Downsizing, Excessing
And the Collective Bargaining Agreement

Getting "excessed" is probably one of the most unpleasant experiences postal workers endure at work: It means losing your bid and being reassigned to a new position, tour, craft, or installation. It can force you to rearrange your home life as well as your work life.

But Article 12 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which governs reassignments, safeguards full-time employees who have lost their positions as a result of downsizing.

In the 1980s, when automated equipment began to replace Letter Sorting Machines, USPS management concluded that many employees would be excess to needs of their section, craft, or installation. In accordance with Article 12, the Postal Service started to withhold residual vacancies (jobs that remain vacant after they have been posted for bid) in large numbers.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement requires management to withhold residual vacancies when excessing is anticipated - rather than convert part-time flexibles to full time and assign them to the positions - in order to accommodate career employees who may be reassigned because their positions were abolished.

What the Union Does

Whenever management anticipates excessing will take place from an installation, USPS Area management provides the union's regional coordinator with an Impact Statement. Every time the Eastern Region Coordinator office receives an Impact Statement, the union's Automation Committee takes action.

The Automation Committee and Area Management meet with local union and management officials to discuss the contractual provisions involved and to get input from the local officers.

As a result of these meetings, we have been successful on many occasions in minimizing the number of employees excessed outside of their installation.

We discuss every impact. We have had meetings about an impact to a single employee.

Comparative Work-Hour Report

Article 12 stipulates that when employees are excessed out of their installation, the union at the national level may request a comparative work-hour report of the losing installation 60 days after the excessing of such employees.

The comparative work-hour study can be a critical factor in challenging improper excessing. If the report fails to substantiate that business conditions warranted the action, Article 12 says, the retreat rights of the employees shall be activated, and they will be permitted to bid on vacancies in their original installation.

The Eastern Region has an agreement that a meeting will take place after the comparative work-hour report is issued to discuss whether the report justifies the excessing. We have agreed that if we cannot resolve differences of opinion on this subject, the matter will be placed at the top of the arbitration docket. The Eastern Region has been very successful at arbitration concerning excessing.

Moratorium

The extension of the 2000-2003 Collective Bargaining Agreement imposed a moratorium on excessing APWU-represented employees more than 50 miles, unless the employee is slotted into a vacancy created as a result of the early-out provisions of the contract extension. This moratorium will end six months after management provides the APWU with its plan for plant consolidations.

In the interim, the extension agreement has significantly reduced the number of employees being excessed out of their installation.

Between the signing of the contract extension in December 2002 and the summer of 2004, management notified the APWU that more than 500 employees in the Eastern Region were excess to the needs of their installation. These employees could not be moved, however, due to the moratorium.

Pros and Cons

Although staffing has been reduced at virtually all facilities due to automation, excessing outside the installation has been avoided in many cases due to attrition, contractual provisions, and the hard work of local union officials and the Automation Committee.

To date, few employees have been moved out of large installations, but many employees have been moved out of small facilities.

Downsizing has been the result of many management actions: Function One studies, Function Four studies, and the Labor Scheduler software, which is designed to reduce staffing. The Automated Package Parcel Sorter (APPS) machines, which will be deployed on a wide scale in 2004 and 2005, will replace Small Parcel and Bundle Sorters. We have experienced non-stop deployment of automated equipment.

From 1998 to 2003, the APWU lost 51,553 Clerk Craft career employees, 248 Motor Vehicle Operators, and 52 Vehicle Maintenance employees. We have gained 415 Maintenance Craft employees. In 2003 alone, there was a reduction of 54 million work-hours nationwide. Management projects an additional reduction of 25 million work-hours in 2004. This would mean a loss of 11,000 more employees.

The Letter Carrier Craft has lost 11,409 employees, and the Mail Handler Craft has lost 5,471 employees during the same period. The only craft other than maintenance to experience an increase in employees is the Rural Letter Carrier Craft, which gained 9,370.

These factors have severely limited the conversion of part-time flexibles to full time. According to Article 12, only large installations (those that meet the criteria of 125 or more work years) can force conversions to full-time while an installation is withholding vacancies. However, if the hours worked by the PTF are in non-impacted hours, conversions should take place. Management has resisted making the conversions in some places, but we have won arbitrations on this issue.

Not a Single Layoff

With all the downsizing, not a single APWU member has been laid off. We are part of perhaps the only industry in the country that can make such a claim.

If it wasn't for the APWU, 51,000 clerks could have been simply laid off. But because of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and the APWU's work to enforce Article 12, no APWU-represented employees have lost their jobs.

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