Management, Still Revising Bid-Jobs Plan, Responds to Union's Questions
The mail-handlers union met with management on Friday, May 22, to discuss its plan to abolish and repost most mail-handler bid jobs. That meeting is presented here in a question-and-answer format.
Q. How many mail-handler jobs will management abolish?
A. We're abolishing or reverting 11 bid jobs. We currently have 286 mail-handler bid jobs. We're dropping down to 275 jobs. Those 275 jobs will be changed and reposted.
Q. How are the jobs being changed?
A. Mostly we're changing the days off. We're also changing start times and some duty assignments. (Here are the new non-scheduled days and start times.)
Q. Why is management doing this?
A. We need to right-size our mail-handler staffing. Our current staffing model does not reflect our current mail volume. We sometimes have too many people in one location and not enough in others. We're also looking at where people are working overtime to determine what the staffing should be.
Q. Why is management creating 63 mail-handler relief jobs?
A. We're doing that to gain more flexibility. (NOTE: The union contends that the current job descriptions provide the needed flexibility.)
Q. Will there be open or closed bids?
A. There will be both open and closed bids. It's complicated. We'll have more information about this by early next week.
Q. How will preference-eligible Vets be affected?
A. Management cannot place a level-5 preference-eligible Vet in a lower-level job. But there are enough level 5 jobs on all the tours to accommodate all of our preference-eligible Vets.
Q. Where will the mail-handler relief crew clock in every day?
A. That's left for the MDO's to decide.
Q. Will there be any unassigned regulars after the bid?
A. We currently have 20 unassigned regulars. There may be some after the bid, such as those out on OWCP.
