Elaine Dunlap

Maintenance Craft Director

edunlap@apwu480.org

Postal Links

Forms

Navigation

Larry Miller
  President

Roscoe Woods
  Executive V.P.

Joe Gordon
  Vice President

Dave Campbell
  Secretary-Treasurer

Paul Felton
  Editor

Steve Wood
  Clerk Craft Director

Joe Wrobel
  Motor Vehicle Craft Director

Flo Morris
  Human Relations Representative

Lucy Morton
  OWCP Representative

John P. Smeekens
  Veterans Director

Legislative Page

Maintenance Updates

1. Julie Zak, Metroplex MSS Coordinator, has made her own interview ratings sheet. The new interview sheet allows Julie to lower your grade so that you can fail easier.
2. Vacation Rosters - the year is half through and management is finally denying the grievance on the vacation roster at the Mplex. They created sections, took away vacation slots, took away whole calendars and combined calendars. The grievance has been submitted to arbitration - I asked for three weeks of Admin Leave for every affected employee to use any time in addition to whatever picks they are already scheduled for.
3. Had a meeting with the new Plant Manager, Mike Kotula, who told President Miller and I that he intends to work hand in hand with the Union to clear up Labor Management problems. He has asked for a list of managers and supervisors that have mistreated our maintenance employees and vows to correct all inappropriate behavior. From his lips to God's ears...
4. Subcontracting - every time you see a contractor on premises (or a posting) you should ask to see your union steward. The stewards then need to pursue a subcontracting grievance. Management has to consider these five factors when evaluating the need to subcontract: public interest, cost, efficiency, availability of equipment, and qualification of employees. Let's make them fulfill their obligation of ‘due consideration’ before they figure out how to subcontract out all of our jobs.
5. In-service Exams were finally offered for SE Michigan District employees. Hopefully, you took advantage of that opportunity. If you have received a passing grade your next move is up to you. Your choices include - sit on the scores and wait until you want to (if ever) move around, go on eReassign and ask to transfer to specific offices that have positions for which you qualify, or request to senior opt in cases of excessing. Congratulations for everyone that made the attempt to give themselves more opportunities.
6. Excessing is starting to rear its ugly head in the maintenance craft in our Local. Fortunately, we are not as widely affected as other crafts or locals. Hopefully we will be able to absorb all of our employees within our respective districts.
7. Gary Kloepher, Assistant Maintenance Craft Director, was at the State Convention in Lansing in April. I had an opportunity to meet with him a couple of times and ask some questions. His pearls of wisdom included:

• September 1, 2010 is the first day of new contract negotiations.
• The most important thing about our union is the individual member.
• Management is expected to try to reduce the custodial craft. They are trying to re-measure buildings. The USPS feels that custodians make too much money. Custodial jobs were intended for disabled veterans and it will be disgraceful for the Postal Service to attempt to reduce those positions with more and more disabled vets returning home looking for jobs. The APWU will fight hard to keep our custodial staff in tact.
• A/O Infrastructure Arbitration Victory - USPS subcontracted out the creation of LAN networks to communicate between A/O's and plants. We want and won the work back. As a result of the ruling, the Postal Service has been directed to assign maintenance of the AOI servers to bargaining unit employees and to discuss the possibility of assigning additional cabling and computer maintenance work in the AOs to bargaining unit employees. The ruling also instructed the APWU and management to discuss an appropriate retroactive remedy. The union believes that Maintenance Craft employees should immediately receive the work associated with maintaining the AO infrastructure.
• If you have passed the written 955 exam and failed the structured interview - you only need to re-interview to update. Testing is now voluntary on your part. You can only get a higher score on the exam. Your score can never decrease.
• eCBM is being pursued at the National level. It is taking work from MOS and putting it on ET's and MPE's. The MPE's and ET's are entering work activity into the computers instead of having MOS employees enter it from Daily Activity Sheets. This is a cross occupational group and level grievance. Article 7.2. Each individual entry may be categorized as de minimus and therefore no harm, but when the bigger picture is viewed it can result in an hour or more a day of crossing occupational groups.
• Electrical Work Program. There is a newer MMO detailing the Postal Service's electrical work program. Every panel must be labeled for amperage and there must be PPE provided and utilized for each job and each employee gets their own. If you are working with more than 240 Volts - employees must be issued fire resistant clothing. Gary Kloepher requested that if this electrical program is rolled out in your facility that you file an OSHA report. Go to the apwu.org safety page for forms to submit to OSHA.
• Confined space - The Postal Service is trying to consider all dock levelers as permit required confined space. Postal employees are not allowed to work in the permit required confined spaces. The APWU disagrees and does not want this work contracted out. Please ask to see a steward if there are contractors working in our facilities performing work our trained maintenance staff is capable of performing.
• Ergonomics and the DBCS - There are more employees injured on DBCS machines than any other piece of equipment in the Post Office. The USPS believes and argues that ergonomics is not a safety item. They also believe that they do not have to work on ergonomics or work on making this machine more ergonomic.

Elaine Dunlap