President Brian Wagner, Executive Vice President Ivan D. Butts and Executive Board Chair Tim Ford attended the Aug. 26 consultative meeting via Zoom. Representing the Postal Service were Bruce Nicholson and James Timmins, Labor Relations Policy Administration; Robert Neal, manager, Delivery Operations; Dr. Gun Udomsawat, manager, P&DC Operations; and Earl Randel, Operations specialist.
NAPS Executive Board members have made NAPS Headquarters aware the USPS currently is removing mail processing machines and equipment from postal facilities and/or operations. Some machines and equipment are being physically removed from postal facilities. Others are being covered with tarps in a facility to ensure non-use. Does the USPS expect a reduction of EAS positions as a result of the reduction of postal machines and equipment in postal facilities? If yes:
Supervisory positions are not predicated on the number of machines, but on the number of bargaining-unit employees in a facility through staffing ratios. There are no planned excessing events outside of the section due to the machine reductions/relocations and, therefore, no intent to reduce EAS positions.
There may be situations where bargaining-unit positions increase/decrease on different tours in the facility, which may trigger reassignment of a supervisor to another tour in a facility. But this wouldn’t trigger a RIF.
The USPS makes annual adjustments to relocate, remove, take out of service (tarp) or add postal equipment throughout USPS operations due to mail volume changes. Equipment use is based on letter, flat and package volume workload. As a result of COVID-19, mail volume has decreased by approximately 20%.
NAPS asked why the USPS scrapped postal equipment, such as DBCS and BCS machines, rather than sell them to potential mailing houses or workshare companies.
The respective operation equipment had been fully depreciated and had no value.
Agenda Item #2
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many EAS employees are unable to use annual leave due to staffing shortages and being COVID-19 quarantined. While EAS employees are off work due to contracting COVID-19, other EAS employees are having their annual leave canceled due to being essential workers or unable to travel for vacation due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and other factors.
Based on the impact of COVID-19 on employees taking annual leave, NAPS Headquarters has received inquiries from members with concerns that, due to being unable to take annual leave in 2020, they will accumulate leave above the maximum USPS carryover amount. Therefore, without modification to the USPS annual leave carryover policy, many EAS employees will lose earned annual leave at the end of the year.
In order to protect EAS employees from losing earned annual leave because of circumstances outside their control, NAPS asked the Postal Service to implement two modifications to the USPS annual leave policy for calendar year 2020 only:
1. Increase the annual leave carryover maximum amount by an additional 200 hours.
2. Allow EAS employees to sell back up to an additional 128 hours, or a total of 256 annual leave hours, before the end of 2020.
3. If options 1 or 2 do not satisfy the employee’s situation from forfeiting earned annual leave in 2020, allow the employee to sell back earned annual leave in 2020, as well as carry over annual leave above the new temporary maximum.
This item was provided to Vice President of Labor Relations Doug Tulino for consideration outside the pay consultation process. Changes to the annual leave exchange and annual leave carry-over were modified on Sept. 3.
(See October Postal Supervisor, p. 17).
Agenda Item #3
AMS EAS employees in the field are concerned with the speed of the Sortation Equipment Reconciliation (SER) process to convert over 200,000 city routes to one six-shelf case by Oct 2, 2020. NAPS asked to be briefed on the lack of OIEs to design the CAD drawings for the various offices. Many of these positions have been vacant for over a year.
NAPS also asked to be briefed on what steps have taken place to address the lack of notification to field Maintenance units that have to modify cases to accommodate this change. AMS EAS employees are not supposed to perform maintenance in the AMS database; that is a craft function.
Because carrier input is part of the process, COVID-19 and liberal-leave policies may make this difficult to achieve in such a short time-frame, as well as COVID-19 and liberal-leave policies among craft employees in AMS offices.
NAPS further asked if this applies to rural routes, as well. Are units required to send edit books to AMS with these changes, which would overwhelm most AMS offices at district offices in this short timeframe?
The SER only is a component of a greater initiative, Delivery Unit Network Optimization. This component has been placed on hold with an indefinite date it will resume. The ultimate result of this initiative is space-saving, which helps minimize challenges created by increases in parcel volumes. CAD or hand drawings of the floor layout are acceptable. This initiative currently applies to city routes.
As additional NAPS information, due to mail volume declines, the intent of SER is to reduce city carrier casing equipment into one piece of equipment with six shelves. The USPS estimates 75% to 80% of city delivery routes can be reduced to one piece of casing equipment, as it may not be capable to have all city routes converted down to one piece of casing equipment. The USPS does not see an issue of AMS being able to accommodate the workload to convert city-carrier cases equipment labels to one piece of equipment with six shelves.
Agenda Item #4
NAPS has been notified that the Office of Personnel Management issued an interim rule that would allow some federal employees to carry more than 30 days of annual leave into 2021. NAPS requested this rule be applied to USPS employees who, as essential personnel, have been impacted by COVID-19.
This item was provided to Vice President of Labor Relations Doug Tulino for consideration outside the pay consultation process. Changes to the annual leave exchange and annual leave carry-over were modified on Sept. 3.
(See October Postal Supervisor, p.17.)
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