Facing the New Year With Tempered Hope

Facing the New Year With Tempered Hope
By Ivan D. Butts
NAPS National President

Hello, my NAPS brothers and sisters. I hope you and your family had a wonderfully blessed holiday season.

With the new year come old and new issues we must face as employees who manage the delivery of America’s mail. These challenges make me question the confidence we all need to have that our leadership will work in the best interests of America, as well as the EAS employees of the USPS.

We see the continued erosion of dignity and respect for EAS employees through the implementation of policies and procedures. On Dec. 1, the Postal Service issued a memorandum calling for changes to EAS work schedules using vague language that NAPS believes will have negative effects on the lives of EAS employees who should be shielded from employer abuse by policy and procedures.

NAPS always has contended that when EAS employees accept job offers, they do so with specific work hours and scheduled days off. This is an agreement between EAS employees and leadership to be at work on the prescribed days and times. Further, it is agreed that one’s private, family and personal issues will be conducted and completed outside those days and hours.

When the USPS makes any changes to an EAS schedule, it disrupts the time the EAS employee has to address their private, family and personal matters. These changes also could trigger increased needs for reasonable accommodation or FMLA protections not previously needed because EAS employees were handling all their personal issues during their unscheduled time. There also is a legal issue arising from the denial of EAS rights that could be pursued.

We have our 15th extension of the memorandum to provide compensation pay to EAS employees for delivering mail, which continues to demonstrate the USPS’ inability to staff properly. This is despite the removal of nearly all authority to exercise “Management Rights” from EAS employees, which is a failing attempt to appease an attrition rate driven more by employees who value the quality of their personal lives over the demanding, but sometimes redundant, jobs of the USPS.

Quick pause: I hope those EAS employees still being mandated to deliver mail are doing so after completing the required duties of their EAS Form 50 positions, properly recording their work hours in time and attendance systems and ensuring this work is recorded in RADAR in order to validate the work and their need for proper compensation. These Article 8 issues, due to the poor staffing model, must be considered acceptable to senior leadership given the approximate five years of this temporary stopgap.

We also are dealing with the continuation of the great transformation, formerly known as “Delivering for America,” with the new PMG committed to staying the course — a course that continues to see delayed mail at various locations around the country. Most recently, while I was writing this column, there were reports from Louisville, KY, showing gaylords of parcels staged for processing in the P&DC, with trailers lining the road outside, waiting to come in and be unloaded — a scene we have seen in Atlanta, Richmond and Charlotte, to name a few other places.

What I find ironic is USPS leaderships’ response that there would be an increase in leadership resources in Louisville. Since I have been blessed to serve on the NAPS Executive Board, I have repeatedly spoken to the USPS’ failure to properly staff managerial leadership due to flawed ratios based on wishful thinking, rather than real-world objectives. Whether on the processing or delivery side of the house, senior executives continue to fail to provide adequate leadership resources, while using the lack of those resources as a reason for operational failures.

And let’s not forget that those leadership resources of which the USPS currently is speaking of providing are in the middle of the largest reduction in force (RIF) I ever have witnessed. We currently are one-third of the way through the 245 RIFs scheduled across the country through 2026.

As I stated at the beginning of this column, I see a new year that will bring old and new issues, as well as uncertainties. Leading into this year, the signs show that dignity and respect toward EAS employees on issues and policies and procedures continue to erode morale, as well as faith and confidence that leadership remains committed to cultivating a positive and safe work environment free of threats, intimidation, bullying and violence for all employees.

In solidarity …