMENDAREZ 1-970-256-5591
PUEBLO
EDDIE FUENTES 1-719-222-7294
As most of you probably know
by now, the Postal Service has indicated that the $400.00
bonus will be paid on 12/13/96. After this payment (under the
current contract), we will receive 4 more cost of living
adjustments over the next two years, as well as, 1 general
wage increase of 1.2% (effective 11/22/97). Just as a
reminder, if you never received the 2.78% bonus and feel you
are entitled
We are finally down to the
last election which we as members are entitled to participate
in for a few years. Just recently, everyone should have
received their ballot for voting in the LIUNA election
process. Following the conclusion of the LIUNA elections, we
will have had the right to vote 5 times in the last 8 months.
It is a great benefit to be able to have your vote counted in
key processes which offer advancement potential to all of us.
The only downside here at the Local is, we have devoted a lot
of hours and incurred considerable expenses in dealing with
the elections. Ultimately, it is hoped that this time and
money has been well spent in the betterment of our Union and
working conditions in which we work. Below, is a brief
rundown of the election processes for the next 10 years:
I would like to compliment our
Local Union Membership for Re-electing William Quinn National
President, Mark Gardner National Secretary-Treasurer, Hardy
Williams Central Region Vice-President. Our Local (percentage
of votes counted) offered as strong of support for these
candidates as any Local in the Country. These Officers have
done a lot to repair the state of our Union at the National
level. Even though it was slow coming they served us well in
the presentation of our contact case at the National level.
They have taken our financial status from insolvent to more
than $6,000,000 in the bank in just over 3 years. They made
great gains in the area of information access to the Locals,
from the constant downflow of information to the introduction
of our arbitration search abilities over the Internet.
Currently, National is beginning to move on our backlog of
Step 4 grievances, National Arbitrations and National Level
Jurisdictional cases (RI-399).
Since the last FYI the
Executive Board has met on 7 occasions and the Local Council
has met once. During these meeting, the following issues were
discussed:
Local Negotiations
Over the last several months
we have successfully completed negotiating the Local
Agreements for each of our offices. This is with the
exception of the GMF/AMC/TA/Warehouse Local. The items which
remained in dispute after the completion of the GMF’s
Local Negotiations has now been moved to the impasse stage
for resolution either through negotiations between the step 3
representatives or arbitration. Once the impasse items are
settled the GMF Local will be printed for distribution to the
members. The BMC and Colorado Springs Local agreements will
be going to the printer around 12/15/96 and should be
available for distribution in early January. The other Local
agreements around the state should already be distributed to
those who desire a copy. If you have not received the a copy
of the Local for your office and desire a copy, you should be
able to obtain a copy through your steward.
Finances
Our financial status has
continued to improve gradually over the last 3 years. Even
this year, our financial status has been encouraging
considering we spent considerately more money than was
budgeted for Local Negotiations and election processes. This
encouraging outlook could be hampered drastically by the rate
change of the Mail Handlers Benefit Plan. The rates for our
plan have gone up considerably which may result in a
reduction of associate members. The reason for the drastic
rate increase is based on the fact our Health plan has kept
premiums down over the last several years by paying the
increase out of their excess revenue. This was done to keep
membership up while benefits were improved to new level of
coverage. Now that the excess revenue has been expended and
the benefits have reached a desirable level the actual cost
of benefits is being returned to the enrollees. This
compounded with the fact that at the National Convention the
delegates voted to increase the associate membership fees
from $36 to $42 per year, we may see a reduction in associate
membership. Our Local receives about half of its income
through the dues paid by our associate members. The bottom
line is we maybe impacted by the rate increase and we may
not, but we will not know the answer to this question until
the beginning of April when the final figures come out.
Training
In addition to trying to
schedule the final groups for advanced stewards training in
the early part of next year, we are beginning to develop a
group of advocates for arbitration hearings. Over the last 3
years we have survived with myself as the only advocate for
arbitrations for our Local. Recently, Jeff Morgan our
Treasurer has begun to assist in the area of advocating
cases. In January, Ron Lucero (AVP-GMF) and Richard Lujan
(AVP-BMC) will be attending a week long training secession on
"How Arbitration Works" at the George Meany
Institute for Labor Studies. It is also being considered to
send 2 additional representatives to this training in early
April. This should provide us with a reasonably sound group
of advocates to represent our Local in arbitrations.
It is intended to begin
training for Stewards based on specific contract references.
Over the last few years we have tried to provide to the
stewards the necessary tools to handle grievance processing.
Now we need to move to constancy and interpretations in the
application of the contract. This training will take
virtually forever as our contract changes and we have to
train based on available funds. Just as a point of
information, we have a little over 50 stewards in the state
which we have to provide with training. A single day of
training for all of the stewards costs the Local around
$10,000.
In addition, we provided Local
Negotiation Training to our representative involved in Local
Negotiations around the state. National had originally
intended to provide some training in this area, but that
training did not come about. The training provided by the
Local has allowed us to update the LMOU’s around the
state to an expectable level. Most of these LMOU’s were
seriously outdated and neglected to cover many of the Items
which are provided for under the National Agreement. Now, our
various LMOU’s have some consistency and many of them
are identical which allows for better constancy in
representation.
By-Laws
During our recent council
meeting some changes were made to our By-Laws which became
effective on 11/07/96 when approved by National President
William Quinn. Copies of our Local By-Laws are available to
any member who desires a copy, simply by requesting a copy
from your steward. Below is a brief overview of the changes
which were made during the Council Meeting on 10/25/96:
A change was made to
Article 3 Section 2 which establishes the salary for
the Local President and Technical Assistance
(currently not applicable). The new language
establishes the salary for the Local President at a
Level 5 Step O plus $13,000. The new language also
establishes the salary of the Technical Assistant at
a Level 5 Step O plus $7,000.
A change was made to
Article 3 Section 2 which establishes the salaries
for the Administrative Vice-Presidents. The new
language provides for a salary of $225 per month plus
$30.00 (per month) per hundred Mail Handlers in the
installation(‘s).
A change was made to
Article 3 Section 10 which deleted language which
allowed for LWOP reimbursement to an Executive Board
Member for attendance at General Membership Meetings.
Postal Posture
As many of you have probably
seen already, the Postal Service is becoming aggressive.
Unfortunately, this aggressiveness is not in seeking
additional revenue it is in the area of discipline. It is one
thing for management to cleanup their act and attempt to run
the Postal Service like a business. However, as always
management has gone from the extreme of not managing, to the
extreme of over managing (for lack of better words). The
current method of over managing is resulting in discipline to
the employees for most anything. We recently have seen
discipline based on nothing more than 3 absences, discipline
for lates of less than 5 minutes, discipline for accidents
(your fault or not), removals for verbal disagreements on the
floor, removals issued for almost all claims of sexual
harassment. Management’s Injury Compensation practices
have changed as well, forcing many injured employees (non-job
related) to choose between disability retirement, apply for
permanent light duty or resign. They have begun to monitor
(invade the privacy) employees who are out of work due to
injuries in hopes of catching them doing something outside of
their restriction so they can fire them for fraud. Even EAP
appears to be on the band wagon to remove employees as was
explained in my article in the last newsletter. The bottom
line is it does not appear to have anything to do with proper
treatment but appears to be more a matter of quota. All
employees need to be aware of this current position taken by
the Postal Service as it does not give consideration to good
workers nor does it give consideration to personal problems.
The Union will do everything possible in combating the Postal
Service on the issue of discipline which is issued for other
than Just Cause. The Union is also attempting to resolve some
of the labor climate problems with upper management but so
far these attempts have seemed to be futile.
General
Equipment
Even with all of the
additional expenses this year we were able to upgrade our
copiers with the purchase of 2 new copiers and one
refurbished one. As well we have purchased a laptop for use
by the Local. We have added additional pagers for further
improvement in the area of communications.
OWCP Representation
As most of you should know, we
maintain Mike Watson and Associates on a retainer for
assistance to members on OWCP matters (at a reduced cost).
The phone number for Mike Watson and Associates has changed
to 1-503-233-0911.
Golf Tournament/
Legislative Breakfast
We would like to pay a special
thanks to those who participated in the Locals first Annual
Golf Tournament. We also would like to offer a special thanks
to those members who were able to attend this years Second
Annual Legislative Breakfast.
Christmas
Based on the anticipated
impact caused by the health premium increase we decided to do
something a little different this year for Christmas. We will
be issuing aprons and hats out to the membership. The hats
are a denim blue with a embroidered colored logo, the aprons
will be similar to last one’s issued. These should be
distributed as soon as the aprons are received(mid to late
December). The reasoning for this decision is it allows us to
make the issuing of these items while we are assured adequate
funds are available.
Aprons
With the issuing of the aprons
later this month we will be implementing a new method for
distribution of aprons. We will be issuing aprons to members
on an as needed basis. To obtain a new apron you need to
bring your old apron in and inn exchange you will receive a
new apron. It is hoped this will allow us to provide aprons
to you when you need one. In exchange we hope that this will
not increase costs as many members take aprons because we
issue them and not necessarily because they want one. Please,
use your aprons for work and only request new one’s when
you really need one. If this program becomes cost restrictive
we will discontinue this program.
Lastly, we at Local 321 would
like to extend a special holiday greeting to all of our
members.