CLARK V. SAVIDGE SENTINEL

Transcription

1 CLARK V. SAVIDGE SENTINEL Branch 351, Serving The Letter Carriers of Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater and Shelton, WA since 1892 VOLUME 37, ISSUE 10 OCTOBER 2013 OFFICIAL NOTICE NOMINATION AND ELECTION OF OFFICERS AND DELEGATES BRANCH 351 OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON This is an official notice to the membership of Branch 351 that nominations for the positions listed below and Delegates to the 2014 Washington State Association of Letter Carriers State Convention & 2014 National Convention are open. The Branch President will be an automatic delegate to the State and National Conventions that will take place during the President s term of office. Nominations for officers and convention delegates of Branch 351 will be held at the regular Branch meetings on October 3 & November 7, 2013, 7:00 PM, at 119 ½ Capitol Way N, Olympia, WA All Branch 351 members are eligible for nomination, with the exception of those in supervisory positions or within two years following termination of supervisory status. Nominees must attend six of the twelve meetings before the convention to be eligible as expenses-paid Convention Delegates. Nominations will be received from the floor or may be submitted in writing. Nominees must be present to accept or may indicate their acceptance in writing. Written nominations must be in the possession of the Recording Secretary no later than 8:00 PM, November 7, The election will be conducted by secret mail ballot (if a position has two nominations). The ballots will be mailed to all eligible members at least 20 days before the election. The election will be held on December 5, Ballots must be received no later than 7:00 PM, the day of the election. Write-in ballots will not be counted for any position, but will not cause the entire ballot to be invalidated. Nominations will be held for the following Branch Offices: One (1) Trustee *The term of office will be for two (2) years beginning January 1, 2014.

2 PAGE 2 CLARK V. SAVIDGE SENTINEL Minutes of Meeting: September 5th, 2013 The meeting was called to order at approximately 7:00 pm, at the Labor Temple, on 119 ½ Capital Way N. Olympia. Nine members were in attendance. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by President Floyd. Roll Call of Officers: All Branch Officers were present with the following exceptions, John Mauk, excused. The Dir. of Retirees, MBA, HBR and one Trustee positions are vacant. Minutes of the Previous Month: A motion was made to accept the August minutes as printed, seconded and carried. MBMR Raffle: Danny Smith was the September raffle winner. He chose the Regal Cinema gift card. Applications for Membership: Mandy Gordon Communications: We had two guest speakers from 8:05 to 8:30. Jeff Davis is running again for Olympia Port Commissar. He talked about what he has done for the port and what the future holds. Mary Hall talked about her running for Thurston County Auditor. They both asked for our support at the polls. Committees: Lisa Wooden is looking into bags and back packs for attendees at the state convention. Need volunteers for the Election Committee. MBA: No Report. HBR: No Report. Unfinished Business: 2 nd reading of two By-Law changes. A separate motion was made to approve each one, seconded and after a few typing errors in the newsletter was pointed out, the motions carried. New Business: None Good of the Association: Still waiting on training dates for OJI s at the Main and Lacey. Should be about mid September. Vince is checking into whether gas cards and arrow keys are still an accountable item at Lacey. Yolanda Dela Cruz is returning from military duty, she should be back to work at Lacey in September. Labor-Management meeting 18 September, any input contact Al or Vince. Route bids for the Main should be posted this month. From the picnic ticket sales $110 is going to MDA and $65 to the winner, Al Floyd. On Labor Day weekend there was a fire at the DelaCruz house. A motion was made to donate $75 to each Mr. and Mrs. Willie DelaCruz, seconded and carried. Treasurer s Report: A motion was made to accept the report, seconded and carried. 50/50 COLCPE Drawing: $1 MDA Drawing: $4 Food for next month s meeting: Beers & Brats Adjournment: A motion was made to adjourn, seconded and carried. The meeting adjourned at approximately 9:00 PM. Submitted by Stephen Ambeau

3 SERVING THE LETTER CARRIERS PAGE 3 Vice-President Report by Debbie Dixon September 2013 The 8 th of 10 Great Moments in Letter Carrier History (from nalc.org) 8. Exclusive recognition Although NALC leaders had achieved impressive victories through lobbying Congress, they continued to press for full collective bargaining rights. And on January 17, 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, which replaced the 1912 Lloyd-LaFollette Act. Labor organizations in the federal government including the Post Office could hold elections to gain national exclusive recognition and could then represent employees in grievance proceedings and negotiate a national contract with management.. Although the Executive Order limited the terms that could be bargained, it was a giant step forward for NALC. In March 1963 the union and the Post Office Department signed their first national agreement. Currently, the Union is opposing S. 1486; a bill that would cut Saturday delivery, eliminate door delivery to all businesses and promote no door delivery to homes. The destruction of these iconic services would decrease our quality of service and push customers further away; this is no way to run a business! We need increased services that will better our financial income. As of the reading of this article, NALC National President, Fred Rolando, will have testified in opposition of S He will report that without the pre-funding of health benefits for future retirees (75 years from now), the USPS would have seen a PROFIT of $660 MILLION in this fiscal year. There is NO need to SLASH services! There is a need to support S. 316; a bill to recalculate and restore retirement annuity obligations of the United States Postal Service, to eliminate the requirement that the United States Postal Service prefund the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund, to place restrictions on the closure of postal facilities, to create incentives for innovation for the United States Postal Service, to maintain levels of postal service, and for other purposes. If you have not done so already, call Senators Patty Murray (202) and Maria Cantwell (202) to inform them of the downfalls of S and their need to oppose it! In Unionism, Debbie Dixon

4 PAGE 4 CLARK V. SAVIDGE SENTINEL Alternate Steward Report by Debbie Dixon September 2013 On January 10, 2013, the NALC and the USPS received an arbitration decision on the terms of our new national agreement. This arbitration decision began the new workforce of City Carrier Assistants (CCAs). Here in the Olympia Installation, there are NO certified On-The-Job Trainers all current and past (those who quit or were fired) CCAs were NOT properly trained by the USPS. This must stop! The USPS has an obligation to all employees; they must be trained properly for their own safety, other employee s safety and the safety of the public. Even with this knowledge, the Olympia Installation continues to work improperly trained CCAs, not seek to re-train them properly AND continue to train new CCAs with uncertified trainers. The Union is grieving these outrageous violations. The CCAs in our office are treated like second-class citizens. This too must stop! Something is desperately wrong when a CCA quits by telling the Supervisor that she is a miserable person and they hope she has a miserable life! People just don t say these things if they are being treated with dignity and respect! CCAs need the eyes and ears of all regular and part-time (the one we have left) Carriers. If you see them being treated without dignity and respect, let me know! And as always, it is expected that we treat others with dignity and respect also. In 2006, NALC President Rolando was the Director of City Delivery. In that position, he wrote an awesome article on Delivery Operations Information System (DOIS) and the COMMITMENT PROCESS. Here are several statements from that article that still hold true today! The system is used to try to intimidate letter carriers, as well as supervisors, into thinking that the generated reports relate in some way to reality. The concept of DOIS being a useful tool to anyone is unlikely at best, unless the system is corrected. While a supervisor s daily reliance on inaccurate DOIS projections can be annoying, it should be comforting to know that there is no contractual basis to feel intimidated by the numbers. The parties recognize the principle of a fair day s work for a fair day s pay. DOIS cannot be used to establish office standards or to determine if a letter carrier is making office standards. An office standard can only be determined by a mail count pursuant to Section or Chapter 2 of the M-39 Handbook. DOIS cannot be used to establish street standards because there are none. whether or not a letter carrier is achieving standards cannot be determined by DOIS, it can only be determined by a mail count. End of story. Handbook M-41, City Delivery Carriers Duties and Responsibilities, states: 13 Delivery and Collection Rules 131 Delivery on Letter Routes Actual Delivery Unless otherwise instructed by a unit manager, deliver all mail distributed to your route prior to the leaving time for that trip and complete delivery within scheduled time. It is your responsibility to inform man-

5 SERVING THE LETTER CARRIERS PAGE 5 agement when this cannot be done Reporting Requirements It is your responsibility to verbally inform management when you are of the opinion that you will be unable to case all mail distributed to the route, perform other required duties, and leave on schedule or when you will be unable to complete delivery of all mail Inform management of this well in advance of the scheduled leaving time and not later than immediately following the final receipt of mail. Management will instruct you what to do. 25 Carrier s Route Book, Instructions and Report 251 Delivery Instructions (Form 1564-A Exhibit 251) Route Schedule This shows the scheduled reporting, leaving, returning, and ending time on the route. It has been SEVEN years since President Rolando wrote the article quoted above and absolutely NOTHING has changed with DOIS and the commitment process! Carriers are intimidated DAILY in some way, shape or form due to DOIS. Don t be intimidated! Your scheduled reporting, leaving, returning and ending time that is indicated in your route books on PS Form 1564-A should have been obtained from the last route inspection; on PS Form The last proper route inspection in Lacey was in The numbers on the side of your cases DO NOT reflect the accurate numbers from that inspection. Do not be intimidated by those numbers either! If your PS Form 1564-A is not accurate or does not show the proper information which should include the referenced AM and PM volumes let management know that you are missing that information and request that they provide it to you. If this is not done in a timely manner, let me know and I can request that information for you. I understand that it is frustrating that your mail is being given to route X and you have mail for route Y; and that you have been instructed to give the mail to route Y, but not get credit for the extra work of sorting and also not get credit for the half a foot or more mail that route X gave you; this includes Red Plums. Missorted mail goes to the hot case!! If you have been instructed differently, let me know. When you do the last sweep of the hot case and the volume changes your estimated times, let the supervisor know. Report everything that is wrong with your route to your supervisor, fill out and request a copy of PS Form 1571 s and complete PS Form 3996 s. Improper data accounting is happening on a daily basis and it must stop. Until next month, Debbie Dixon

6 YtÄÄ á [xüx [täx t [tññç [tääéãxxç NALC Branch 351 P.O. BOX 7715 OLYMPIA, WA ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE PAID Olympia, WA PERMIT NO. 298 President - Al Floyd Vice President - Debbie Dixon Secretary/Treasurer - Vincent Corsi Recording Secretary - Stephen Ambeau Editor - Stephen Ambeau stamper9@comcast.net Assistant Editor - Schauntel Ambeau Director of Retirees - Vacant MBA Representative - Vacant HBR Representative - Vacant Sergeant at Arms - George Vocke WebMaster - John Mauk BRANCH OFFICERS Trustees - Lisa Wooden (13-14) Vacant (13-14) Ralph Hitchcock (12-13) Branch 351 holds its union meetings on the first Thursday of each month at 7:00 pm unless otherwise noted, at 119 1/2 Capitol Way, Olympia, WA (360) Stewards / Alternates and Phone # s Chief Shop Steward - Al Floyd Cell # Main Office Shop Steward - Al Floyd Main Office Shop Steward - Vacant Main Office Alt. Shop Steward - Dannie Smith Lacey Station Shop Steward - Vincent Corsi Lacey Station Alt. Steward - Debbie Dixon Shelton Office Shop Steward - George Vocke Branch web page is: All items published in the Clark V. Savidge Sentinel are the property of Branch 351. Reprint permission is granted to trade union and labor publications, providing appropriate credit is given. Material submitted for publication must be received by the Editor no later than the 15th of the month. This is a monthly newsletter. Opinions expressed by contributors are their own and not necessarily those of NALC Branch 351 or it s editor