103- ok 99 – Positive Changes That Our Union Leadership Has Gained

By John Amtsfield Former State Steward, New Jersey

Some of these are a little bit dated, but still a great list.

• 1. Creation of PTF rural employees so that some relief personnel are career employees with benefits.
• 2. No Layoff clause.
• 3. RCAs earn leave while serving on auxiliary route or on vacant regular route over 90 days.
• 4. Prohibition from working regular carriers on Sundays.
• 5. Payment at the overtime rate for rural carriers forced to work their relief days. This is a very controversial provision and USPS officials are claiming they were hogswoggled by the NRLCA with all the tre­mendous costs this is causing them now.
• 6. Cost of living increases that are rolled in immediately for regular carriers without a bifurcated base salary and basic salary structure.
• 7. Exclusion of FLSA exempt overtime from 56 hour limits per week and 2080 hour limits per year.
• 8. Computation of Christmas overtime as it is earned rather than paid as a lump sum the following year.
• 9. Pay for duties assigned outside of and over and above the weekly evaluation and regular evaluated functions.
• 10. Payment for auxiliary carriers working over evaluated time for Christmas overtime.
• 11. Four Week mail counts every other year.
• 12. Carrier option for opting in/out of mail counts.
• 13. Route adjustment target policy from 42H to 48 standard hours to 52 standard hours.
• 14. Mandatory payment of overtime for carriers working relief days when an X day is not granted in the same pay period as the relief day worked during the Christmas period.
• 15. End of route and unit reviews as a means of determining workload adjustments.
• 16. Mandatory auxiliary assistance for overburdened routes where actual time exceeds 57:36 in six days with relief carrier time or 48 hours in five days.
• 17. Casing option for DPS.
• 18. Ability to put names on case labels for CLASS labels.
• 19. Improvements in the L route profile for centralized boxes from .82 minutes per box to 1 minute per box.
• 20. Universal stamp stock credit for all routes.
• 21. Salary and work guarantee for regular carriers and relief carriers for evaluated time on assigned route.
• 22. Very small increases in Equipment maintenance allowance.
• 23. Separate entitlement for pay for training and training presentations.
• 24. Free Saturday leave for H and J route carriers.
• 25. Right to Saturday relief day for most carriers.
• 26. Full relief and leave day provisions for regular carriers to prevent mail being backed up for a carrier when they return from a leave or relief day.
• 27. Changing hourly conversion target for auxiliary to regular routes.
• 28. Rights of carriers on limited duty injured on duty.
• 29. Transfer rights for RCAs and regu1ar carriers.
• 30. Creating primary, second, and tertiary entitlement for relief work.
• 31. Expanded definition of retreat rights for carriers relocated.
• 32. Protocol for carriers involved in mutual transfers.
• 33. Virtual elimination of conversions of rural routes to city routes.
• 34. Virtual elimination of substandard routes.
• 35. Prohibition of other craft employees on limited duty from per­forming rural carrier craftwork modified grievance procedure.
• 36. End of suspension issued for discipline and before that a hold until after step 2 of the grievance procedure.
• 37. Heightened responsibility of management to provide documenta­tion for grievance files.
• 38. Letter of Warning retained for only one year as opposed to other crafts where they are retained for two years.
• 39. Specified progression for issuance of discipline.
• 40. Paid day of reflection for employees one step away from removal in the discipline procedure.
• 41. Requirement that review and concurrence for employees issued discipline be in writing. Eliminating a common loophole to prevent managers from losing their temper and firing people.
• 42. Prohibition from suspension for relief employees.
• 43. Compensation for grievant and steward or auxiliary assistance for time spent handling, writing and meeting on a grievance.
• 44. Priority parking of rural vehicles over non-delivery.
• 45. Right to a rural bulletin board.
• 46. Changes in USPS contribution for health benefits.
• 47. Waiver of liability for accident damages in the course of duty to USPS vehicles.
• 48. Right to take lunch in segments and to travel a reasonable distance off line of travel for a lunch stop.
• 49. Right to notice if schedule changes are to be made.
• 50. Right to full EMA even when acts of God prevent carriers from completing route.
• 51. Carriers right to be notified in advance of route adjustments and afforded an opportunity to submit comments in writing.
• 52. Prohibition from assigning regular carriers to work on other routes.
• 53. Right to require USPS to hire a sub for each route.
• 54. Elimination of multiple probationary periods.
• 55. Right of relief employees to move to a vacant route assignment.
• 56. Contractual entitlement to assigned work on primary, secondary and tertiary route assignments for relief carriers other than TRCs.
• 57. Specified procedures for offering vacant route assignments to relief carriers.
• 58. Dual assignments to an auxiliary route and regular relief assign­ment for relief carriers.
• 59. Right of relief carriers to a relief day when working J and K routes over 6 days.
• 60. Right to work evaluated hours of a route for the week rather than being pulled off the route at 40 hours.
• 61. Sunday work for relief carriers.
• 62. Specified payment for relief carriers working auxiliary assistance on other routes or making Express Mail runs or other duties at the hourly rate.
• 63. Specified minimum 1 box per mile for conversion HCR routes.
• 64. Right to DPS reviews and automatic retroactive adjustments if the reviews indicate a pattern of errors or problems with DPS.
• 65. Retreat rights for substitute carriers.
• 66. Time limit waivers for processing grievances where there is a notice of proposed removal and a notice of removal issued to a carrier with veteran’s preference rights.
• 67. Specified appeal process for veteran preference carriers exercising MSFB rights and grievance rights.
• 68. Procedures to place long term injured rural carriers into dummy routes to protect their status and allow routes to be posted for the carriers who have been carrying the routes long term.
• 69. Rights of relief employees and protections when they are injured on duty to allow bids for new routes.
• 70. RHD vehicle purchase incentive.
• 71. Right of rural carriers to purchase excess RHD vehicles prior to other employees or the general public.
• 72. Right to safe work environment, correction of unsafe conditions and changes in safety reporting and monitoring of safety hazards.
• 73. Increased time for parcel delivery.
• 74. Increased time for scanners and signature confirmation.
• 75. Right to leave sharing procedures.
• 76. Pre-tax payment of healthcare premiums.
• 77. Sick leave for dependent care.
• 78. Carrier rights when vehicles are assigned to rural routes.
• 79. CLASS label procedures and compensation.
• 80. Automation waivers for routes identified as targets for automation and rebuild rights for routes impacted by automation.
• 81. Excess payment for overburdened routes for relief carriers working routes over 57:36 and for which the routes were flagged.
• 82. Prohibition from USPS citing overturned discipline, keeping it in employee files or referencing it in subsequent discipline.
• 83. Rights of regular carriers to be hired as RCA’s.
• 84. Rights of retired carriers to be employed as relief employees.
• 85. Rights of regular carrier to first option when the assigned RCA on the route is scheduled to work elsewhere (particularly another office).
• 86. Clearly defined the policies for determining and maintaining rural delivery territory as rural territory.
• 87. Eliminated the right of city carriers, clerks and managers to bid on rural route vacancies.
• 88. Negotiated wage structures so that a 48 hour evaluated route (40-K) exceeds the median income in 48 of 50 states (excluding Connecticut and New Jersey).
• 89. Negotiated compensation so that carriers on annual leave or on sick leave are paid overtime while sick or on vacation on routes evalu­ated over 40 hours.
• 90. Negotiated a compensation package unique in that rural carrier overtime built into evaluated pay is credited and computed for retire­ment and for determination high three.
• 91. When rural carriers are finished they are finished and do not have to complete their full workday or they finish before their sched­uled time.
• 92. Rural carriers have the right to represent themselves in the griev­ance procedure at the initial step 1 informal level.
• 93. Created a unique database of step 4 decisions, arbitrations and all the related rural references and CDs for stewards to better repre­sent rural craft employees.
• 94. Implemented and standardized training for stewards and officers to provide better representation.
• 95. Advocated and assisted in sponsoring landmark legislation for IRS deductions of work-related expenses, for inclusion of new employees immediately into the Thrift Savings Plan, etc., that still needs some adjustments but that no other special interest group was able to accomplish.
• 96. Created and sponsored a group vehicle insurance plan that for most states offers a very competitive rate for premium auto insur­ance and in some cases home insurance.
• 97. An organization that is answerable and accountable to the mem­bership every year as opposed to other crafts which hold conven­tions every other year.
• 98. A work system and compensation system which minimizes supervision and the daily hassles that other crafts go through.
• 99. Constructing a standardized mail count guide that eliminated most of the mail count interpretation arguments.
• 100. Preserved withdrawal time when USPS nationwide tried to eliminate it.
• 101. Doubling of rural routes over the last fifteen years when rural routes had been relatively stable for decades before that.
• 102. The official joint grievance file being the union file without a separate USPS file.
• 103. Right to back pay plus interest when an arbitrator orders back pay.

UPDATE: Since there have been so many comments saying this list is not true, I went through and deleted the ones that are no longer viable.  That still leaves 99..  That is a lot of things that we all enjoy no matter when it was implemented..