Last month the Postmaster General Pat Donahoe sent a letter to the Mail Handlers Union asking it to reopen the recently concluded contract negotiations with an eye to extracting more financial concessions from postal workers. The answer from the union was delivered this week, and it’s the same response Donahoe received from the other unions and management associations: “no thanks”.

Here’s the text of Mail Handler Union President John Hegarty’s reply to the PMG:

This is in response to your letter dated April 16, 2013, in which you request that “we reopen negotiations as soon as possible to address the potential for further cost reductions.”

The NPMHU must politely decline your request. As you know, the NPMHU and USPS just concluded a lengthy round of collective bargaining, ending in binding interest arbitration. The arbitrator (as always) took into account the financial condition of the Postal Service, and awarded a contract with substantial cost savings to the USPS. The Postal Service has just begun to implement the award, and as it does the savings will increase over time. The NPMHU therefore believes that to reopen negotiations only two months after issuance of a binding arbitration award would send the wrong message to the dedicated mail handlers working for the Postal Service, and would corrupt the collective bargaining process for future rounds of bargaining.

While we are always willing to work with the Postal Service to achieve cost savings, and to find new revenue streams, we cannot accommodate your request to reopen contract negotiations. Mail handlers already have contributed to the recent financial restructuring of the Postal Service; it is now up to Congress to authorize additional rate increases, to return the Postal Service’s pension overpayments, and to eliminate the onerous financial obligations imposed by the PAEA.

Mailhandlers Union President John Hegarty letter to the PMG.

NALC President Fred Rolando says he’s “gratified” that the USPS Board of Governors has, for now, pulled the plug on plans to discontinue Saturday mail delivery. The NALC is not pleased with another of the Board’s decision to ask the unions to reopen contract negotiations in order “to lower total workforce costs”:

“The Board’s call to reopen and renegotiate the postal labor contracts is yet another sign that the Postal Service needs new executive leadership. Asking the NALC to renegotiate a contract that was just settled in January is insulting and unnecessary. The new agreement, which reduced starting pay by 25 to 33 percent and allows for major health care savings, provides for several labor-management task forces to work on ways to increase revenues and cut costs.

Read more: Latest News | NALC President Rolando statement on USPS Board of Governors announcement.

Career APWU members will receive a $207 annual increase in pay beginning next month, APWU President Cliff Guffey has announced. “This raise is the result of the 2010-2015 Collective Bargaining Agreement, which preserved cost-of-living adjustments for our members,” he said. “They are an important part of our pay package.”

The cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) will be effective March 9 and will be reflected in paychecks issued March 29. The raise amounts to $5.60 per pay period and reflects increases in the cost-of-living from July 2011 to January 2012, and from July 2012 to January 2013.

In September, APWU members will receive an additional COLA, reflecting increases in the cost-of-living from January to July 2012, and from January to July 2013. Cost-of-living adjustments also will be made in March 2014, September 2014 and March 2015.

APWU members received a 1 percent across-the-board pay increase on Nov. 17, 2012, and will receive additional increases of 1.5 percent effective Nov. 16, 2013, and 1 percent effective Nov. 15, 2014.

Postal Support Employees (PSEs), who are not eligible for COLAs, received an across-the-board increase of 2 percent on Nov. 17, 2012. PSEs will receive additional raises of 2.5 percent effective Nov. 16, 2013, and 2.5 percent effective Nov. 15, 2014.

Updated pay scales are available at www.apwu.org. Printed copies will be included in the May-June edition of The American Postal Worker magazine.

From the National Association of Letter Carriers:

Questions and Answers—City Carrier Assistants (CCAs)
This jointly-developed question-and-answer document (M-01802) provides the mutual understanding of the national parties on issues related to city carrier assistants (CCAs)—the new classification of letter carrier created by the January 10, 2013, interest arbitration award that set the terms of the 2011-2016 National Agreement. The parties are still in discussions on several other issues concerning CCAs. This document will be updated when agreement is reached on other issues concerning CCAs.

Read more: City Delivery | Home.

(February 19, 2013)  Earlier today, the three-member arbitration panel established to determine the terms of the 2011 National Agreement between the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the U.S. Postal Service released its Award.  The Award is dated February 15, 2013, and is effective on that day, but was not released until today, Tuesday, February 19, 2013.  The panel awarded a contract which runs for four and one-half years, from November 21, 2011 through May 20, 2016.  A copy of the full Award, covering seventy-two pages, is available, below, as a PDF attachment.

The Award fully protects the jobs and careers and living standards of all 42,000 career mail handlers now employed by the Postal Service.  After a two-year wage freeze, it restores, starting in November 2013 and continuing through May 2016, the historic pattern of annual general wage increases and semi-annual cost-of-living adjustments for all current mail handlers.  In particular, the Award contains three general wage increases for all career employees – 1.0% in November 2013, 1.5% in November 2014, and 1.0% in November 2015 – as well as seven COLAs to be paid from March 2014 through March 2016.  These wage and COLA increases follow the pattern previously established by the negotiated contract governing the American Postal Workers Union, and by the arbitrated contracts governing the National Rural Letter Carriers Association and the National Association of Letter Carriers.

The Award also continues the pattern, starting next year, of increasing employee contributions toward health insurance by 1% per year; and it includes, effective immediately, a small upward adjustment in night shift differential (of 7 cents per hour) and of clothing allowance.  The Award also provides full no-layoff protection, consistent with prior practice, for any and all career mail handlers hired on or before November 20, 2011.

At the same time, the Award substantially changes the workforce that will be allowed to perform mail handler work in the future.  In the larger facilities, all part-time flexible employees will be converted to full-time regular, the number of casuals will be reduced to 5.0%, and a new category of bargaining unit employee will be created.  More specifically, these changes include the following:

• Within 180 days of the Award (by August 14, 2013), all current part-time flexible employees working in the larger postal installations (those with 200 or more workyears of employment) will be converted into full-time regular employees.  Those few part-time flexible mail handlers still working in smaller facilities then should be able to transfer to a larger installation and be converted automatically to full-time regular status, if they so desire, although the part-time flexible status will remain for mail handlers in the smaller installations.

• Rather than the current 12.5% casual employees who are outside the NPMHU bargaining unit, the Award establishes a workforce that is no more than 5.0% casual employees, measured and counted by installation.  This reduced number of casuals will now be authorized to work without being restricted by the “in lieu of” clause under Article 7.1B of the National Agreement, with each individual casual allowed to work up to 360 days per year.

• The Award creates a new category of noncareer mail handler employee called the Mail Handler Assistant, or MHA.  The MHA category will serve as the entry point for all future career mail handlers to be hired by the Postal Service.  A maximum of 15% of mail handlers in any district may be MHAs, with a cap of 20% in any particular installation.  Unlike casuals, MHAs will be members of the NPMHU bargaining unit, will be hired based on the postal exam and other routine hiring criteria, and will be eligible for conversion to career status based on their relative standing.  Although MHAs will work flexible hours and may be separated for lack of work, many other provisions of the National Agreement will apply to their employment, and the Union will be able to represent them in the grievance and arbitration process.  Starting pay for new MHAs has been set at $13.75 per hour at Level 4 and $14.50 per hour at Level 5, but those amounts will be increased by a total of 7% during the remaining years of this Agreement.  MHAs also will have limited access to subsidized health insurance in accordance with the Affordable Care Act.

• Significantly, future career employees (those hired after February 15, 2013) will be placed on a revised pay scale that reduces entry pay, but contains seventeen step increases of more than $1,300, providing guaranteed increases in pay every 52 weeks, with top pay at Step P being precisely the same of current career mail handlers.  The wage scale governing future career employees will continue to be adjusted upward by general wage increases and COLA increases, although the COLA before top Step P will be proportional to Step P.  The USPS demand for a permanent two-tier pay scale was rejected.

• Also rejected by the arbitration panel were a series of draconian proposals from the Postal Service, including absolutely no general wage increases for career employees, no cost-of-living adjustments, and a drastic increase in employee contributions for health insurance to the current rate paid by federal employees.  Another proposal from the Postal Service sought to modify, and effectively eliminate, the current no lay-off clause.  In addition, the Postal Service sought the authority to hire and to utilize, without any contractual restrictions whatsoever, a total of 25% casual employees.  Finally, for new career mail handlers hired in the future, the Postal Service proposed that their pay rates be 20% lower at the entry level and 20% lower at the maximum level.

The arbitration panel was chaired by Herbert Fishgold, a longstanding arbitrator and mediator with decades of experience.  The NPMHU-appointed member of the arbitration panel was Robert Weinberg, from the law firm of Bredhoff & Kaiser, PLLC, which also is the home of NPMHU General Counsel Bruce Lerner.  USPS counsel Robert Dufek was the Postal Service’s appointed arbitrator.

The Award follows fifteen months of work by the NPMHU, including its National Officers, the National CAD, its legal staff, and a series of expert witnesses and consultants who diligently prepared the union’s case for the interest arbitration proceeding.

A complete copy of the Fishgold Award is attached, including new wage and night differential schedules, new and updated contract language, and new and amended Memoranda of Understanding and Letters of Intent.  A fuller description of the Award will be provided in publications to be circulated by the National Office, and during the Semi-Annual Meeting of the Local Unions already scheduled for the first week of April 2013.

We thank our NPMHU membership for its continuous patience and support during this lengthy and sometimes frustrating 2011 round of negotiations.

Read the PDF of NPMHU/USPS Interest Arbitration Award

Hearings in the ongoing interest arbitration proceedings to determine the terms of the 2011 National Agreement between the NPMHU and the Postal Service are now complete, with the final hearing held on Friday, February 1, 2013. Although the record officially remains open for additional submissions that might be needed by the three-member arbitration panel, the formal hearing process is over, and a final award should be issued soon. Read the rest of this entry »

The Burrus Update web site appears to be down: here’s a copy of the original article:

Response to Facebook Post

APWU President Cliff Guffey has invoked mediation in an effort to reach a new collective bargaining agreement covering employees at four USPS Information Technology/Accounting Services (IT/AS) centers. Employees at the four locations have been working under the terms of the expired 2007 contract since Jan. 20, 2011.

In a Jan. 11, 2013, letter to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service [PDF], Guffey noted that the APWU and USPS have been unable to reach agreement on a successor agreement, and invoked the mediation process, as provided by the Postal Reorganization Act.

“The union met with the Postal Service throughout 2011 and 2012, but we have little to show for our efforts,” said Bill Manley, director of APWU’s Support Services division.

“Since October 2012, President Guffey has taken an active role with the union’s negotiating team in an effort to move the process forward,” he said. “We met with the Postal Service in December and presented a plan to get the parties to an agreement.

“However, another month has passed and still the Postal Service has not responded.

”The union is willing to continue to negotiate with the Postal Service, but our members deserve a new agreement and our call for mediation is the next step in the process,” Manley said.

The union’s negotiating team has included the following members representing each of the four Information Technology/Accounting Services centers:

Steve Brooks, Twin Cities PDC Local
Judy McCann, Twin Cities PDC Local
Mamie Wells, St Louis Gateway Area Local
Ed Cox, San Mateo PDC Local
Ron Price, San Mateo PDC Local
John Stepanik, Wilkes-Barre PDC Local
Pat Garvey, Wilkes-Barre PDC Local
Bill Manley, APWU Support Services Director

For more contract negotiations news, please visit www.apwu.org.

USPS today issued the following statement regarding the announcement of an arbitration decision on a contract with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC):

“The binding arbitration process between USPS and the NALC has concluded and a resulting contract between the parties is effective Jan. 10, 2013 through May 20, 2016.

“While the decision by the arbitrator includes important and substantial cost-savings provisions that will benefit the Postal Service over the life of the contract and into the future, it does not include all of the changes we sought.

“The results of the Interest Arbitration Award include the following:

• Two-year wage freeze followed by modest increases.
• Lower wage scale for new career employees, with entry step salary reduced by more than 20 percent and lower cost-of-living adjustments (COLA).
• Creation of a new, lower-cost non-career employee category, City Carrier Assistant (CCA).
• Decrease in the employer share of health insurance premiums.
• Establishment of a Health Benefits Task Force to jointly work towards resolution of health care issues.

“We are disappointed that the Award continued limited no layoff protection and restrictions to contracting out. Congress needs to enact significant legislative reform to quickly restore the Postal Service to profitability and put the organization on stable, long-term financial footing.

“The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.”

The contract between USPS and the NALC carriers expired Nov. 20, 2011. Negotiations for a new agreement continued until Jan. 20, 2012. The parties entered into binding arbitration last April.

The NALC represents 192,000 employees who work as letter carriers delivering mail primarily in urban areas.

From the National Association of Letter Carriers:

NALC President testifies to arbitrators: Click here to read NALC President Fredric V. Rolando’s concluding testimony to the three-member interest arbitration board that will set the terms of a new National Agreement between the NALC and the U.S. Postal Service.

Rolando’s testimony in particular discusses the unique contributions the NALC and its members make to the Postal Service. The presentation explains that NALC’s proposals for the 2012 National Agreement are intended to reconcile the Postal Service’s evident need to adapt to changing financial and business conditions and the union’s goals to protect the job security of its members and maintain the wage and benefit standards its has achieved over four decades of collective bargaining.  Special emphasis is given NALC’s determination to preserve the contractual ban on sub-contracting and our drive to create a career path for non-career, transitional employees.

The union anticipates that arbitration board chairman Shyam Das will announce the board’s binding award decision soon.

NALC | The National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO.