JANUARY 2007 UPDATE

CONTRACT

The contract has been ratified by a total of 84486 voted “yes” to 12016 voted “no”. The highlights of the contract are:

1.     1.3% pay increase has of November 20, 2006. Retroactive pay check will be issued by the end of March 2007,

2.     There will be two cost of living raises each year. One in the March checks and one in the September checks. According to the cost of living index formula for this past quarter an increase this March does not seem viable.

3.     All Maintenance, Motor Vehicle and Clerk craft employees will be upgraded one level in February of 2008; this is upgrade is equivalent to an average of $1100 or 2.3% pay increase.

4.     There will be a pay increase of 1.2% effective November of 2009.

5.     Uniform Allowances will increase by 2.5% in each year of the contract.

FLEXI-CLERKS

The new contract converts all flexi CLERKS at DVD to regular no later then December 1, 2007. I will be meeting with management on January 30^th 2007. One of the issues to be discussed is to set schedule A time table of flexi conversions prior to the contractual dead line.

CASUALS

The new contract calls for the elimination of all clerk casuals from Tour 2; this will take about 4 to 6 months.

For a complete update of the entire contract please click the National APWU link.

MAINTENANCE

In early December of 2006 Maintenance manager Mr. Raimo notified the Union that management planned to change the Begin Tour time by 1 hour. The union was able to get the time reduced to 30 minutes. I am aware that the new starting time may cause heavy volume in the parking lot, I intend on monitoring the situation to address any problems. Tour 2 shop steward, Nick Homyak was able to get NJDOT to adjust the traffic light in front of the facility, allowing more vehicles to enter and exit the facility. Management has also agreed that if the parking lot traffic becomes a safety issue then the starting time will be delayed by 15 more minutes.

FSM

The new Automated Induction System (AI), will be installed starting January 20, 2007, management has awarded the majority of these jobs to the Mailhandler’s craft. The APWU has filed a Jurisdictional grievance on this decision. The installation of the AI’s will take about 10 to 12 days per machine. Click here for the complete schedule 

Management realizes that there is a Mailhandler staffing shortage, both USPS and the National Mailhandler Union officials have agreed that all Mailhandler bids will become effective no later than 90 days after the acceptance of the AI system. During this time the National Agreement allows the usage of clerks in these positions.

At a recent meeting it was agreed that management may solicit clerk volunteers. If management is unable to get enough clerk volunteers, then the union’s position is to mandate casuals and in necessary Flexi.

THE JANUARY SCHEDULE FOR TOUR STAND-UPS IS;

Tour 1 January 18, 2007

Tour 2 January 23, 2007

Tour 3 January 25, 2007