NPMHU Local 317 - Alabama
Official Site of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union Local 317. Postal News for NPMHU 317 members. We consist of branches in Birmingham, Huntsville, Mobile, and Montgomery.
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| Mail Handler Update |
"...Postal Service spokesman Stephen Seewoester said all 38,616 pounds was advertising mail, also known as junk mail. Waycross Postmaster Richard Ferrell determined there was no first class mail among the cargo of the burned-out semi trailer..."
Reference: http://jacksonville.com
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| #AlzheimersStamp |
"...that of a Houston postal worker. Gayla Roy disappeared in September. Her co-worker and the father of her children, Don Gaines, 30, was indicted earlier this month in Houston on a charge of ..."
Reference: www.katc.com
"...The incident occurred in the parking lot near a loading dock behind the Decatur facility, Patch reports. Witnesses told FOX 5 that four shots were fired. Terrell’s mother, Eugina Terrell, told WXIA that her daughter and her boyfriend had separated about a month earlier..."
Reference: www.miamiherald.com
"... Authorities have not identified the woman, who was shot while she was working. Witnesses told Channel 2 they heard four rounds..."
Reference: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"...To assist customers in ensuring that packages are delivered in time, the Military Postal Service Agency has released its annual recommended mail-by dates for theaters around the world. These dates are just guidelines, however, and people should carefully consider which type of mail service to use when they arrange shipments..."
Reference: Stars and Stripes
"...in accordance with Article 8, sections 4 and 5, of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, penalty overtime rules are not applicable for a consecutive four-week period each year during December..."
Reference: www.apwu.org
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| NPMHU 317 Election Results |
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| NPMHU Contract Excerpt |
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NPMHU Logo Image |
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| NLRB charge |
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| 2017 memo Veterans Day |
"...Aside from a few wealthy political appointees from the current and past administrations, the vast majority of people with million-dollar accounts were individuals with careers averaging 28 years, who invested in the C and S stock indexed funds through good times and bad, and who did not panic and retreat to the “safety” of the treasury securities G fund during the Great Recession..."
Reference: federalnewsradio.com
"...elimination of supplemental payments (SRS) to employees who retire before age 62; A switch to a defined contribution pension plan for new federal employees; reduce the G fund’s rate of return ..."
Reference: federal-employees.blogspot.com
"...CALL 1-844-402-1001 NOW! Tell your member of Congress to VOTE NO against any budget that includes attacks to postal and federal employees’ benefits, including retirement benefits, or undermines the public Postal Service itself! As currently written, this budget will slash the pay and benefits of postal employees. It calls for: Increasing employee pension contributions into FERS, amounting to a pay cut of thousands of dollars a year for each FERS postal employee. Taking away the Social Security supplement for FERS employees who retire before they are eligible for Social Security benefits. Outright eliminating pensions for new hires..."
Reference: www.apwu.org
"...Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) expressed his “great concern about the U.S. Postal Service Inspector General (OIG) audit report finding that the US Postal Service has been inaccurately reporting delayed mail across a number of facilities, directly impacting mail service for millions of customers.” The OIG estimated that during the year ended Feb. 28, “mail processing facilities underreported late arriving mail by about 2 billion mailpieces” — that’s billion..."
Reference: www.washingtonpost.com
"...According to the complaint, the plaintiff was hired by the defendant as a mail handler assistant in 2013 and informed the defendant of her pregnancy in 2015. The suit states she was terminated on Aug. 28, 2015..."
Reference: pennrecord.com
"...In a two-day audit of eight mail distribution centers, investigators discovered more than 572,000 delayed mail items on land. However, postal officials were only reporting 369,000 delays, essentially hiding 36 percent of the problem..."
Reference: billingsgazette.com
"...As provided for in Article 15, Section .3E of the National Agreement between the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the United States Postal Service, both parties have agreed to jointly produce a Contract Interpretation Manual (CIM), which represents a good faith effort to identify contractual issues on which the National parties are in agreement regarding interpretation and application of the parties' National Agreement. The latest issue of the CIM is Version 4, which was released on August 24, 2017..."
"...He struck her with the pallet, bruising her hip. She told the officer that she became pinned between the pallet and the mail hamper. She yelled at the suspect to stop striking her, but he refused to pull the pallet back. He told the victim she needed to be more aware of her surroundings ..."
Reference: www.nwfdailynews.com
For more employment opportunities go to: http://www.usps.com/careers
Effective on September 2, 2017, career Mail Handler craft employees are scheduled to receive the third of seven possible cost-of-living (COLA) adjustments as outlined in Article 9.3 of the 2016 National Agreement. This COLA increase is based on the upward change in the relevant Consumer Price Index (CPI) following release of the July 2017 Index, and provides an annual increase of $270 for all Steps in Table 1 and for Step P of Table 2. The remaining Steps in Table 2 will receive the proportional COLA increase percentages as outlined in Article 9.3 of the National Agreement.
Reference: www.npmhu.org...so when is our next contractual salary/wage increase?
"...The public’s going to have to wait a lot longer in line at a lot of these post offices. The phone won’t get answered, and the level of service the public has gotten used to could decline if these job cuts go through,” said David Yao ..."
Reference: q13fox.com
USPS management continues to implement its ill-conceived plans to realign its work force. Their plans involve massive bid reversions and job abolishments in almost every mail processing facility throughout the country. In most cases, management is basing its staffing needs on the flawed Function 1 Scheduler that the Postal Service uses to determine staffing levels at the large mail processing plants. Postal management continues to argue that these reversions and/or abolishments are necessary because of the continuing decline in mail volumes.
In response to these unwarranted attacks on the postal workforce, NPMHU President Paul Hogrogian and APWU President Mark Dimondstein sent a joint letter to Postmaster General Megan Brennan protesting the Postal Service’s proposed actions. The two Presidents vowed that both unions would work together to combat the Postal Service’s attacks on its employees.
The NPMHU has been recently informed by Postal Headquarters that the September 2017 “move date” will be pushed back and that no Mail Handler will be involuntarily reassigned out of his/her installation until, in all likelihood, at least February 2018. Postal management has agreed to use this extended period to discuss with the unions ways to minimize and even eliminate the involuntary reassignments of Full-Time career employees out of their current installations. Management also confirmed that it is required under Article 7 of our National Agreement to reduce their proposed non-career work hours to the greatest extent possible before excessing career employees out of their installation.
However, management remains steadfast in its intention to realign the work force and align employees’ schedules/start times with the projected mail arrival profiles. This will result in wholesale start time changes, bid reversions, and abolishment of duty assignments. Area Labor-Relations specialists will be meeting with the respective NPMHU Regional Directors to discuss how they will be implementing these changes. During these meetings, our Regional Directors will be voicing our strong opposition to these unnecessary changes and suggest more efficient alternatives.
Unions representatives at the Local and Branch levels will challenge the unwarranted start time changes, reversions, and abolishments and will file the appropriate grievances. The National and Regional CAD remain fully prepared to assist the Local Unions in processing these grievances. All members also should stay informed of these issues, both through the mail and on the NPMHU website.
Read the July Update to learn about the Union's efforts in securing a delay in the proposed involuntary reassignments.
On June 21, 2017, NPMHU President Paul Hogrogian and APWU President Mark Dimondstein delivered a clear message to Postmaster General Brennan. (pdf)
Text copy of the correspondence is as follows:
Megan Brennan
Postmaster General - Chief Executive Officer
United States Postal Service
475 L'Enfant Plaza, SW
Washington, DC 20260
Dear Postmaster General Brennan:
American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO
June 21, 2017
As presidents of our respective unions representing over 250,000 hard-working postal employees, we are deeply disturbed by the wholesale and massive job cuts under way by your administration. The cutting of an already skeletal workforce will not only cause massive disruption to the workforce but will cause further degradation of postal services for the American people throughout the country.
We also note that your public commitment to abide by the respective Collective Bargaining Agreements as you address workforce complements is being violated because the ongoing job reversions and job abolishments are contrary to contractual obligations. The excessing impact statements - currently amounting to over 1500 events affecting over 15,000 employees and counting - are blatant violations of our CBAs in relation to advance notice, mandated information to the unions, meeting requirements, move dates, and residual vacancies.
Using the information that the Postal Service has provided to the unions, there also is no way to determine if the required Article 12 provisions involving part-time flexible hours or PSE and MHA/Casual employment were considered or if the staffing is based upon all available work hours.
Our contracts further require that at the Area/Regional meeting a list of residual vacancies be provided to the union for each excessing event. At the current time, there are insufficient residual vacancies to accommodate the impact of thousands of bargaining unit employees. In fact, it would take a significant amount of time to gather that number of residual vacancies.
Without the residual vacancies, there is no excessing. That begs the question of why there is a demand to excess thousands of employees if there are no 'landing spots' for the excessed employees to be placed into.
Based upon all of the above factors and concerns expressed above, the NPMHU and the APWU request that management consider and explore all other alternative options prior to the massive excessing plan currently proposed.
Without change, these management actions essentially throw any good faith efforts and constructive relationships to the wind. At a time when the parties have been working together to craft, promote, and pass constructive postal reform legislation, we wonder why the Postal Service would choose to declare war on its unions and its employees. Rest assured that, absent correction, the APWU and the NPMHU will together resist these misguided actions and violations of your agreements with, and commitments to, our members.
We are both available early afternoon on Tuesday June 27th or late morning or early afternoon on Wednesday June 28th to further discuss these matters in person.
We await your response.
(Signed) Presidents Paul Hogrogian and Mark Dimondstein
The National Office has been in contact with Postal Headquarters to discuss the deluge of bid reversions and abolishments that are being implemented across the country as a result of the Function 1 Scheduler. Postal Management has argued that these reversions/ abolishments are necessary because of the continuing decline in mail volumes. The most recent figures (for the period from October 1, 2016 through May 31, 201 7) indicate a decline of over 6 billion pieces in total mail volume from the same period last year.
In an extreme over reaction to these mail volume figures, USPS Headquarters has directed all Postal Areas to assess their current workforce complements and make the necessary adjustments to reflect the decline in mail volume. Not surprisingly, the Area Managers are now over reacting to Postal Headquarters' initial over reaction.
The "staffing tool" that is being used to determine complement in each postal installation is called the Function 1 Scheduler. As explained by Postal Managers, the Function 1 Scheduler uses mail volumes, available equipment, allied labor, and volume arrival, among other factors, to help the processing centers to determine their bid alignments and schedules. However, as most Mail Handler representatives already know, the Function 1 Scheduler is far from perfect.
Read the full memorandum and related material that was sent to Local President on June 2, 2017
"...A former U.S. Postal Service mail handler was ordered to serve nine years in prison Wednesday for stealing close to $3 million in Social Security checks from a St. Petersburg mail-processing facility..."
Reference: www.tampabay.com
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| Uncle Sam Pays Vets for Service |
Effective on March 4, 2017, all career Mail Handler craft employees are scheduled to receive the second of seven possible cost-of-living (COLA) adjustments as outlined in Article 9.3 of the 2016 National Agreement. This COLA increase is based on the upward change in the relevant Consumer Price Index (CPI) following release of the January 2017 Index, and provides an annual increase of $333 for all Steps in Table 1 and for Step P of Table 2. The remaining Steps in Table 2 will receive the proportional COLA increase percentages as outlined in Article 9.3 of the National Agreement.
Link to wage chart effective March 4, 2017 (pdf)
"...The legislation would require postal retirees to look to Medicare for their primary health coverage, a change the would dramatically cut the Postal Service’s costs for retiree healthcare..."
Reference: www.linns.com
MEMBERSHIP RATIFIES 2016 NATIONAL AGREEMENT
The terms of the 2016 National Agreement between the NPMHU and the U.S. Postal Service were officially ratified on February 10, 2017, when the results of the membership ratification vote were certified by the American Arbitration Association. The final vote tally was 8,047 in favor of ratification and 513 in opposition to ratification. Additional information regarding important provisions of the new National Agreement will be shared in subsequent NPMHU publications. Further details about the implementation of the 2016 National Agreement will be provided to Local Union officers and representatives as they become available.
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