THE CLERK CRAFT IS UNDER ATTACK! By: Chuck Locke, NBA

By: National Business Agent “Chuck Locke”

THE CLERK CRAFT IS UNDER ATTACK!

The Postal Service has launched an attack on the Clerk Craft and they are out for blood! The Postal Service wants to eliminate over 16,000 clerk jobs nationwide and more than 2000 clerk jobs in our area. Their plan is to revert and abolish as many jobs as they can, as fast as they can despite the specific circumstances in the section or facility. It’s up to us to fight back this vicious attack on our jobs. I have volunteered to be the Lead National Business Agent for this battle. This issue is so important to all your Clerk Craft NBA’s, that we are willing to come to your Local and assist your officers with the grievances they will need to file. We need you to do your part as well. That means complying with the National Agreement by doing a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay as recognized by the parties. Just because management decides to eliminate jobs in your section or facility, it doesn’t mean you must do the work of two people, hold your breaks or take a no lunch. Simply do your job and be safe. If the line at the window is going out the door and the customers are complaining, give them your managers or postmasters telephone number to call to voice their concerns. I would have business cards printed with their phone numbers on them ready to be handed out. If the mail doesn’t get processed in a timely manner or if management is falsifying the time your box section is up, report it to the OIG. Let management be held accountable for their actions! The Postal Service has started issuing excessing packages claiming they are overstaffed. We have received Article 12 excessing notifications claiming overstaffing of 52 in San Francisco, 64 in Oakland, 130 in Los Angeles and 14 San Bernardino. I don’t know of any post office or plant that is overstaffed. In fact, most AO’s and city stations are drastically understaffed. Most of our plants are utilizing PSE’s as full-time employees. If the Post Office is so overstaffed, why are the PSE’s working full-time? Your National Officers have a battle plan to fight back. It’s called reality! Management is utilizing what they call earned hours to eliminate duty assignments. Earned hours is based off their fantasy of what it takes to staff a section or facility. The Union is utilizing the Maximum Duty Assignment Tool (MDAT) which demonstrates the actual number of hours management utilizes to run the section or facility. The language in Article 37.3.A.1 states that every effort will be made to create desirable duty assignments from all available work hours for career employees to bid and the Postal Service agreed to this language. This means we can run MDAT utilizing all the PSE hours and overtime in your section or facility to create new duty assignments. We believe management will have a hard time getting around this language and our MDAT reports. We can defeat this attack on the Clerk Craft if we all fight together. I am all in, how about you? In Solidarity, Chuck Locke, NBA