Vol. XXVI, No. 01 / Jerry Sirois, President / January 03, 2005.

HO – HO – HO, ERR WE MEAN, YO – YO – YO, WATCH THAT PAYCHECK!

We have been advised that due to the Christmas holiday period encompassing two different pay periods there may be people who will not be compensated properly for their Christmas holiday pay! Particularly if they took LWOP during the last hour of their regularly scheduled workday before their holiday!

While we always advise everyone to look their pay check over carefully, if you fall into this situation you may want to look a little closer! If you think you have not been compensated properly, notify your supervisor who should take steps to ensure you are compensated…if there continues to be a problem or disagreement, see your steward ASAP so we can investigate and help resolve the problem!

RETIRING SOON? READ ON….

To those who are members, thank you! May you enjoy a long and happy retirement! To those who are not members, why not go out in style. What is in style you ask, being a member is the best way to be “in”. If you have been out for a period, brief or not, now is the best time to come back in and join your union. Why did you get out in the first place? No matter what the reason, why not come back and be a part of the one group who is fighting for your rights now and will continue to fight for you while in retirement.

This is truly what you worked for in your career. Who is going to fight for your retirement benefits better than your Union? With ongoing attacks against the Postal Service and your retirement annuities now is the best time to join your Union.

Join today. Be part of the membership that helped you get this retirement and will continue to fight to maintain it after you are retired. Your dues are a small part to pay and it will make you feel good to be a member.

HEY – THAT AIN’T MY JOB MAN!

In case someone has been in a comatose state lately and just hasn’t noticed, jobs in mail processing operations are continuing to dwindle. Naturally when jobs become more and more scarce, and the implementation of automated equipment further eliminates the need for jobs, your Union is going to place a high degree of emphasis in protecting the work of crafts we represent in all the installations and their facilities!

We have repeatedly been apprised of situations where some people have been asked to go work a specific assignment only to complain to management that it “isn’t their job” or it is someone else’s job to do what they are being asked to do! There are times a person is being assigned to a job that is properly within the jurisdiction of their particular craft, but because they do not like the particular assignment they resist it in one way or another!

The union has fought very hard for the integrity of preferred duty assignments, day to day seniority rights and a whole host of work place rights for those we represent. However, please take note and talk to your coworkers! Due to automation, and operations changing on a frequent basis, many different jobs may be presently in dispute as to the proper jurisdiction. We are fighting to stake our claim to those jobs but it does little to help our case when potential craft employees reject work assignments in those disputed areas!

If you sincerely feel you are being assigned to work in violation of our contract, then report as directed but ask to see a Steward and we can investigate the situation to determine whether the assignment is in violation of our contract. If it is not in violation, or the jurisdiction is in doubt, we can explain the entire process and why it is essential that everyone help us protect the assignments we presently have and help our efforts to secure more work for the crafts we represent!

ERGONOMIC RISK REDUCTION PROCESS (ERRPS) AT A CROSS ROAD?

The ERRPS Committee is a tri-partite venture between the USPS, APWU, and NPMHU. This program is not in place at every Postal Facility and was started in the Minneapolis P&DC on or about February of 2003.

The goal of the committee is to enhance the ergonomics in your work place so as to reduce the potential for work place injuries and thereby make our work environment as safe as possible!

We are fortunate in Minneapolis to have some very talented and dedicated employees join this committee in order to make a difference in the work place. Your Union leadership has personally visited various meetings of the ERRPS committee, has spoke with key committee members and monitors the progress of this committee in order to discern whether the committee is maintaining integrity in their overall mission. Naturally, we want any committee we endorse to reflect favorably on the APWU!

Additionally, your Union feels obligated to encourage and assist in any endeavor to minimize discomfort and potential injury to you while you are at work! This is part of what unions are all about!

In what we hope is merely a blip in the radar and not a major indication of the ability of ERRPS to continue in their mission, we have been apprised that there is very little interest and participation in the committee from line level managers. Since your union leadership feels strongly that the ability for this committee to flourish depends on a demonstrated commitment from all participants, we will be attempting to meet with upper level management in order to find out where they are at in respect to the ERRPS committee and their goals.

Please stay tuned here - but in the interim, please support your APWU co-workers who have volunteered to work on this committee. There may be a periodical situation where a volunteer may not have the best interests in mind, however, by and large, we have been extremely fortunate to benefit from the talent, intelligence, and hard work of your APWU co-workers on this committee!