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Excessing and Article 12

The Collective Bargaining Agreement and the Joint Contract Interpretation Manual (JCIM) require management to meet with union representatives at the Area/Regional level to discuss the contractual provisions that must be complied with when reassignments (excessing) take place. Often times these meetings are successful in lessening the impact and minimizing the disruption and inconvenience to postal workers.

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

This committee represents all locals within the Northeast Region. Its purpose is to ensure that management's actions are consistent with contractual provisions when a determination is made to excess employees outside their facilities.

Locals that represent gaining and losing facilities are invited to participate to ensure that management provides them all relevant information and to give them the opportunity to provide input.

The union's Automation Committee consists of the regional coordinator and national business agents (NBAs) representing the Northeast Region.

Grievances involving excessing should be discussed with the respective NBA; they are not an issue for the Automation Committee.

Post Excessing Report

The JCIM also requires management to provide a report to the APWU regional office reflecting who was excessed, the employees' status, and where they were excessed to.

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 that, the retreat rights of the employees shall be activated, and they will be permitted to bid on vacancies in their original installation.

NOTE: According to the JCIM, locals should request these reports through the regional coordinator, who will secure the data from the USPS Area office.

Moratorium

The extension of the 2000-2003 Collective Bargaining Agreement imposed a moratorium on excessing APW-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 consolidation, which now known as the Integrated Network Plan.

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

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 and settled cases 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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