Grievance Activity
I wanted to give the
membership a rundown of the grievance activity for 2011. As of 12/8/2011,
we have filed 1371 grievances, this is an increase of almost 300 grievances
over 2010 and almost 100 over 2009, and we still have about 3 weeks left in
the year. This number represents the highest number of grievances filed
since 2003. As usual, the vast majority of the grievances filed were either
overtime or discipline grievances with 601 overtime grievances and 293
discipline grievances.
Of the 1371
grievances filed, 750 were settled at the time that I wrote this article.
Of the grievances settled, 221 were settled at the Informal A level by the
Shop Stewards, 366 were settled at the Formal A level, and 163 were settled
at the Step B level by the Dispute Resolution Team. There are currently 48
grievances that are pending arbitration. Of the grievances that were sent
to the Step B team, we were successful in winning the grievance 70% of the
time resulting in tens of thousands of dollars paid to Branch 43 members.
Management is still operating under the misguided belief that they know the
contract better than we do.
The
cost in of these grievances goes beyond the money that is awarded in the
settlement. There is also the time spent by the Shop Steward to gather the
information, investigate, prepare and meet on the grievance. Then there is
the time spent by the Formal A Stewards to meet with the station manager and
then to write their contentions and prepare the grievance to go to the Step
B Team. On top of that, both the Informal and Formal A Stewards usually
need help on their routes to work on their grievances and this help is
usually done by another carrier on overtime. A typical grievance that works
its way all the way to the Step B Team would need around 5 to 7 hours of
work by the Stewards at both levels. This translates to a cost of
approximately two to three hundred dollars per grievance, not counting what
the monetary remedy is when the grievance is settled.
If
you look at the above mentioned numbers, this would mean that a conservative
estimate would be that the grievances sent to the Step B Team cost the
Postal Service approximately $33,000.00 just to process the grievances. If
you want to see a good reason why the Postal Service is bleeding money, this
is a good indicator. Had management simply followed our contract, they
could have saved a majority of this money.
Steward Training
Steward elections are
now complete and we have some new Stewards taking over out tin the
stations. Because of this, the Branch will be holding the Spring Steward
Training Seminar earlier than normal in 2012. We have set a tentative date
of February 16, 2012 for the training. For the new Stewards, the Branch
by-laws state that each Steward must attend or send their alternate to one
of the two training seminars each year to be eligible to receive their
salary for the year. I would encourage all of the Stewards to attend, but
especially the new Stewards as we are planning to have some of the classes
geared specifically to you. There will be more information on this training
as we get the date and material finalized, so watch the News and Views.
Finally
As most of you know
by now, Fred has decided to resign as Branch 43 Secretary and as Editor of
the News and Views. I would like to personally thank Fred for all the he
has done for this Branch and our members. Fred is still going to be working
at the Hall as the Office Manager, so he will still be here to answer
questions and help the membership as he has been.
Congratulations to
Burt Hughes who is moving into the Branch Secretary position and to Kevin
Hensley, who is moving up to the Assistant Secretary/Treasurer position.
Both are well deserved promotions and both of them will do a great job in
their new roles.
Fraternally,
Doug Lape
