Ruminations on the Arbitration
It has been a long time since I got an old fashioned whopping, but we all just got a fresh one. Maybeline doesn’t make enough lipstick to make this pig look better, but that is the danger of going into arbitration.
I would like to thank our National Board for refusing to back down during contract negotiations when they faced unreasonable concessions demanded by the USPS. Had the USPS gotten what they wanted we would have been even worse off than we are with this “award”.
I am totally shocked by the one sided outcome contained in this award, but I am even more confused by the “neutral” arbitrators statements and logic. He said the PO cannot solve all their financial problems on the back of the smallest union, then proceeded to give it his best shot. He also said there was not enough scientific data to justify changing all the time standards the PO was trying to, then he changed some anyway. For crying out loud, there was more data and studies from the original setting of the DPS letter standard of 30 pieces per minute than the totally arbitrary 43 pieces per minute for the DPS flats. He should have backed the DPS flat standard down to 30 pieces per minute pending the industrial engineering study on all the standards he mandated. That change alone is a huge loss for us.
I think it is very important to note that we did not agree with this award, Joey Johnson wrote a very compelling dissent, and in fact refused to sign the concurrence form. I find it very disturbing the neutral
arbitrator allowed the USPS to bring it’s financial problems into the discussion, but he apparently did just that. Hopefully the time standard study that was ordered will repair the damage that was just done, but only time will tell, and we will just have to live with this for the time being. Everybody should begin to plan for the coming impact of the next count. I fear the results will not be pretty.
Alan VerValin
CORLCA Vice President
It has been a long time since I got an old fashioned whopping, but we all just got a fresh one. Maybeline doesn’t make enough lipstick to make this pig look better, but that is the danger of going into arbitration.
I would like to thank our National Board for refusing to back down during contract negotiations when they faced unreasonable concessions demanded by the USPS. Had the USPS gotten what they wanted we would have been even worse off than we are with this “award”.
I am totally shocked by the one sided outcome contained in this award, but I am even more confused by the “neutral” arbitrators statements and logic. He said the PO cannot solve all their financial problems on the back of the smallest union, then proceeded to give it his best shot. He also said there was not enough scientific data to justify changing all the time standards the PO was trying to, then he changed some anyway. For crying out loud, there was more data and studies from the original setting of the DPS letter standard of 30 pieces per minute than the totally arbitrary 43 pieces per minute for the DPS flats. He should have backed the DPS flat standard down to 30 pieces per minute pending the industrial engineering study on all the standards he mandated. That change alone is a huge loss for us.
I think it is very important to note that we did not agree with this award, Joey Johnson wrote a very compelling dissent, and in fact refused to sign the concurrence form. I find it very disturbing the neutral
arbitrator allowed the USPS to bring it’s financial problems into the discussion, but he apparently did just that. Hopefully the time standard study that was ordered will repair the damage that was just done, but only time will tell, and we will just have to live with this for the time being. Everybody should begin to plan for the coming impact of the next count. I fear the results will not be pretty.
Alan VerValin
CORLCA Vice President
No Excuses
The Rural Carriers have completed the arbitration of their national agreement and beauty is in the eyes of the beholden. Some will spin the decision as a step backwards while others will breathe a sigh of belief. It is apparent that postal management used the APWU contract as a blueprint and impressed upon the arbitrator the logic of duplicating the negative aspects. The decision, as reported falls somewhere in the middle protecting existing employees’ wages, imposes new entrance steps for new hires and requires increased employee contribution for health insurance. The deferral of COLA adjustments duplicates the APWU agreement and the total wage increase will be higher or lower depending on increases in the CPI over the life of the contract.
The award does not address the hours of the work week with the introduction of NTFY assignments because rural carriers have a tradition of individual route determination and there is no transfer of work from the bargaining unit to non-bargaining or management as the APWU agreed to in modification of
Article 1.6. It also appears that new hires will not suffer a ceiling in Step increases, fully integrating into the existing pay scale. This has a value of hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages and retirement
annuity.
General comparisons between the two contracts miss the central point of labor negotiations which is not pre-determining the outcome but waging the battle collectively. If one asked a rural carrier is this the outcome that he or she preferred the response would be a resounding no but there should be a collective satisfaction that the negatives came after a struggle and were imposed. Their union did not agree to terms that will adversely impact future generations of employees to protect existing employees. Postal employees have enjoyed a forty two year period of steady improvements in wages and conditions of employment; the rural carrier and APWU agreement interrupts that progression, but the test is that one was achieved through bitter struggle while the other was voluntarily agreed to and presented as a victory.
The letter carriers and mail handlers continue the process of achieving successor contracts and the jury is out on the final decisions. Upon receipt, it is inevitable that additional comparisons will be made but comparing them totally misses the point. How does one compare a voluntary agreement that
includes calculated decisions with one imposed by a third party. No matter the results, one is respected as the outcome of bitter struggle while the other is a calculated decision to turn back the clock. Even if the results are the same, workers have reason to expect their elected leaders to fight.
If one accepts the premise that times are bad and arbitration should be avoided there will be many future contracts and if the logic is that in difficult times it is better to agree to a substandard agreement than fight, the future will bring equally difficult circumstances forcing the repeat of capitalization as justification. The next contract and the one after are not promised under more favorable circumstances so the decision to fight for ones beliefs or accept the consolation will be repeated. If it was the right
decision in 2011 we should expect further concessions blamed on the times.
The outcome of the rural carrier’s arbitration is irrelevant for non-rural carriers. Whatever the results, be it a 20% increase with tons of contract improvements or a 40% wage cuts they used every tool at their disposal and can accept the results. They need no excuses or blame.
Bill Burrus
(From BurrusJournal.org)
The award does not address the hours of the work week with the introduction of NTFY assignments because rural carriers have a tradition of individual route determination and there is no transfer of work from the bargaining unit to non-bargaining or management as the APWU agreed to in modification of
Article 1.6. It also appears that new hires will not suffer a ceiling in Step increases, fully integrating into the existing pay scale. This has a value of hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages and retirement
annuity.
General comparisons between the two contracts miss the central point of labor negotiations which is not pre-determining the outcome but waging the battle collectively. If one asked a rural carrier is this the outcome that he or she preferred the response would be a resounding no but there should be a collective satisfaction that the negatives came after a struggle and were imposed. Their union did not agree to terms that will adversely impact future generations of employees to protect existing employees. Postal employees have enjoyed a forty two year period of steady improvements in wages and conditions of employment; the rural carrier and APWU agreement interrupts that progression, but the test is that one was achieved through bitter struggle while the other was voluntarily agreed to and presented as a victory.
The letter carriers and mail handlers continue the process of achieving successor contracts and the jury is out on the final decisions. Upon receipt, it is inevitable that additional comparisons will be made but comparing them totally misses the point. How does one compare a voluntary agreement that
includes calculated decisions with one imposed by a third party. No matter the results, one is respected as the outcome of bitter struggle while the other is a calculated decision to turn back the clock. Even if the results are the same, workers have reason to expect their elected leaders to fight.
If one accepts the premise that times are bad and arbitration should be avoided there will be many future contracts and if the logic is that in difficult times it is better to agree to a substandard agreement than fight, the future will bring equally difficult circumstances forcing the repeat of capitalization as justification. The next contract and the one after are not promised under more favorable circumstances so the decision to fight for ones beliefs or accept the consolation will be repeated. If it was the right
decision in 2011 we should expect further concessions blamed on the times.
The outcome of the rural carrier’s arbitration is irrelevant for non-rural carriers. Whatever the results, be it a 20% increase with tons of contract improvements or a 40% wage cuts they used every tool at their disposal and can accept the results. They need no excuses or blame.
Bill Burrus
(From BurrusJournal.org)