Steve Scudero, Maintenance Craft Director

 There were many resolutions brought to the floor for a vote. In the Maintenance Craft, resolutions to upgrade custodians, MOS clerks, and MPE 8’s were adopted, and the APWU will attempt to have the USPS upgrade these positions and a few others during contract negotiations that began August 29, 2006.

If you are interested in a copy of all the Article 38 resolutions, please let me know and I will get them to you.

As most of you know by now, we recently received Arbitrator Shyam Das’s decision on the "5-7-9" grievance.

This grievance deals with the minimum skill levels assigned to various tasks that make up the checklist of preventive maintenance routes.

National Maintenance Craft Director Steve Raymer is currently meeting with the USPS to come to agreement on several MMO’s to assign minimum skill levels to the various tasks covered by Arbitrator Das’ award.

We are still waiting for Arbitrator Das to render a decision in the MS-47 case.

The MS-47 is the handbook that governs the method by which the USPS determines cleaning frequencies and the custodial staffing of its facilities.

The USPS tired of losing grievances based on the 1983 MS-47 and Arbitrator Gamser’s national award, so in 2001 the USPS unilaterally changed the MS-47 handbook to better suite its needs.

The APWU filed a grievance at the national level on this unilateral change. This case was arbitrated in the fall of 2005 and we are STILL waiting for the arbitrator’s award. As soon as we hear, I will let everyone know the outcome of this case.

The APWU has initiated disputes at the National level on a few travel-related issues. The issues in question are: interim trips to other than the employee’s permanent duty station, the 30 minutes deducted from travel time for meals, failure of the USPS to compensate employees who are required to take USPS-provided transportation from the Marriot Housing Facility (or any other off-site housing) to an off-site training facility, and the unilateral change the USPS made to the cost of the spousal fees as they relate to the NCED during an employees interim trip period.

The USPS has changed the fee for your spouse at the Marriot to $50.00 per night plus a $10.00 administration fee and the applicable taxes on the combined $60.00 charge.

Again, as soon as we hear on these issues, I will distribute the information.

The APWU is still pursuing a grievance protesting the performance of NDSS updates on the BCS machines by Directory Analysis Specialists who are EAS employees. In 1990 the APWU appealed this grievance to national arbitration.

The APWU and the USPS reached an agreement in May of 2002 to apply the decision from a pending Clerk Craft grievance to the Maintenance case. The Clerk Case involved the same issue: managers performing craft work.

In April of 2003, Arbitrator Snow ruled in favor of the APWU and sustained the Clerk Craft grievance. The APWU requested that the USPS apply this decision to the Maintenance case per the May 2002 agreement.

The USPS refused to abide by the agreement and sought to vacate the Clerk Craft case, claiming that the arbitrator exceeded his authority. The USPS then filed a "unit clarification" petition with the National Labor Relations Board attempting to block the application of Arbitrator Snow’s decision.

The Region 5 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) director dismissed the USPS petition and the Postal Service appealed the decision to the full NLRB. The full board has not yet made a ruling.

This was the first National Convention that I have had the pleasure to attend.

In general, it was very interesting to meet union people from all over the country and to hear the many varied positions on the issues that face us as working people.

The one issue that everyone at the convention was in agreement on was the importance of the mid-term elections. There were several speakers who addressed the delegates at the convention - some were politicians and some were labor leaders - but they all had the same message.

Their message is that it is vital to our future as working people to elect representatives who support our cause.

We as working people must stop shooting ourselves in the foot by electing people who couldn’t give a damn about the working class.

Let’s send a message to Washington this November. Make sure you vote, and make sure you vote for friends of labor.