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Feb. 23 Consultative

NAPS President Ivan D. Butts, Executive Vice President Chuck Mulidore, Secretary/Treasurer Jimmy Warden and Executive Board Chair Tim Ford attended the Feb. 23 consultative meeting via Zoom. Representing the Postal Service were Bruce Nicholson and James Timmons, Labor Relations Policy Administration.

Delegates at the 2021 NAPS National Convention expressed by resolution the following issues for discussion:

Resolution 30

NAPS requests that the Postal Service compensates all special-exempt and non-exempt EAS employees who work a nonscheduled day in a service week at a rate of 150% of their calculated base hourly rate for all hours worked on a nonscheduled day.

This is a request to modify pay policy and should be provided during pay consultations, Title 39 1004(e).

Resolution 31

That NAPS consults with the USPS to implement a COLA adjustment process to the EAS pay package.

This is a request to modify pay policy and should be provided during pay consultations, Title 39 1004(e).

Resolution 32

That NAPS consults with the USPS to reimburse the full cash value to the postal employee who controls the unused benefit (lost benefit).

This is a request to modify pay policy and should be provided during pay consultations, Title 39 1004(e).

Resolution 33

No EAS supervisor shall earn less than 5% more than the top of the pay scale of any craft employee they supervise and that no manager or postmaster shall earn less than 5% more than the top of the pay scale of any employee they supervise, including subordinate EAS employees.

This is a request to modify pay policy and should be provided during pay consultations, Title 39 1004(e).

Resolution 34

That the current waiting period for higher-level compensation for EAS employees be abolished and a new, higher-level compensation procedure be created that would serve to acknowledge and compensate EAS employees immediately when they are required to perform higher-level duties in shift durations.

This is a request to modify pay policy and should be provided during pay consultations, Title 39 1004(e).

Agenda Item #1

NAPS requested the USPS to consider increasing the hiring cap by the percentage over the acceptable amount of total over time percentage being used in each area office YTD.

Hiring non-career employees and CAP allowances are subject to collective bargaining with the respective union. CAP allowances can be found in Article 7 of the applicable national agreement. Each district and division is responsible for ensuring the number of non-career employees does not exceed the established cap allowances.

Agenda Item #2

Daily Amazon emails from
areas greater than 10 miles away are constantly flooding email inboxes. Can the USPS communicate to our partners at Amazon to stop targeting every office with a mass email distribution list that, 99.9% of the time, has nothing to do with individuals in these offices or the areas where most work?

Amazon communicates directly with designated district coordinators unless contacted by a local facility. There is a process for local facilities to communicate directly with Amazon. Local managers should be careful not to include an MPOO, district or area group list when messaging Amazon or Amazon will use the “reply all” feature assuming that the sender wanted everyone included on the response.

Agenda Item #3

NAPS asked the USPS to look into the TACS issue and allow the TACS backup person to perform TACS whenever the lead-7 clerk is off as opposed to being off for more than three days only, which presents a hardship to offices at times.

This agenda item has been addressed recently in prior consultative meetings. In installations that are authorized a lead clerk, local management can determine the clerk(s) in the installation to train as a “backup lead-7 clerk” to perform TACS-related duties. A relief (backup) lead clerk serves as a replacement when the lead clerk is off on non-scheduled days or leave.

There is no requirement to change an existing duty assignment of a level-6 clerk to perform as a relief lead clerk. Note: The relief clerk is paid in accordance with ELM 233.3.

The following is Item #6 from the Oct. 19, 2021, consultative:

The field currently is being informed that in order to train a backup lead-7 clerk to perform TACS-related duties, it must be on their bid; otherwise, they cannot be trained. The consequences from this issue will lead to EAS employees performing necessary TACS functions, therefore allowing the APWU to file grievances and win due to EAS employees performing craft work.

In installations that are authorized a lead clerk, local management can determine the clerk(s) in the installation to train as a “backup lead-7 clerk” to perform TACS-related duties. A relief (backup) lead clerk serves as a replacement when the lead clerk is off on non-scheduled days or leave.

There is no requirement to change an existing duty assignment of a level-6 clerk to perform as a relief lead clerk. Note: The relief clerk is paid in accordance with ELM 233.3.

233.3 Criteria for Evaluating Mixed Assignments

“233.3.b. Regularly scheduled on intermittent days in two bargaining unit positions. When a full-time employee is regularly scheduled on intermittent workdays to perform the work of two separate bargaining unit positions in different grades, the employee is placed in the position in which more than 50 % of the time is spent. If the time is equally divided, the employee is placed in the higher grade position.”

The following is Item #7 from the Nov. 21, 2021, consultative:

Can the official backup to a lead-7 clerk have TACS access automatically without filling out a PS Form 1723 every time they cover the lead-7 clerk’s absence?

There is no requirement to change an existing duty assignment of a level-6 clerk to perform as a relief lead clerk. The relief clerk is paid in accordance with ELM 233.3.

Agenda Item #4

NAPS asked whether the newly developed Headquarters POD positions will be given a posted schedule by every Tuesday and if they will be paid T-time for hours in excess of 8.5 in a day or all hours on a non-scheduled day.

Supervisor T-time is provided to supervisors who oversee bargaining-unit employees; employees assigned to the POD are administrative jobs—not frontline supervisors. A significant number of employees assigned to the POD, about 90%, are Level-19 positions such as Delivery Support Specialist, Post Office Support Specialist and Retail Support Specialist, and are classified non-exempt and, thus, eligible for overtime pay.

Schedules are posted weekly with locations where employees are expected to conduct their work. The locations are identified based on current performance. The schedule could change during the week if there are needs in those facilities, such as reporting earlier and later in the day.

Although jobs have set days off and a schedule, it is subject to change based on the job description. Job descriptions for the Level-19 positions contain special requirements that read: “Willingness to travel and work nights and weekends, as needed.”

Agenda Item #5

Has the USPS resumed a policy of creating ad hoc detail positions that are not officially posted? NAPS was informed the USPS had eliminated all details prior to and during the most recent reduction in force.

Policies concerning detail/ad hoc positions have not changed. Detail positions were not “eliminated’ due to the 2021 administrative restructuring and the reduction in force that followed. In a few isolated instances, it was recommended that managers end a detail to a job that was being eliminated as part of the restructuring.

Agenda Item #6

NAPS requested a position review for IT Client Support Specialist III, EAS-23, based on ELM 222, Requesting a Job Evaluation Review. Based on the documentation that follows, NAPS believes this position was misclassified as part of the most recent EAS reduction in force and should be an EAS-25, with a 4% upgrade.

Background: What was once called Field IT was cut severely as a result of the most recent EAS RIF. With the cut, the Level-23 position now covers multiple districts and, unlike other EAS positions, was not upgraded. The lower-level employees have taken on greater responsibility and service area, as well.

On May 8, 2021, the district IS manager was changed to an IT Client Support Specialist III, which was to standardize the name to align with Headquarters and other already existing Headquarters positions. At that time, there already were Level I and II at Headquarters; the Level III was titled Supervisor. With a team of five employees, three are Level-19s (IT Client Support Specialist I) and two Level-21s (IT Client Support Specialist II).

There are 60 positions in the Postal Service that follow that same structure as Level III (EAS-25), Level II (EAS-23) and Level I (EAS-21). The position of IT Client Support Specialist III was the only one designated EAS-23; all others were EAS-25 or higher (only two were higher).

This was escalated to HR. On June 7, the USPS responded that the Level III title was incorrect, then proceeded to change the positions to Level II (EAS-23), Level I (EAS-21) and the 19 to an IT Client Support Specialist (no level). Not only has the workload changed, such as multiple days of overnight travel for various site installs and upgrades, the service area change alone is enough to justify the level changes.

Not only has the workload changed, such as multiple days of overnight travel for various site installs and upgrades, the service area change alone is enough to justify the level changes.

In 2021, Human Resources updated and reevaluated the Headquarters and Field IT client support jobs in preparation for the restructure. To review and evaluate the jobs, managers were interviewed and focus groups and surveys were conducted with incumbents. IT HelpDesk ticket data was analyzed and market research was conducted on comparable jobs.

The analyses identified that, prior to the restructure, Field IT positions were spending a considerable amount of time performing non-IT work, such as providing A/V support for meetings, managing SharePoint sites and tracking cybersecurity training compliance.

As part of the restructure, Field IT positions were realigned under Headquarters IT and supervisors’ control was increased from one to two subordinates to four to five. Non-IT work was eliminated through communication and reinforcement of standard processes such as submitting work requests through the ServiceNow IT HelpDesk system.

After the restructure, all IT Client Support positions were assigned work through the ServiceNow IT HelpDesk system. As a result, while domiciled IT Client Support positions are expected to provide onsite IT support locally, all other requests are assigned based on availability rather than other designations, such as area or district. Therefore, the system allows work to be more evenly distributed across the entire IT Client Support group.

As a result of these changes, both the Field and Headquarters IT positions now perform the same work. Based on evaluation of the work, it was determined that pay grade EAS-23 is appropriate for the supervisory job.