1. POOM’s are instructing Postmasters to cite numeric goals such as their plan in PES. The literature states very clearly no numeric targets are to be assigned to Core requirements. Goals are supposed to be discussed with employees and numeric goals are not to be used. Why does this continue to happen year after year? Joe said he is having a telecom with the POOMs next week and will make them aware of the problems of last year to avoid Postmasters having to redo their goals.

2. There are offices with similar situations and levels being given very different plans. Some level 18 offices clerk plans have actually risen, while others have taken large hits for the last 3 years in a row. Can you explain the equity in your system? Cecil answered Function 4 figures for retail revenue, volume and window workload are all taken into consideration when these are allotted. He stated that work service credits have no play here. They have computer modules which the figures are plugged into. The goal is to be 98% fair. Vicky Bramble also stated that all offices would be having a function 4 this year. She said it will not be a typical function 4 in all cases but if the data warranted, they may come back and do an actual one. She also stated small offices would be getting a Customer Service Variance Program (CSV) similar to those in the larger offices this year. You will have to put in your volumes daily and these will transfer to the flash.

3. Understanding that the District was not allotted the number of work hours needed, and understanding that upper level offices with clerks and/or carriers might have some flexibility in the use of hours, other offices are set with a fixed number of hours in a scheduled week. Example: Level 13 office has five days at 8 hours and Sat at 2 hours. That is 42 hours on a standard week, yet these offices were cut short coming into 2010 budget by 10 hours on the year. Understanding that we may, as in past years, have the option during the holiday season, of closing early and using our annual leave in lieu of our regular hours which would help make up this difference. However, since we are mandated to keep our scan times as normal, this would require a person to return to the office to accomplish the task. Being told that there may be an adjustment if more hours are forthcoming is not very comforting given the state of the business. Postmasters are working hard every day to meet the challenges of this “tightening of the budget” and to keep their moral and spirits high. But it becomes more and more challenging to do so when you start out a year knowing there is no way to meet the demands. Cecil answered this question. He said scheduled hours of operations are pulled from facility database and added to volume reports and retail revenue reports to come up with the budgets. What appears to be similar at first glance may not be. He stated everyone should take a very close look at facility database and not just click through without carefully looking at the information as it rolls to many other programs. He said so far they have discovered 18 offices with facility database errors and adjustments will be made for those in November. If you find mistakes there correct them and send the information to your POOM who should then forward the information to Cecil and Dave Webster. There are 51 Saturdays this FY. Spread your own hours and come up with the numbers if you are short. Notify your POOM.

4. Article 12: Where are all of these people that are pooled for placement for vacant positions in the field? We are awaiting excessed employees for City Letter Carrier positions in Summersville, Rainelle, Mullens, and Morgantown just to name a few. Postmasters and Supervisors continue to carry mail in violation of the NALC agreements. As long as the mail gets delivered the Area and District doesn’t care how or by whom it got delivered. . HR Manager Shayne Hensley stated at a PM meeting that it was a PM’s job to deliver the mail and that Postmasters knew when they applied for their jobs that it was part of their job description. When city delivery goes into gridlock and mail does not get delivered District will blame the issue on the PM and discipline the postmaster rather than deal with the core issue of failing to fill vacant positions expeditiously. The problem with these Article 12 job holdings is that we are at the mercy of other Areas than our own. When excessing occurs within our District we get those folks placed as quickly as possible. There is a 60 day waiting period for carriers and 90 days for clerks. We have people ready to take care of these issues immediately. Other Areas and Districts are more lax and we have no control. Appalachian is making a case to the Area to fight for more TE positions as Districts out west have lost hundreds of city carriers. We want their allotment of TE’s. You should make your case for needing a TE and send that information to your POOM for submission to the complement committee. The District will be compiling this information for their case to the Eastern Area. With that said, Cecil noted the Eastern Area is asking tough questions back. If your sick leave was below the goal of 4% you probably would not need any TE’s. We gave you TE’s last time and you said your OT would reduce and it has not. Shayne stated that he should not have made remarks about Postmasters carrying mail at one of the Postmasters meetings. He said this should not be the norm, but an occasional situation. He stated “Ideally we don’t want Postmasters carrying mail.” If this is happening repeatedly, please let him know. I suggested we are creating a house of cards with these situations. If H1N1 or any other kinds of problems arise, in the District there will not be enough people to get the mail delivered. I suggest everyone who has vacancies pull the request sheets to fill these vacancies and send them in. You need to protect yourselves and be able to prove you tried and were denied to cover yourselves.

5. PTF City Carriers: Are being scheduled into units that have vacancies and the city letter carriers are filing grievances stating that they must be given 60 days notice . HR Manager Shayne Hensley was adamant that the PTF City Letter Carriers could be forced to go to another unit and that Eastern Area would support that. DRT decisions are supporting the 60 day notification. Shayne still says it is legal. Paul Veltri and I think there is a National Arbitration pending. I researched this morning and I will send you what I have in another email. If you have lost grievances concerning this issue, I would like to know about them.

6. Postmasters are still being the stop gap measure for mail processing errors. At what point can Postmasters and Supervisors stop running mail up and down the highways. Joe says he will not force you to use your POV. He says he still wants to communicate every piece, every day though. He said report errors on your respective websites and although discipline is never discussed publically they are working at the Plant to reduce these errors. He says he is on the telecom daily and he hears the same offices over and over and is working to improve this. He suggests calling the Plant and Poom to get this mail home if you have no transportation.

Cecil suggested that the mileage you are paid should cover the extra amount of insurance cost for driving your POV. He cited GEICO is reasonable on this. I disagreed showing myself and a trip I have to Moorefield next week as an example. I drive to my Postmaster job in Buckhannon 46 miles one way or a total of 92 miles which my insurance covers me to drive. I am driving to Moorefield next week and I must subtract that 96 miles from my etravel amount. That mileage is not paid to me, but I am not covered under my insurance for it now. I will be lucky to pay for gas with the remaining amount. No answer for that one. The consensuses from all the management orgs is don’t use your POV without the extra insurance.

7. What are the criteria which a Post Office has to meet before being identified as “Critical” and able to post? Shayne said all the Postmaster jobs have been sent to the Area for permission to post. He said he will be posting them when permission is received. It will be done in 2 waves as he only has one person to help with this massive undertaking.

8. Faulty money order machines. They are testing new ones. The problem is they converted NCR cash registers from Toys R Us which only uses regular checks and the MO’s we use are considerably thicker. The rollers wear out after about 30 days. Sorry no time table on that.

Other concerns

ASP program is being revamped. It is probable it will go to a 2 week training after you are selected for a position.

Supervisor postings. Must make the 18.5 with no rounding. You will be credited with approved (by the complement committee) postitions. Send those requests in folks. Keep trying. The squeaky wheel gets s the oil. They meet once a week.

Counting PMR drawers. Count new PMR (first year) 4 times, then once a year after that. Count Borrowed PMR’s once a year. Cecil says if you don’t use every 3 months close it out. You can transfer these hours to the District. If you have more than one PMR drawer to count, transfer the hours and make notation it the box that it is a borrowed PMR. Make borrowed drawers small.

H1N1 and absent employees. Will be handled exactly the way we handle all absences which make an employee “not regular in attendance”.

LWOP will be granted, if requested, for offices wanting to close early and not burn their annual.

Involuntary use of PTF clerks in other offices. Joe and Cecil stated we must take advantage of these resources. Joe said we have Postmasters covering for, granting leave to, and scheduling clerks so they are unavailable to other offices. They are monitoring this and want everyone to cooperate. You are not to ask the clerk to go to the other office and let them say they don’t want to go. You are to instruct them what time to be there.

Note: Clerks get paid for travel time as well as mileage if there is not at least an hour break in between the time they leave your office and the reporting time to the other office. Carriers have the same pay requirements however: You cannot use them in another office for the sole purpose of reducing overtime.

If it keeps the Postmaster, clerk or rural carrier from carrying mail that is OK. If you can’t meet your dispatch that is ok. If it also reduces OT that is ok. This is touchy but certainly not impossible. They want us to share resources.

Joe wants to have mini Supv. Meetings.

We are beating goal for overnight EXFC. Joe is very thankful for that.

There is no violation if a POOM uses a Postmaster to input ERMS for them unless confidentiality is being violated. Let Joe or Shayne know if that happens.

Eastern Area is mandating the hiring of TRC’s instead of RCAs. It is cheaper work hours. Simple math.

Joe has no plans to realign the POOM areas at this time.