Contract committees update
By the end of 2007, there
were some signs of strain as well
as some progress in the work of
the special committees created
under the 2006-2011 National Agreement to address critical workplace and
job security issues.
The Article 32 committee on subcontracting delivery work, headed on
the NALC side by President William H.
Young, was in the process of reconciling lists of installations covered by the "Memorandum of Understanding Re:
Subcontracting." When the new contract was settled, the Postal Service
provided a provisional list of the 3,071
offices referenced in the MOU that bans contracting out in "offices with
only city delivery."
The parties agreed to verify the list
and NALC National Business Agents,
working with local NALC leaders,
generated a union database of affected
offices. “We are now merging our list
with their list to develop an accurate
database,” President Young explained
in late December.
 |
Postmaster General Jack Potter and NALC President William H. Young sign the
2006-2011 National Agreement on October 9, 2007. |
One consequence of
combining the lists may be the discovery of covered installations where Contract Delivery Service (CDS) is being
used. “In those cases, the Postal Service will have to cancel those contracts,” Young said. The process is
slow but likely to be complete by springtime, he added.
Young said, however, that the union
also has some outstanding requests
for information that must be resolved
before the Article 32 group begins full-scale work toward its goal "to develop a meaningful evolutionary approach to the
issue of subcontracting.”
While that committee works, there is
a six-month moratorium on subcontracting in any office where city carriers are
employed. That ban is in addition to the
MOU that prohibits subcontracting for
the life of the contract in the 3,000-plus
offices on the “only city delivery” list.
The FSS committee, which had been
making good progress in its study of the
impact of flat-sorting machinery on letter
carrier work methods, hit a snag over the
use of any information gathered during
field tests. The union insists that any
future use of the findings be forbidden.
“The success of the committee hinges on
that issue,” Young said. “There can’t be
any progress before it is resolved.”
The flat sequence group had been
nearly ready to begin two months of testing office and street functions in a simulated FSS work environment. Its goal is
to find the most efficient and safest way
to take advantage of the technology.
On the other hand, the committee on
an alternate route evaluation process
continued to make steady progress, with
four meetings scheduled in mid-December as it narrows down possible test sites.
The memorandums and other agreements that created the contract committees may be found in the National Agreement booklet sent to all members at the
time of the ratification vote. |
