Flash Bulletins are paid for by members of the APWU. Information contained in these bulletins is intended for APWU members. Member questions and/or comments regarding any flash bulletin content are always encouraged. Reading of publications prepared for and financed by dues paying members by those who do not is yet one more example of non-members accepting benefits that have been paid for by others! 

Thank You!

The Minneapolis Area Local Union Family wants to take this opportunity to thank all of our hard working members, and their families for your long hours of dedicated service.  YOU are what makes the Postal Service strong and in spite of staffing shortages, imperfect working conditions, and mountains of mail you keep on rolling!  We are honored to represent you!  Happy Holidays to all from the Officers, Stewards, and Staff of the Minneapolis Area Local!

Posting & Bidding News – Minneapolis & BMC Clerk Craft!

In late August 2006 we posted the following information in our flash bulletin – this entire situation was delayed until further notice – On December 19, 2006, local management notified us they will take another shot at the proposed transition in January/February 2007!

August 25, 2006

Local Personnel Operations Migration to Shared Services – What This Means to You!

During the last few years, personnel operations that were formerly domiciled in Minneapolis &/or St. Paul have been slowly transferred to the USPS Human Resources Shared Service Center (HRSSC) facility in Greensboro, NC.  Personnel is responsible for the administration of virtually all employee records, hiring, employment status, changes in status, retirement, health insurance, and the list goes on and on.  You now call 1-877-477-3273 where you are prompted to deal with many of the issues previously serviced locally.

Perhaps one of the more significant functions of the personnel department is the administration of employee job bidding, assignments, conversions and opportunity to select and obtain preferred duty assignments.  It is in this specific area where your Union works closely with personnel officials to ensure jobs are offered and awarded in compliance with our Collective Bargaining Agreement.  Many variables can and do apply.  Seniority, qualifications, timing, inadvertent employee bids, conversions, craft, and contractual factors go into who may be eligible for certain jobs and who may not be eligible.  Acute knowledge of all the nuances involved is essential!

Experience has taught us that our preemptive involvement in the process reduces the incident of erroneous job placement, training inconsistencies, conversions, and necessity to file grievances that almost always impact several employees to one extent or another.  The impact to one or more employees in every improper job action is detrimental when things that have been fouled up need to be resolved.  If the Union is not proactive in the process inevitably we will be called upon and placed in a reactive mode to a situation that could have been avoided!  By and large, the officials we have had as job bidding contacts in personnel have been extremely cooperative, knowledgeable, professional, and have performed their duties seamlessly. However, those functions of bidding that were previously conducted and controlled by local officials will be “migrated” to HRSSC on or about September 30, 2006.  While we will still have a local contact many functions in the job bidding process will no longer be within local control

We have had several meetings with managers in charge of local personnel services and many of the questions we have had related to the job bidding and awarding sequence have went unanswered.  We have been told that there may be no bids posted in the entire month of October along with other changes that either will be, or may be violations of our contract.  If our contractually recognized procedure cannot be accommodated by HRSSC it may create extremely unfortunate and far reaching impact to job placement opportunities.  These type grievances almost always create hard feelings and potential to enormous monetary liabilities for the USPS.  We’ll keep you advised to changes in the bidding process as they become known.  Until further notice you should proceed with the process as you have in the past.    

Fast Forward to current date:  As indicated in the heading – We have been notified by local management that the migration from local administration of posting and bidding to HRSSC administration is once again proceeding!  On December 19, 2006, management met with the unions where we were informed that the contractually negotiated and bidding procedure you have been accustomed to will be interrupted during the Months of January and February 2007. 

Unfortunately, as in other instances where local management is passing along news that is predicated by USPS headquarters, there continues to be an obvious disconnect between headquarters and local managers.  Consequently, we were informed that “they” (HRSSC managers) said they could not accommodate uninterrupted bidding and therefore “we” (local managers) will have to revise the bid process and dates while the migration occurs.

What this more than likely means to you (Mpls Clerks) is that if the migration continues as scheduled the bid cycle that would start on January 25, 2007, close on February 1st and become effective on February 17th will reportedly be revised by skipping the cycle and resuming the normal process on February 22, 2007.  The BMC bidding process would also be revised but it appeared they may be much less disruptive. Other scenarios were also being contemplated by management! 

The Union expressed that the scenarios presented all constituted probable violations of contractual bidding rights.  We also made a point that it is management’s responsibility to make all employees aware of changes that may occur...How it will affect them...and as to what their options may be.  Since the Unions have no control over what a nameless entity is dictating to local managers that may ultimately affect those we represent we can only wait, watch, advise, and react......Stay tuned.

Leave Year:  The 2007 leave year begins on Saturday, January 6, 2007! 

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