Category: Clerks

In his first national-level arbitration Article 19 award for the APWU and the Postal Service, Arbitrator Homer LaRue reviewed the Postal Service’s new Dispatch Coordinator position to determine whether it complied with the National Agreement and was fair, reasonable, and equitable. APWU and USPS, Case No. 6X21C-6X-C23174015 (LaRue 2026). Arbitrator LaRue took testimony from postal witnesses that the Postal Service “needed to create a position that reported through Function 3, Logistics, for 24-hour coverage and […]

On March 4, 2026, Arbitrator Margo Newman issued an interim award holding that the APWU’s Clerk Craft Jobs MOU Step 4 grievance may proceed to arbitration at the national level. The decision clears the way for the APWU to litigate on the merits of its claim that the Postal Service violated Article 1.5, the Clerk Craft Jobs MOU, and related work-preservation provisions of the National Agreement by assigning non-managerial and non-supervisory work outside the Clerk […]

The Clerk Division held its general session and workshops at the 2023 All-Craft Conference in Las Vegas, NV. We taught classes on steward training, local leadership, RI-399 Craft Jurisdiction, Articles 12 and 16, gaining clerk craft work, and POStPlan. Prior to our officer reports, NBA Linda Turney recognized and honored recently retired Central Regional Coordinator Sharyn Stone, followed by former Clerk Division Assistant Director Dr. Pat Williams honoring the life and work of recently departed […]

The Clerk Craft and the Postal Service have agreed to an implementation process in order to comply with the national-level award by Arbitrator Stephen Goldberg in Case #Q10C-4Q-C-15174956. The Goldberg award centered around the Clerk Craft Jobs Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and the Postal Service’s failure to create all 800 administrative and technical jobs that the MOU required. Goldberg not only ordered the USPS to create and post the additional 362 jobs that were needed […]

On November 4, 2022, the parties agreed to extend the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Re: Bulk Mail Tech and Mailing Requirements Clerk Position Qualification. This MOU originated during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been extended on several occasions, leading to the latest agreement to continue it for one year from the signing of the agreement. The MOU establishes the required training for employees bidding to Bulk Mail Tech and Mailing Requirements Clerk duty assignments, including the […]

Lamont Brooks Where We’ve Been Since 2009, the USPS has wanted to cut our workforce and reduce the retail footprint using Contract Postal Units (CPUs), approved shippers, and reducing or closing retail operations, which, if successful, would have reduced mail processing and retail/customer service clerks to under 50,000 clerks in each case. However, the clerk complement was 154, 061 in 2011; as of 2022, there are 155,895 employees in the craft — an increase of […]

On September 1, 2022 Arbitrator Joseph M. Sharnoff issued his latest national-level RI-399 award, this one concerning the Automated Delivery Unit Sorter (ADUS). The ADUS award was the last in a series of four RI-399 craft jurisdiction awards that the APWU, NPMHU (Mail Handlers Union) and the Postal Service had presented at the national-level. In the ADUS case, Arbitrator Sharnoff found that the Postal Service had “acted appropriately and within its right to exercise discretion […]

Position Qualification MOU Extended On June 7, 2021, Clerk Craft Director Lamont Brooks reached agreement with the Postal Service to extend the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Re: Bulk Mail Tech and Mailing Requirement Position Qualification. The MOU, which was originally dated April 3, 2020, is extended through August 6, 2021.  The MOU was agreed to because of COVID-19 issues that prevented employees from receiving training for these positions in the customary manner and instead created […]

The training guides for Lead Sales & Services Associates (LSSAs) were recently revised in May of 2021. The training materials include the following: Lead Sales and Services Associate On-the-Job Training Guide Lead Sales and Services Associate (LSSA) Training – Participant Guide Lead Sales and Services Associate (LSSA) Training – Facilitator Guide Lead Sales and Services Associate (LSSA) Administrator Guide The updated course materials were a result of joint efforts between the APWU and the Postal […]

Violations Set to Begin on April 30, 2021 On April 26, 2021, the Postal Service informed the Clerk Craft that it had partially input the second round of payments required by the national-level award, dated June 17, 2017 authored by Arbitrator Stephen B. Goldberg in Case #Q10C-4Q-C-15206043. The arbitrator’s award was due to the Postal Service’s failure to honor a December 22, 2014 agreement between the parties surrounding the POStPlan Staffing for Remotely Managed Post […]

APWU Clerk Craft Director Lamont Brooks signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Postal Service that upgraded the known remaining Level 6 Mailing Requirements Clerks (MRC) to Level 7. The MOU, dated April 20, 2021, identified four (4) Level 6 MRC duty assignments by Job Identification number – one in Charleston, SC, one in Fort Worth, TX, and two in Houston, TX – that were entitled to be upgraded to Level 7.  The MOU, […]

The APWU will begin negotiations for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in June. The current CBA is set to expire on September 20, 2021. As such, the Clerk Craft officers have begun preparing for negotiations on issues related to our craft. We are currently reviewing all resolutions that were adopted by the delegates at past National Conventions applying to Article 37. These resolutions involve issues such as bidding, assignment of unencumbered regulars, 204-B restrictions, […]

On December 1, 2020, Arbitrator Joseph M. Sharnoff issued a decision confirming Clerk Craft jurisdiction over operation of the Small Parcel Sorting System (SPSS) machine.  The Award soundly rejects arguments made by the Mail Handlers Union which claimed that Mail Handlers should be assigned all the work on the machines. The Postal Service had issued a decision in 2015 designating the Clerk Craft as the primary craft for performing the work of “singulating/separating packages & facing/feeding […]

Clerk Craft Gains 362 Administrative and Technical Jobs 04/24/2017 – Arbitrator Goldberg ruled that the Postal Service failed to make a good faith effort to return 362 administrative and technical jobs to the Clerk Craft. The arbitration award was issued on April 21, 2017 and settles a long-standing dispute over the Clerk Craft Jobs Memorandum of Understanding in the 2010 Collective Bargaining Agreement.The memo called for the Postal Service to return 800 positions to the Clerk […]