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Rough Rides Along the Network Realignment Trail
(This article first appeared in the January/February 2009 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)
In the fall we learned of yet another example of the failure of the USPS network realignment plan: The Postal Service announced in November that it was rescinding two consolidation proposals — both of them nearly three years old. One was a plan to consolidate a western Iowa postal facility’s mail across state lines; the other was a proposal to consolidate a South Dakota facility to a plant 90 miles away.
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Unable to come up with a way to justify the plan to reward corporate mailers at the expense of local business owners and citizens, the USPS decided to allow the Sioux City Processing & Distribution Facility to continue with its normal operations.
Begun in late 2005, the Area Mail Processing survey in Sioux City was among the first of more than 50 consolidation studies launched over a three-month period. There was almost immediate public backlash, with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) assailing the Postal Service for ignoring “major issues such as the costs the USPS plan will impose on local businesses and possible delays in mail service.” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) and Rep. Steve King (R) joined with and supported Harkin in his efforts.
APWU Sioux City Local officials drummed up public support for preserving the postmark and community identity, saying that in addition to reducing service, closing the P&DF would have meant the displacement of nearly half of the facility’s 100 workers. The proposed “gaining facility” is 80 miles away, in Sioux Falls, SD.
The local was instrumental in bringing the matter to public attention, staging demonstrations at the city’s main post office on the day Harkin spoke out against the consolidation, and again several months later during the APWU’s “National Day of Information Picketing.” Local union members also pushed for — and were quite vocal at — public meetings on the matter.
In another move on Nov. 3, the Postal Service announced that it had abandoned a plan to haul mail from the Aberdeen (SD) Customer Service Mail Processing Center (near the North Dakota line) to the Dakota Central P&DC, which is 90 miles south.
This proposed consolidation, which was announced Dec. 15, 2005, was another bad idea, and signaled the end of yet another Postal Service attempt to disproportionately help Big Business without considering the interests of local communities.
Meanwhile, in Mojave
The USPS Office of Inspector General has concluded that two years after an Area Mail Processing plan was implemented at the Mojave (CA) Post Office, there have been significant problems for the receiving facility: It simply was unable to handle the increased mail volume.
Futhermore, the OIG found, the switch to transportation subcontractors was not in accord with the AMP plan and showed slipshod accountablity: “Transportation changes to highway contract routes (HCR) were neither accurately reported nor consistent with the AMP,” the Sept. 17, 2008, OIG report said.
The AMP was announced in October 2005 and officially begun six months later. The plan called for the Mojave PO’s outgoing mail to be processed 60 miles away at the Bakersfield P&DC. But from the beginning, 90 percent of the outgoing mail went 70 miles away to the Santa Clarita P&DC, instead of to Bakersfield.
Needless to say, it’s quite disturbing that this AMP plan, which was questionable from the start, was substantially changed without approval or documentation. Apparently, the OIG was disturbed by the unsanctioned plan as well.
“Stakeholder confidence in network realignment initiatives,” the OIG report acknowledges, “may be jeopardized by deviations from the approved AMP.” The OIG also recommended stronger accounting controls, particularly in regards to the transportation contractors.
The OIG ordered the Postal Service to institute more strident accounting procedures and to ensure that transportation changes directed by the “approved” AMP consolidation proposal “are accurately recorded” in post-implementation reviews.
The consolidation program is symbolic of the Postal Service’s failure to make individual customers and small businesses a top priority in its strategic planning. If management continues in this vein, they are going to lose the confidence of more and more consumers, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get them back.
APWU States Its Case — Again — In AMS Dispute For those of you who have been following the Address Management System specialist cases, you know that a Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney ignored Supreme Court precedent and our contract in persuading a U.S. District Court to overturn Arbitrator Carlton J. Snow’s 2003 decision. Snow had sustained our grievance and given both the AMS position and the work performed by that position to the APWU Clerk Craft. The attorney for the Bush administration, however, convinced the court that the decision did not really address which craft should do the work. On Oct. 24, the APWU argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that it should reverse the lower court’s decision not to enforce the Snow award, which would give the work and position to the APWU bargaining unit. During the arbitration, we had demonstrated that Article 1.2 of the National Agreement means that any work and position not excluded from the APWU bargaining unit is included in the bargaining unit. Snow agreed, expressly awarding that “the ‘Address Management System Specialist’ position is a part of the APWU bargaining unit and that it is a violation of Article 1.2 of the National Agreement to exclude the position and the disputed work from the bargaining unit.” [Emphasis added.] Surprisingly, the lower court concluded that Arbitrator Snow — having decided that the position belonged in the bargaining unit — did not really mean to award the APWU the AMS specialist work. Because the Postal Service was able to persuade the National Labor Relations Board to rule that the AMS Specialist position should be excluded from the APWU bargaining unit, the lower court thought that meant that his award had no meaning regarding the work itself. We were pleased that the judges were very well prepared and seemed open to our argument that the lower court was wrong in its narrow reading of the Snow award. One of the judges even noted that it seemed that awarding the position actually flows from awarding the work, instead of the other way around. The court’s main concern seemed to be whether there is any merit to the Postal Service’s argument that the Snow award cannot be enforced because it would be unfair and unlawful to give bargaining-unit employees all of the work currently going to AMS Specialists. We pointed out that there is no authority supporting the USPS position, and that the case the USPS position relied upon actually supported the APWU’s position. We left the session feeling that the court was concerned enough with our position that it would remand the case to the lower court for additional proceedings on that particular issue. While we await a decision on whether the Snow award will be enforced, we are moving forward on arbitrating the next case involving bargaining-unit work that is being performed by supervisory personnel. We simply cannot allow managers to do our work. We will not let up until all our work is being performed by members of the bargaining unit. |
