Arbitrator Goes Postal Union

Nine thousand U.S. Postal Service jobs will become union positions over the next quarter in an arbitration ruling this month that requires post offices use bargaining-unit employees at sites with reduced operating hours. An arbitrator found the USPS violated an agreement with the American Postal Workers Union by using part-time employees instead of union clerks at many slower post offices where hours were reduced in 2012 to save the agency money. Union clerks will now be used at facilities that have cut back hours. Workers filed the grievance against the USPS after a reduction in hours at low-traffic post offices which was a compromise when labor groups and Congressmen pushed back against earlier plans to close them. Prior to this arbitration ruling, the postal service used part-timers to fill the positions. In more than 13,000 offices, less than 350 jobs were held by union clerks. The arbitrator found that the arrangement of remotely managed post offices was not the typical consolidation that the parties have routinely dealt with for decades. See more here-- http://wapo.st/1snvIrX and http://bit.ly/1prhn62 and a copy of the ruling http://www.apwu.org/sites/apwu/files/resource-files/POStPlan_Staffing_090514.pdf