Ask the President Archives

Below is a response by former APWU President William Burrus to a question posed online by a union member. Other questions cover a wide range of topics, from contract enforcement to union governance.

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Question:

I would like to voice my opinion on the 2006 PTR conversions. I read your response dated Sept. 17, 2008, and totally disagree with several of your statements.

In our facility (Wilmington DE) and its stations and branches, management is abolishing and excessing FTRs (those WITH HIGHER SENIORITY) and keeping PTRs who have fewer years in. This is extremely upsetting to the senior clerks. This is just another way of downsizing, or should I say outsourcing our jobs to the PTRs.

You talk about a lack of seniority as a PTF and how it was a deficiency. Now we who have worked to achieve “seniority” years later, find that it means nothing when it comes to who management picks to excess or abolish. Of course it’s the clerk with MORE to lose. Blatant attempt on management’s part to pick away at Full-Time Regulars and erode what the Union fought so hard for, job security!

The union should have expected this from management (pitting the 36-hour PTR against the 40-hour FTR) and had language to combat this type of conflict. Now we as FTRs are in jeopardy of being excessed or converting to PTRs.

The injustice concerning this issue is immense, and no monetary award (from future grievances) can compensate us for losing our jobs to a junior clerk. It is our hope that the union can correct this problem with better verbiage.

In unionism,

Charlene, Wilmington DE/MTS Local

President Burrus:

I am in receipt of your letter to Ask the President, regarding the conversion of PTFs. It is obvious that we disagree, but hopefully we do so agreeably. You relate the conversion of PTFs to the subsequent excessing of full-time employees and consider it “cause and effect.” I disagree.

The conversion of every PTF in offices with 200 or more work years was, in fact, a historic event. And the elimination of PTFs as a workforce category in these offices was an outstanding achievement.

Can you imagine what the plight of PTFs would be during this time of reduced volume and budget deficits if we had not negotiated these provisions? Part-time flexibles would be working fewer than 10 hours per week instead of enjoying the guarantee of full-time employment.

The contract treats the excessing of full-time and part-time employees as separate categories, and the APWU has never negotiated a provision that would require the excessing of PTRs prior to full-time employees. Therefore, management had the right to excess full-time employees ahead of PTRs before we reached agreement to convert PTFs, and continues to have that right today.

This possibility always existed, yet, as a result of the negotiated provisions, every PTF in large offices has been converted.

Contrary to your assertion, I did anticipate the possibility that management would use excessing as a way to balance the workforce. I discussed this possibility with postal management, and reached agreement that the USPS would not excess the PTFs to smaller offices to avoid converting them.

The contract also provides that a full-time employee who has been identified as excess has, at the employee’s option, the right to remain in the installation as a PTR.

I understand the impact of being forced to relocate your work assignment and perhaps your home, so I do not take lightly the disruption that excessing had on you and your family. But in these difficult economic times, when millions of American workers have lost their employment, I am proud that not a single employee represented by the American Postal Workers Union has lost their job. I am equally as proud of the fact that 11,000 PTFs have been converted to full time and have a guarantee of 40 hours of work per week.

Thank you for your membership in the union. I ask that you view the union not only as how you are affected but how “we” are affected.

Happy holidays.

Dec. 29, 2008