Issue 2-11 Mar/Apr 2011

SANTA BARBARA - GOLETA - CARPINTERIA

NALC Branch 290

The Beast of Burden

Branch Officers

PresidentMike Coyle962-7402/ 698-7036 (cell)

Vice-PresidentElvis Gutierrez818-239-6153

Secretary/TreasurerJoyce McCue845-9941

EditorNeal Couey487-1324

TrusteesJuan Zamora 512-2917Melinda Flinchum 901-8447Nancy Guzman 256-9296

FairviewArmando Rosales 827-1288Joyce McCue 845-9941 (Alt)

GoletaJoe Pensabene 705-9462

Main Office & SafetyHadley Carpenter(949) 322-3600

San RoqueShiloh Holguin 450-2730

East BeachJuan Zamora 512-2917Eileen Smith 654-8702 (Alt)

CarpinteriaMike Coyle

Health BenefitsDon Gullette 965-3204

Honoring Female Letter Carriers supportingfamilies ...Celebrating Working Moms across

America! Happy Mothers Day!

endorsements by Branch 290 or its of-ficers. Permission to reprint any item inThe Beast of Burden is hereby granted,provided proper credit is given.

We invite all members to con-tribute material for possible publica-tion. All submissions must be signedand delivered to the editor by the dateof the union meeting of the month forpublication.

The Beast of Burden is pub-lished bi-monthly by Branch 290 of theNational Association of Letter Carriers.Contact Branch 290 at P.O. Box 821,Goleta, CA 93116.

All facts, opinions, statementsappearing within this publicationare those of the writers and editorsthemselves, and are in no way to beconstrued as statements, positions, or

Union meetings are held on the firstMonday of the month. Names will bewithheld if requested.

Editor reserves the rightto determine whether materialsubmitted shall be printed for reasonsof good taste, legality, or for the good ofthe branch.

The Beast of Burden is free tomembers in good standing.

THE BEAST OF BURDEN EDITOR…Neal Couey

PAGE 2 THE BEAST OF BURDEN NALC BRANCH 290

Yes..Moms are special.Most of us have a Mom and weknow how important that personwas in our life growing up. Momsare universally loved around theworld in many countries and lan-guages. We know the sacrificeMoms make for their children andhonor them on Mother’s Day. Ihope everyone has the opportunityto spend time with their Mom or ifMom is no longer with us, thinkkindly of her on this special day.

Recently, my brother told me astory of a young girl in the 1880’snamed Mary who traveled withher family to Wyoming to home-stead land. Twenty family mem-bers settled in a cabin for that firstwinter. When spring arrived, onlythe girl and her sister were alive.The family had been struck downby Tuberculosis. Family membersfrom Bismarck, N.D. retrieved theyoung girls. Soon, people at theboarding house where they livedbegan dying. The two girls wereturned out to fend for themselves.No one in town would give them asmuch as a drink of water. Theyhitched a ride on a freight trainwest. Eventually, Mary marriedand settled in Montana. She had ason in 1895, Charles. Charles mar-ried and had two daughters, Maryand Shirley. I often wonderedwhere my strong constitutioncame from...TB Mary was myGreat-Grandmother, Charles wasmy Grandfather, and Shirley wasmy Mom.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

“My Mom is a Mailman” by Adam Siple

She is up every morning at the crack of dawn,

By the time I get up she is already gone,

My cereal is ready and there is a note,

Make your bed, brush your teeth, don’t forget your coat,

She drives into work and when she arrives,

Hundreds of flats are dropped by herside,

She cases and bundles them,

And then hits the street,

No one knows how hard she works,

Except maybe her feet!

Thru rain, sleet, or snow we all knowthe tale,

We think it is easy delivering the mail,

Well, the Jones’ are moving in and the Smiths’ are moving out,

Don’t worry, the mail carrier will figure it out,

My mother works hard and I know her job is much more,

Than simply dropping letters at everyone’s door,

I used to be embarrassed that someone might see,

The woman in the faded blue uniform coming to get me,

Yes, my Mom is a mailman, a good one in fact,

Yes, my Mom is a mailman and I’m proud of that!

PAGE 3THE BEAST OF BURDENNALC BRANCH 290

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

Accepting applications now from high schoolseniors who are the dependent son or daughterof an active or retired member of Branch 290

Please request an application from:

Scholarship Committee, NALC Branch 290P.O. Box 821,Goleta, CA 93116

All questionnaires, school transcripts, letters of recommendation, and SAT scores must be received bythe Scholarship Committee no later than June 1st.

Scholarship recipient must attend an accredited college or vocational school. Award winners are re-quired to notify the Scholarship Committee, by August, which school they will attend.

NALC Branch 290Donald J. GulletteScholarship

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

6 Day Alive and Well For Now….

At the April Branch meeting, therewas concern if 6 Day delivery willcontinue. Yes! 6 Day is still alive andwell, at least for the next budgetyear. As there is little congressionalsupport at this time for a move to 5day, we can continue with our 6 daydelivery service. However, it shouldbe said that the new PostmasterGeneral, Patrick Donahoe, is stilltrying to convince Congress that achange to 5 day service is needed, ashe did at the congressional hearingson April 5th. The chairman of thecommittee is no friend of letter carri-ers. Darrell Issa, of California, notonly supports 5 day delivery, he alsobelieves that the APWU’s recent con-tract was a lost opportunity to“reduce salaries of the postal work-ers.” He believes we are 34% over-paid compared to the private sector.If you still think politics doesn’t ef-fect you...think again.

FSS Not Here/ Not Yet…

The arrival of FSS at stations in LosAngeles, Pasadena, and Van Nuyshas happened in February andMarch. There are currently 35 out of65 zones online in the Sierra Coastal

District. There has been COR adjust-ments in 18 zones with FSS. Allthree machines are up and running.The highest percentage is at 72% inAltadena and Foothill. The averageoffice savings per route is 52 minuteshowever it takes an average 15-20minutes per route of additional streettime.

COR Adjustments

The COR adjustments at Main Of-fice and San Roque will be reviewedin mid-April to see if there are anyroutes over eight hours and also toreview lines of travel or safety issues.The new 2011 JRAP memo datedMarch 28, 2011 will allow furtheradjustments to our other offices ,Patterson and East Beach. So far, asof April 6th, we are not scheduled foradjustments. Remember, if you skipyour lunch and breaks or compromisesafety so you can go home early; the-se times will be used against you be-cause you have demonstrated howquickly you can finish your routethrough shortcuts.

FOOD Drive May 14th

As the growing Anti-Union move-ment in every state of our union con-tinues to grow we must continue todemonstrate that we are more than

just union workers. We are caringand compassionate human beingswho care greatly about those lessfortunate. Branch 290 started theHoliday Food Drive years before theNational Food Drive. Your commit-ment to this noble cause will assurethat the American Public will contin-ue to respect and appreciate theirletter carriers.

Congratulations to our newest retir-ees Al McIntosh, James Weedon, andRick Key. April 27th to April 30thare the dates of the CSALC StateConvention in San Diego. Branch 290delegates will have written reportsabout the proceedings in the nextissue of the Beast.

Finally, the changes in the USPS arereal and sometimes damaging to uspersonally, as we lose our old cus-tomers in the massive territorial ad-justments. As the saying goes, DoNot Take It Personally. You will al-ways still know your old customersand you may actually be happy tomeet and appreciate the new cus-tomers that you now service.

In Solidarity,

Mike CoyleVisit http://nalc.org for latest info

PAGE 4 THE BEAST OF BURDEN NALC BRANCH 290

After two years of delays, the FlatsSequencing System is finally upand running in our Branch. BeforeFSS hit our first office, I asked ourDistrict Manager, Kerry Wolny, if Icould visit the plant and check outthe FSS machines and visit an of-fice outside our Branch that wasreceiving FSS before us. I justwanted to get an overall feel forwhat was happening and what toexpect.

On January 3rd and on several oth-er days, I visited the plant in VanNuys to observe the FSS machines.There are 3 FSS machines in VanNuys that are about 25 ft. tall, 90ft. wide, and 120 ft. long more orless. The machines are capable ofprocessing 16,500 pieces per houror 280,500 pieces per day to morethan 125,000 delivery addresses.The machines are basically handsoff with very little human laborinvolved. To be simplistic, mail canbe hand fed into an inductor or fedthrough the use of a bulk mail con-tainer, which can be rolled up tothe induction part of the machine.The inductor will mechanically liftand dump the mail on to a conveyorbelt. The belt takes the flat materi-al bundled or unbundled to clerkstations where clerks unwrap bun-dles of flats and face the flats labelsup and binders down into greentrays know as Automated Compati-ble Trays (ACTs). When full, theclerk passes their hand over anelectronic eye where the tray me-chanically lowers and moves to an-other belt at the bottom of this ma-chine. This belt takes the ACT to astacker, which places it on a cartwith wheels.

Once the cart is full with ACTs, aclerk/mail handler then moves thiscart to the bigger machine, whichsorts the mail into delivery order.The bigger part of the machinetakes the ACTs off the stackers andruns the ACTs through a series of

belts and rollers where the mail is sepa-rated into stepped groups similar to two-pass. The mail is then transferred toRigid Conventional Trays (RCTs), whichare blue in color. The mail is then pro-cessed again and transferred into ACTs(green trays) where they are put intowalk sequence order. Finally, the fin-ished product is transferred into the yel-low street trays where the machinestacks them into rolling carts. The cartsare taken from this part of the machineand lined up for transportation.

La Crescenta Visit

On January 5th, I visited the La Cres-centa office, which is part of PasadenaBranch 2200. I wanted to observe howthe carriers were handling FSS before itcame to us. When I arrived, the MPOORick West was going to have carrierscollate their residual mail (the mail youcase) with the coverage. We convincedthe MPOO that it would be better if thecarriers collated the mail with the FSSflats.

M-01663 A joint memo signed by NALCPresident Emeritus Bill Young andUSPS Vice President Doug Tulino statesthat if you have a park & loop route or afoot route or have that type of deliveryon your route then you do not have tocarry more than 3 bundles. Moreover, if

the coverage meets the definition ofcarrying it as a 3rd bundle ECRWSS(90/75%), then a carrier is requiredto collate the residual mail with theFSS. If the coverage doesn’t meetthe criteria, then the carrier collatesthe residual mail into the coverage.

However, if they gave us a choice,that would be the best bet. If theydon’t give us a choice, the rule iscollate with FSS when the coverageis labeled ECRWSS. If the coverageis not ECRWSS, collate the residualwith the coverage. Remember thatthis is only for Park & Loop andFoot Routes or sections.

When the FSS arrives at the unit,the yellow FSS street trays arerolled off the truck on rolling rackssimilar to what the DPS is stagedon. Each tray is numbered and iden-tified. Each letter carrier route has acolor-coded placard assigned to it:Red signifies an all mounted route.There should be no collating of resid-ual mail. Yellow signifies a combina-tion park & loop and mounted route.There should be some partial collat-ing. Green signifies a park & loop orfoot route. There should be collating.Management devised this system so

(Continued on page 5)

FSS is Coming, FSS is Coming, FSS is HereBy Frank Salazar, President Branch 2902

PAGE 5THE BEAST OF BURDENNALC BRANCH 290

they can tell at a distance if you aredoing something that you shouldn’tbe doing. Please remember that allcollating is done in the office at thecase, not on the street or in the park-ing lot.

S999 mail (holdouts, vacation holds,etc.) comes in its own street tray,which should be brought to your caseby a clerk. I was told that some mailwas shredded badly, but I was notshown this mail.

Loading

When I went out to the parking lot toobserve the carriers in La Crescentaloading, I noticed a shelf retrofit sys-tem in the LLV’s. It appears that thetray next to the driver was wider.However, the driver side tray wouldnot accommodate the yellow FSSstreet tray and three hard whitetrays (the ones with metal) across.But, the tray would accommodate theFSS street tray and three flimsywhite trays straight across. The traysystem at the back of vehicle is help-ful for storing trays, because it’s on aroller system with pull out shelving.But, once again, there are problems.The retrofit takes up too much roomin the back of the LLV, which affectshigh volume, high parcel routes. Acarrier cannot jump into the back ofthe vehicle. The shelf on the ride sideof the vehicle that folds down to forma flat surface does not stay in theupward position on bumpy roads nordo the pins used to stop trays frommoving forward on the roller system.

Other problems loading the vehiclewere that carriers had a hard timefiguring out how to load the vehiclein the most efficient manner. In LaCrescenta, letter carriers were notinstructed how to load their vehicles.The carriers having the most troublewere mounted carriers, because thedriver side tray could not accommo-date the DPS tray, residual tray,FSS tray, and a tray of coverage onthe ledge . They were not allowed tocollate the residual mail, becausethese are mounted routes.

(Continued from page 4) Some carriers put mail on the floornext to them. I’ll just say that I no-ticed some safety violations. We evenhad a Supervisor suggest unbolting abar from the floor of the LLV to ac-commodate a tray of mail. We told herit was a safety hazard and that thebar was there to keep a tray from slid-ing across the floor. Please rememberthat you are not required to work mailfrom the floor and you should try toavoid this at all costs.

Feedback of La Crescenta

I returned to La Crescenta on Jan12th to get some feedback on any po-tential problems that the carriers mayhave had. These are some of thethings I heard.

1. Parcels were late and accounta-bles were late, which caused carri-ers to leave late.

2. Mounted carriers stated that theywere extending their street timeby 10 to15 minutes, because theyhad more places to look (i.e., DPStray, residual tray, FSS tray, cov-erage, & parcels).

3. More time to reload.

4. Forgetting to look in a specificplace for a tray or parcel.

5. More time fingering mail.

6. Pulling markups.

7. Addresses covered by barcodestickers.

Park & loop carriers also stated thatthey had some expansion but a littleless than the mounted carriers. Letme state clearly that you do not haveto carry anything on your arms.

There is no street or time standard.However, if you do choose to carryflats on your arm in a Park & Loopenvironment this is what the carriersstated to me:

If carrying FSS and residual mailcollated on your arm, there was aproblem pulling addressed mailfrom the satchel, especially if anaddress skipped. In addition, in-serts fell out of the coverage into

the satchel.

If carrying the coverage on yourarm, there was a problem pullingFSS and residual mail from thesatchel, because smaller residualmail pieces ended up in the bottomof the satchel.

There was problems constantlylooking in three places especiallywhen the addresses for the differ-ent bundles of mail did not all lineup for the same delivery point.

It took more concentration.

Studio City & Newbury Park

As of the writing of this article, we’vehad five locations go live with FSS:Studio City, 25 Zone in the NorthridgeMain Office, Newbury Park, 61 Zonein Thousand Oaks Main Office, and 64Zone in Woodland Hills. I’m most fa-miliar with the Studio City, NewburyPark, and Thousand Oaks offices, so Iwill inform you about what I learnedthere.

Volume Fluctuations

Let me preface by saying that whenFSS comes on line there are volumefluctuations for the first few weeks. Onthe first day of FSS, the FSS is casedto ensure the quality, which is usuallyvery good (but, not always). If you geta piece of mail that is backwards, it’sbecause a clerk spilled the tray andmanually put it in backwards. Afterthe first day, the rest of the week willhave a high volume of FSS. This is theburn-in period. On the second andthird week, the machines are in anacceptance period and the week’s vol-ume will be lighter or lower in volume.

By the fourth week, volume will behigh again like the first week.

Start Time Change...Waiting for Mail

Prior to FSS coming to the units, thestart times were changed to 8:15 a.m.This was done because Managementneeds time to get the parcels and ac-countables ready for the carriers, sothe carriers won’t have to wait around.What we found in all offices is that

PAGE 6 THE BEAST OF BURDEN NALC BRANCH 290

carriers are still waiting for parcelsto be thrown and for accountablesto be distributed. In ThousandOaks, I observed that the truckdriver was waiting for the emptystreet trays and carts. However,there is not a second set of streettray carts so Management instruct-ed the carriers to take the streettrays off the existing carts andstack them at their case. This, inmy opinion, is a safety hazard(right of egress) that causes doublehandling of the trays, possiblespilling of the trays, and clogs theisles for employees and equipmentsuch as the movement of hampersand the accountable cart.

Collating & Retrofits

There is also confusion on what tocollate or not to collate. Manage-ment has failed to properly in-struct carrier, not everyone is get-ting the correct message on theproper methods. When loading thevehicle in Studio City, carriersfound that their LLV’s wereswitched overnight with a retrofitsystem they were not trained touse. Management tried to rectifythe situation by giving a videopresentation on a computer. Pic-ture twenty-five carriers huddledaround a computer watching a vid-eo that they can barely see andhear. My suggestion is that Man-agement get some good audiovisualequipment and get someone fromsafety to instruct on the proper useof the equipment.

Loading

When it came to loading the vehi-cles, the carriers had the sameproblems that they had in La Cres-centa. Carriers were not sure howto best load the vehicle in the mostefficient manner possible. Again,we reiterate that you do not haveto work mail from the floor or un-der the tray. The Union recom-mends nothing on the floor, noth-

(Continued from page 5) ing on top of your trays, and nothingstuck on windows. For mounted routes,we recommend on the LLV shelf: DPStray/Residual tray/FSS tray with Cov-erage behind it or a variant, if Manage-ment permits. If your Supervisor in-structs you to do differently, follow theinstructions of your Supervisor unlessit is unsafe to do so. Do not argue withhim or her, and ask to see your ShopSteward.

Street Delivery

The street delivery problems I heardwere about the same as I heard in LaCrescenta, except that the expansion ofstreet time might be longer. In New-bury Park, the Carrier Supervisor gavean instruction that carriers can nolonger turn a letter for a parcel, whichis causing longer loading and streettimes. Carriers in Studio City statedthat it is difficult to estimate theirstreet time, when looking at the FSStrays. Most likely, because we are notfamiliar using or carrying street trays.In addition, carriers constantly statethat they are waiting for accountableitems and that they are constantlypulling lots of forwards, vacation holds,undeliverable mail, and other mark-ups on the street.

I’ve Got What!

Management is showing no mercywhen it comes to street time. On thefirst day of FSS, Managers from withinor from outside your office are ridingwith or following carriers on the streetto see what they are doing and howlong it is taking them.

From day one, Management is allegingthat a carrier has undertime. Well, in away, it’s true. Take, for example, a car-rier with a 2-hour office time. If thiscarrier is getting out of the office in onehour, in theory, he should have onehour undertime minus any expansionfor learning and dealing with FSS.However, Management is not givingyou time to learn how to deal with FSS.They’re on a carrier from the jump.

In Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks, and

Studio City, Management is havingcarriers take swings to the street orManagement is having swings droppedoff to carriers on the street to deliveron their alleged under time.

The problems here are many;

If you’re not on the overtime de-sired list, and you will be in anovertime status with the extraswing call from the street as earlyas possible.

If you are on the work assignmentlist and will be carrying off yourassignment in an overtime status,call your office as soon as possible.Other problems that are arisingare problems such as being unfa-miliar with the route and territoryof the swing, and the length of timefor the swing. When Managementtells you it’s a :30 minute swing, itusually takes longer for a varietyof reasons like it was not a :30 mi-nute swing to begin with.

This is just a brief report on what wehave observed.Excessing

Right on the heels of FSS comes theexcessing meetings. Since FSS is ex-pected to conservatively knock out 2-3routes per zone, the affected installa-tion has need for less full-time employ-ees. As of this writing, I have been in-volved in two excessing meetings: onein Newbury Park and one in the 61section of Thousand Oaks.

According to Management’s currentfigures for the affected offices, twenty-five Level 01 Regular Carriers, six Lev-el 02 Carriers, and two TE’s wouldhave to be excessed from the carriercraft. The TE’s had already been reas-signed at the time we had the meetingwith the affected carriers. To say theleast, the meeting was shock & awe! Asin “Awe S@#*!”, I have to move!

Lisa Diniakos, the District Comple-ment Coordinator has the hardest jobin the Post Office. She has to conduct a

(Continued on page 7)

FSS is Coming, FSS is Coming, FSS is here!

PAGE 7 THE BEAST OF BURDEN NALC BRANCH 290

signment, you will be requiredto sign a waiver of your MSPB,EEO or Grievance-Arbitrationrights relative to being placedin a lower level assignment.

Salary:

If you are placed in a lower lev-el assignment, you will receiveprotected salary.

Relocation:

If you are placed in a withheldassignment outside of your cur-rent installation, you shall re-ceive moving, mileage, per di-em and reimbursement ofhousehold goods, if appropriate,as governed by the BargainingEmployees Relocation Benefitspackage dated November 2010.

Bargaining Employee Reloca-tion Benefits

As a bargaining employee youmay be eligible to receive relo-cation benefits if you transferfrom one duty station to anoth-er for permanent duty and thetransfer is primarily in the bestinterest of the Postal Service.To qualify for benefits, yourtransfer must also meet twoadditional requirements:

The distance between your oldresidence and your new perma-nent duty station must be atleast 50 miles greater than thedistance between your old dutystation and your old residence.

You must agree to remain atyour new duty station for 12months.

Remember, theses are just a fewbasic points. Carriers who are be-ing excessed will be given a 60-DayNotification Letter informing themof the process and what they areentitled too, along with the appro-priate phone numbers and e-mailaddresses.

Reprinted courtesy of the MailbagNews, March/April newsletter ofTri-Valley Branch 2902.

meeting with scared and pissed-offcarriers that don’t know what isgoing to happen to them. Basicallythere are too many regular employ-ees, so to provide work to the excesscarriers, they have to be moved toother offices within a radius of upto 900 miles. Management will firsttry to find openings as close to theduty stations as possible. And, ifthere are none within a 25 or 50mile radius, they will look to otherassignments outside the craft, butwithin the installation. However,this isn’t going to happen becauseclerks are being excessed too.

Ms. Diniakos did a good job in ex-plaining what was going to happenand she gave out her email andphone number.

She also made things easier by hav-ing Thousand Oaks carriers onlycompete with Thousand Oaks carri-ers for jobs and by making EAPavailable for employees that needit. These meetings are difficult be-cause of the fear of the unknown.At this time, Management does notknow exactly how many people theywill be forced to excess or where thenew assignments will be. Carriersare anxious, because they may beforced to move a long distance. Ifso, they might have to sell theirhomes ...if they can. They mighthave to pull their kids out of school,leave friends and family, etc.. It’sreally a tough deal but things arebad with the economy, the unprece-dented volume drop, and the mech-anization process wiping out goodmiddle class jobs. Although, I can’tcover every scenario about ex-cessing, the following points are themost basic.

Excessing is done by level.There are two carrier levelsCC1 (Regular) & CC2 (T-6).

Seniority: If you are reassignedto a residual/withheld positionin the carrier craft in anotherbid installation, you will bereassigned with your seniority.

(Continued from page 6) If you are reassigned to a withheldassignment in the clerk, mail han-dler or custodial craft either withinyour current installation or in anoth-er installation, you will be reassignedin a full-time status but you willbegin a new period of seniority.

However, upon being returned or retreat-ed, as appropriate, you will take the sen-iority you previously had in the carriercraft augmented by the intervening em-ployment in the craft to which you wereexcessed.

Retreat Rights:

If you are reassigned out of the in-stallation to a withheld assignmentin your own craft or another craft, atthe time of your reassignment, youwill have the right to file a writtenrequest to return to the first samelevel vacancy in your craft and in-stallation.

Additionally, you may elect to changeto PTF status.

However, please be aware that changingto a PTF to stay within your craft andinstallation does not preclude you frombeing excessed as a PTF at some laterdate, if the number of PTF’s exceedsmanagement’s needs. The minimumwork hour guarantee for PTFs in a non-200 man year office is 2 hours per payperiod.

If you are placed in another craftwithin your installation, you will alsohave the option of changing to PTFstatus in lieu of being reassigned toanother craft. However, as notedabove, if you elect to change to PTFstatus, you are subject to having re-duced hours and/or being excessedfrom the craft as a PTF.

Placement Preferences:

You will receive a list of withheldassignments from which to indicateyour placement preferences shortlyalong with instructions on complet-ing the preference selection work-sheet. If you are a preference eligible(veteran) you will not be placed in alower level assignment. If you selectand wish to accept a lower level as-

PAGE 8 THE BEAST OF BURDEN NALC BRANCH 290

Food Drive - May 14, 2011

Once again I'm proud to say that onSaturday May 14, 2011 members ofBranch 290 will join fellow letter carri-ers from over 10,000 cities acrossAmerica, Puerto Rico, Guam, and theDistrict of Columbia by participatingin the19th annual NALC "Stamp OutHunger" food drive. This event pro-vides the opportunity for our Branchto work hand in hand with a variety oflocal charities/non-profits by collectingnon perishable food donations frompatrons on our routes to be redistribut-ed to individuals and families in needwithin our own community. I hopethis helps to fill each of you with asense of accomplishment, communityawareness and pride in knowing thatyour participation and hard work is

truly assisting others. I realize this year'sfood drive is occurring within the frame-work of many difficult challenges: localterritory adjustments in the Main Officeand San Roque area; tremendous staffingshortages throughout our city; a growingnationwide political movement centeredon "union-bashing" and demonizing"collective bargaining"; a sputtering eco-nomic recovery. I believe an event suchas the food drive creates an opportunityfor NALC letter carriers to be a visiblesign and presence of positive work, effort,energy, and assistance for our local com-munity. It's a very pro-Union day and areason to be proud in solidarity. Thebreakdown for charities partnering withindividual stations in our area are asfollows: Fairview/Goleta -Food Bank ofS.B. County; San Roque - Aids ProjectCentral Coast; East Beach/Carpinteria -Catholic Charities; Main Office - FoodBank of S.B. County. I'm hoping everyletter carrier gets involved this year by

delivering the drive postcards, collect-ing all food items left by patrons, tak-ing photos from our stations to be usedin the Beast of Burden; and maybeeven donating some non-perishablefood items themselves. If any carrieris interested in learning more aboutany of the non-profits involved, thecharities are more than happy to givetours of their facilities and answer anyquestions you may have. Also, if youhave any ideas and input to make thefood drive event more successfulplease feel free to contact me and wecan utilize those thoughts in futureyears. Thanks again to every memberfor their hard work not only on the"Stamp Out Hunger" drive, but everyday you case the mail, put on thatsatchel, represent the NALC and de-liver for America.

Scott Pickering

What is the Employee Assistance Program?EAP is a free, voluntary program available to postal employ-ees and their families. It is intended to provide timely, quality,confidential assistance when it is needed.What types of assistance does EAP provide?EAP provides short-term counseling for nearly every type ofsituation that can affect your workplace or personal life. Top-ics include: parenting, elder care, blended families, maritalproblems, balancing home and work, job burnout, time man-agement, substance abuse, alcoholism, co-dependency, copingwith traumatic events such as a natural disasters or being thevictim of crime, domestic violence, grief counseling, stressmanagement, financial instability, smoking cessation, insom-nia, back-to-school issues, lifestyle adjustments due to injuriesand more.Who provides the counseling services?Federal Occupational Health Services – not the USPS – isresponsible for administration of the program and service.They contract Magellan Health Services for counselors.Are my counseling sessions confidential?To ensure confidentiality, all counselors are state certified andmust hold master degrees. Counselors may not disclose anyinformation regarding your confidential sessions without yourwritten consent. The only exceptions are when legal require-ments impose a “duty to warn,” or a court-ordered subpoenahas been issued.Do I have to pay for my EAP counseling?No. As a USPS employee, you, your family members and indi-viduals living in your home are entitled to six counseling ses-sions. If your situation requires extended counseling, yourEAP counselor will refer you to a counselor who provides ser-vices under your Federal Employees’ Health Benefits plan.Can I visit EAP on-the-clock?Your first visit may be on-the-clock (at your option). If youchoose to attend on-the-clock, the appointment must be coordi-nated between you, the counselor, and your immediate super-

visor. Your supervisor has the right to verify your attend-ance for pay purposes, but does not have the right to knowany of the details of your session. Future visits may bescheduled during your non-work hours or on leave.How can I be referred to EAP?Anyone can refer you to EAP. You can be referred by a con-cerned co-worker, but generally, you are referred by selfreferral, by your supervisor, or your union representative.Do I have to attend EAP if my supervisor refers me?No. EAP is a completely voluntary program. You can not bedisciplined for refusing to attend. If your supervisor re-quests that you sign a referral form or statement statingthat you refuse, you are not required to sign the form.What happens when I call the EAP Hotline?Access to assistance has improved with the addition of thetoll-free EAP hotline, 1-800-EAP-4YOU (TTY: 1-877-482-7341). Hotline calls go directly to a centralized service cen-ter staffed with trained responders 24 hours a day, 365days a year. The call center staff members are not USPSemployees, nor are they hired by the USPS. The respondersare trained to determine the needs of the caller and provideemergency intervention, information, referral or assign-ment for services. When employees call with emergenciesor urgent needs, they can speak with a counselor immedi-ately. Your call is confidential. However, the call may bemonitored by a call center supervisor. You can request thatyour call not be monitored.How can I access the EAP Web site?

Click on or type www.EAP4YOU.com in the addressline of your computer browser.

You can register by creating a personal ID and pass-word to gain full access.

You can choose to continue unregistered, to gain lim-ited access.

NALC Food Drive

PAGE 9 THE BEAST OF BURDEN NALC BRANCH 290

In the NewsOxnard mail distribution center to close in JulyA mail processing center in Oxnard will close in July, the U.S. Postal Service announced Friday, April 8th endingmonths of debate. Operations of the Oxnard Processing and Distribution Facility at 2901 Camino Del Sol will betransferred to a postal center in Goleta. The move is expected to save $1.8 million a year, but will result in the loss ofsome 70 local jobs. Local mail delivery will not be affected, Sierra Coastal District Manager Kerry Wolny said.

The closure was prompted by a 20 percent decline in mail volume the Postal Service has experienced since 2007. ThePostal Service began looking at cost-saving options in October and held a community meeting in January that drewheavy opposition to the proposed consolidation in Goleta. The final decision was made at the Postal Service headquar-ters in Washington, D.C.

"We must take action to reduce the size of our mail processing network," Wolny said in a statement Friday. "I under-stand our employees' concern over this move," Wolny added, "but the consolidation makes sense given the fiscal reali-ties. The (Goleta facility) has the capacity to handle the additional workload and we can realize significant savings byshifting operations there."

Affected career employees will be reassigned to Goleta or to other vacant positions, the statement said. At the Janu-ary meeting, Roberta Malloy, president of the Channel Islands Area Local for the American Postal Workers Union,said workers could be reassigned up to 900 miles away, which would disrupt families. Malloy estimated up to 250 em-ployees could be affected and mail service will suffer.

The transition is expected to be completed by July. The Oxnard facility will close soon after. "This move will not causeany changes in local mail delivery," said Wolny. "Letters mailed to local addresses will be delivered the next day, thesame as before. I am confident the transition will be smooth and transparent to our customers and they will continueto receive the same excellent service they always have."

Retail services will continue at the Oxnard Main Post Office, 1961 N. C St.

Large volume business mailers will be able to bring their mail to the office's business entry unit at 1961 N. C St.

NALC Branch 290 Bowls for a Cure! By Elvis GutierrizNALC Branch 290 came out in full force for their Deliver the Cure Bowl-a-thon for the Muscular Dystrophy Associa-tion! Branch 290 held their bowl-a-thon at Zodo’s in Goleta and raised $907 for the Mid-State Chapter of the MDA.$900 is enough to send one local child living with a neuromuscular disease to MDA’s week-long summer camp and tofund a local support group session. Branch 290 members had a great time bowling for MDA and all proceeds are stay-ing locally in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo county to help MDA provide services to over 150 patient families.

From the OIG on March 25, 2011We recommend the vice president, Delivery and Post Office Operations:Pursue a delivery unit assistant initiative to have transitional employees or part-time flexible employees perform in-office activities including casing and preparing mail for carriers.

Flexible Delivery Unit Assistants

City delivery carriers have office time allowances built into their 8-hour days to case and prepare mail for their route.Based on workload trends, vacancies, absences, and mail volume, the carrier may perform these activities for otherroutes. A small percentage of delivery units use full-time carrier craft “routers” to case and prepare the mail for deliv-ery exclusively; Postal Service management stated the use of routers is declining. Routers typically case and preparethe mail prior to the assigned carrier’s arrival; routers may or may not perform street duties later in the day, depend-ing on need. If the Postal Service used part-time delivery unit assistants to perform most in-office work, these employ-ees could absorb all carrier morning activities except loading and driving delivery vehicles. Having part-time employ-ees case and prepare mail within delivery units could result in annual reduced workhour costs between $621 millionand $2.3 billion and greater flexibility for the Postal Service. Additional savings could be generated from carrier routeadjustments resulting in longer routes and less office time.

PAGE 10 THE BEAST OF BURDEN NALC BRANCH 290

March 27, 2011

NALC President Fred Rolando

We are under so many attacks on somany fronts right now. I have toleave later today. I thought thiswould only be a one day meeting withKenny not being able to be here(laughter).

We've had a lot of struggles with la-bor lately with unions leaving theAFL/CIO. At AFL/CIO we have put acommittee together to address issuesfacing labor unions. We saw that allthe deficits in the states would beblamed on the unions. And then Gov.Walker came along, thank you Gov.Walker.

There is an anti-worker sedimentgoing on in this country. New Hamp-shire is attempting to gut collectivebargaining. Indiana, Ohio, Missouri,and Wisconsin are all under attack.There is a recall underway of legisla-tors in Wisconsin. There are branchesall over the country supporting localpublic and private sector unions. Ireally view this situation as a gift.

I have spent a lot of time recentlytalking to various groups, congress,the White House, concerning the val-ue of the Postal Service. These peoplehave the power to dismantle the post-al service. We go to every home. Wereach every corner of the country, sixdays a week with the most valuedgovernment workers. We do the larg-est food drive in the country. We havethe first response initiative to delivermedication in time of emergency. Wehave carrier alert.

There are things we do not do. Wehave the largest fleet in the country.We could be a green delivery fleetdelivering for other companies to eve-ry home in the country. We could beon the scene during disaster. Weshould be doing more for home busi-ness companies. With better scannerswe could partner with utility compa-nies to provide service, we go to every

house. We could provide banking ser-vices to support public infrastructure.We are the only agency that has a fullyfunded Civil Service and FERS ac-counts. We have a surplus in each ac-count of $50-75 billion. We have a sur-plus in retiree health benefit fund.

We have an amazing transportation,retail, delivery network. It is a busi-ness that was created to provide ser-vice, not make a profit.

Not one dime of tax money has beenused by the PO in the past 25 years.They claim that our labor costs are 80percent. It is really in the low 70's. Weare a service company. We have a dedi-cated work force.

We have lost a large amount of volumedue to the internet and the down-turnin the economy. We have a line of cred-it that is almost maxed because of ourper-funding requirements. We have torecognize these over-funding issues.We could be paying down our line ofcredit with this money. We have a billin Congress in support of six day andaddresses the pre-funding issues.There are four bills in congress cur-rently that address USPS issues. Someof these have aspects that we object to.

Some of these bills are somewhatfriendly. We are trying to work to im-prove these bills. We have been work-ing with congress to try to change lawsand to allow the PO to provide addi-tional services.

We are meeting with other postal un-ions from around the world to discusshow they are branching out from justdelivery issues.

I spoke to the PMG. We need to workwith the USPS and all unions to getcongress to fix the prefunding problem.We all need to get on the same page. Itold him that the whole chain of com-mand is ridiculous. We need to worktogether to move forward. We want tocreate a true dignity and respect cli-mate in the local office.

Don't buy into the concept thathigh labor costs are the problemin the Post Office. We have goodmiddle class jobs for good peopleand he needs to convey this tocongress.

The PMG has started to makechanges. He needs to get off the 5day thing. Seven districts will beclosed, 2000 Postmaster's will beeliminated. VER for EAS employ-ees was announced on March 25.That will put us at 67 districts.The elimination of area offices isunder consideration. No VER forthe craft at this time.

The Postal Rate Commission(PRC) issued their report on our6 day work week on March 24.They did not support the Post-master General’s request for 5day. Their opinion is only anopinion but I think it will hold alot of water with Congress. TheNALC was the only union thatwas actively involved with thePRC on this issue. The USPS didnot get what they wanted fromthe PRC.

APWU contract — We are stillanalyzing this thing. We are look-ing at the effects of the wage por-tions. I don't want to commenttoo much until their membershiphas a chance to vote. I do want abridge for temp employees to be-come full-time. They seemed tohave addressed this well. We areanxious to start bargaining.

Q: Highway contract routeconcerns that APWU may tryto obtain these jobs in the fu-ture.

A: We have this concern. Wewill be clarifying that.

Q: Excessing in the APWUcontract is restricted to 40miles.

(Continued on page 11)

State of the Union — Committee of Presidents

PAGE 11 THE BEAST OF BURDEN NALC BRANCH 290

A: We are looking at that andwe will address that in nego-tiations.

Q: Has there been any pro-gress on the issue of 41.3.Obefore contract negotiations?

A: No, I did discuss with Ken-ny an issue you had with aroute changed by 100%. Wehave gotten them to agree atthe district level that thissituation would invoke41.3.O.

Q: Jan. 10 FSS was put in.Yesterday they did COR ad-justments. Why can't wegrieve these issues prior tothe 60 day review.

A: We are going to talk aboutthat when we discuss FSS.

JARAP: A new agreement willbe announced on Wednesday.(March 30th) It will be calledJARAP 2011. It will again onlyinvolve zones that either partyrequests. There will be jointtraining at all levels. We are go-ing to have the right to have aCOR tech in the room. There willbe COR training jointly and sepa-rately. They may work as a co-COR tech or as the DEAT. Newlanguage concerning 3999's. Nomandate to do a follow-up. Eitherparty can request a follow-up.The new agreement will startMay 1st in some cases or June1st in others.

Lew Drass: Any 3999 done afterthis is signed they must meetwith the carrier and go over the3999 and explain the non-reoccurring street time that isnoted and all carrier commentswill be noted. Comments with the3999 will be forwarded to the ad-justment team. If multiple 3999'sare done they will have to use the3999 that is closest to the evalu-ated time for the route.

(Continued from page 10) Q: Management will not allow car-riers to carry sequenced on a 3999day. We just recently started usingCOR. Previously we had done jointadjustments.

A: We will have a four page MOU,an explanation of the MOU with aneighty page PowerPoint. Hopefully,we will address some of these con-cerns with the 2011 JARAP. TheNALC COR tech should also helpwith this.

In JARAP, we had one office where theDEAT said that they were only going tolook at 5 routes in the office. Districtpressure caused us to use COR in theentire office. The district seems to berunning their own program. They aredoing 3999's and using these as thebasis of street time during FSS adjust-ments and carriers are facing disciplineif they deviate from these 99 times.

Q: Do we have a specific timeframe for this new JARAP.

A: March/April and April/May. Wemay, in the future look at a longerreview period.

Q: We have four 3999's done butDOIS transfers the last 3999.

A: No. They can transfer any 3999, notjust the newest one. I talked to the OIGand he was investigating 55 cases ofsupervisors falsifying documentation.These supervisors are under a lot ofpressure to make the numbers.

Q: The stewards in my office wouldfile a grievance every time wefound a violation of clock rings orcarriers not taking breaks. Thisinformation was then shared withthe DEAT.

A: The DEAT do a lot of the work. We'llhave the COR tech in the room to as-sist the DEAT. We will get that CORtech in the room in this process.

There will be weekly progress reportsfrom the DEAT in JARAP 2011.

Lew: Think about your LOCS thistime. They will have a more importantinvolved role this time.

Fred: I got a few phone messages from

Kenny on JARAP, let me go overthose. (laughter)

Fred: Art. 12. There is a misunder-standing concerning consolidation ofoffices. Management has been doingsome things wrong. There will be anMOU coming out next week concern-ing consolidations and “DUO's”. Theissues are seniority. A consolidationtriggers Art.30 and LMOU's. Anotherissue is branch affiliation. We haveseveral issues pending dealing withthis issue. In some cases we have hada coexistence of the two branches.

There have been some mergers.There may be a partial transfer ofsome members between branches.

Q: On April 23, we have 3 officesthat are going to be a DUO. MyPM showed me a checklist wehave to follow. There is the issueof using ODL's between officeand the issue of seniority andchoice vacation leave.

A: We’d want to make sure nocarrier loses their seniority as theresult of DUO's.

Q: Is anything being done aboutNRP seniority and excessing.

A: We are looking into that.

Fred: Art. 12. Lew is working withthe Post Office concerning withhold-ing and excessing. We are close onmany of these issues. When you havean office that is going to excess carri-ers these carriers would have priorityon e-Reassign. I would like to knowhow you feel about this.

Lew: Part of this deal would meanyou go as a PTF.

Floor: You may want to restrict reas-signment under this scenario with e-Reassign to 50 miles or so.

Floor: Portland...We did some discov-ery and found that management hadwithheld too many positions. We arenot expected to get FSS and we areshort handed.

Q: Does anyone have any infor-mation on the excessing of PTR’s.

(Continued on page 12)

PAGE 12THE BEAST OF BURDENNALC BRANCH 290

Committee of Presidents (COP)We got management to agree tocollate cased mail with the FSS,daily. Can we get an agreement toallow carriers to collate this mail ona daily basis? Vacation HOLD mailis not being held out of FSS. If theydo station inputs this mail would beout of the FSS and DPS. Can weget an agreement for this input tobe done daily?

When FSS came on board therewas no instruction on how carrierswere to implement this. There is aproblem with CASTR supply. Carri-ers have to unload the CASTR sothe driver can return them to theplant.

They used the base street timefrom JARAP to adjust routes forFSS. Starting times were movedforward.

They’re using COR automatic andallowing COR to create routes.

Carriers want to collate the bun-dles on the street. If we collate inthe office they can see how long ittakes.

Carriers are facing tremendouschallenges with FSS that were notaddressed by the National NALC.Many things we are doing are notergonomically safe.

Carriers are being told that theycan work mail off the floor. I toldmanagement that if they work offthe floor they can't be disciplinedfor an accident. We thought we hadagreement on how to adjust routesafter FSS was implemented. Butthen they did what they wanted todo. They wouldn't agree to an alter-nate process after 60 days. Theythen came in and did a 6 day onsome routes. Then they came backand wanted to discuss again analternate process.

Q: When they do route adjust-ments they take the TE's out.Then carriers are being forcedto work OT. I was told there aresmaller FSS machines that theywant to use in the offices.

(Continued on page 13)

Staffing is a problem with Art. 8.

A: I think we are going to be ad-dressing that during negotia-tions.

Q: Wouldn't it be easier to countall overtime for the ODL.

A: Yes, that's a resolution for negoti-ations.

FSS. The beauty of the 60 day re-views is that we can see what un-checked COR adjustments look like.

They are talking about a secondphase of FSS. I want to find out whatissues you are facing with these re-views.

Q: We are trying to negotiatewith the district on how to evalu-ate and adjust the routes. Wehave agreement on the evalua-tion process. The disagreement iswith the adjustments. How willthey be done? They are statingthat they will do a 6 day count.

A: If there is no local agreementthen a 6 day would be how theroutes are adjusted.

The 60 day period is either tooshort or too long. The mailersmay not have made the changesand the volume may havedropped to the point where thedata is no longer valid.

They came in and did FSS adj.11/13/10. They said we can't use Dec.On Jan 13th, we said it's the 60thday. They said, no. We grieved andthe B team agreed with us. COR wasused and none of the allied time wasused. Carriers were under pressureto do routes that were not 8 hours.We finally agreed to a process that isJARAP like and was only agreed toafter they had posted the walk sched-ule for a 6 day count.

A: They have the option of stay-ing as a PTF.

Floor: e-Reassign people may al-ready have a hardship reason for be-ing on e-Reassign and that should beconsidered.

Floor: I don't think it would be fairto allow bumping of e-Reassign peo-ple.

Floor: Instead of doing e-Reassignwhy not allow someone to request atransfer to an office within 50 milesof a certain office.

Fred: There will be a new MEMOnext week on route structure. It willbe a voluntary local initiative to de-velop different alternative routestructures. These will then be sent tothe national level for approval. Therewill be some guidance on how to pro-ceed with this process from the na-tional.

What extent do we want to be in-volved with Art. 8 issues in the office.We are going to allow the joint volun-tary administration of Art. 8. I wouldnot be involved in this in an officethat is understaffed.

Q: We had this in Connecticut.The problem we had was thatmanagement stopped getting thetime we were allowed to work onthis on a daily basis.

In JARAP 2011 (April, May),management will be required topost the previous days volume ona daily basis.

Q: With a joint Art. 8 , are we go-ing to have to agree on a Windowof Operation.

A: We have the problem of stat-ing that you can do whatever youwant but do not violate Art. 8 andif they say we have a Windowand we will need to violate Art. 8,it won't work in that office.

(Continued from page 11)

PAGE 13THE BEAST OF BURDENNALC BRANCH 290

A: That's phase 2.

NRP……...Management seems to be more in themood to pre-arb these cases. We are real-ly kicking their ass. We have done ag-gressive training for advocates and willcontinue to train more advocates. 50/50in arbitration is not acceptable. We havedone very well with NRP cases.

Floor: We want to thank you for puttingNRP information out to the field. We arestarting to get some justice. Some arbi-trators are addressing the harm thatNRP has caused….lost homes, creditproblems, etc. The search for suitablework is usually an e-mail blast to otheroffices requesting work. Talk to the stew-ards in those offices and the PM. Findout what work is available and what ef-forts were made to look for work in thatoffice.

Joe Brown: FSS, COR, I was listeningto some of the frustration. I have a wife,a daughter, relatives who are dealingwith these issues. We have to make surethat we educate our carriers about theseissues. These are trying times. We haveto deal with these issues. Carriers havenot suffered any furloughs, pay cuts, orlay-offs.

Fred: We started doing some OWCPtraining. Something that branches cansend people to. Training and educatingour people is important.

If we have anyone who would like to helpwith the CAU or anything, please let usknow. Pamela Donato, Branch 9, is com-ing to work at headquarters.

MDA. We are going to have a satchelday. I think it's going to be Aug. 14. TheMDA is going to send us information onputting this together. The PO has onlyrequired that we make it clear that thisis an NALC project, not USPS. Carrierswill be on the corner with their satchelscollecting for MDA.

Fred: New deliveries. We had theMEMO. Everywhere where they had newdeliveries we are looking at that infor-mation to see what territory we should

(Continued from page 12) have gotten and what deliveries wewill get back (thousands of new deliv-eries).

We are looking at contract routes tosee which ones we should be gettingback.

Q: We have a grievances from1992 concerning city/rural.

A: We have been looking at eachcase (400 cases) to look at thespecifics of each case. We aremoving forward with the USPSand Rural on this issue.

Fred: RAP Session: October, 14, 15,& 16. We will do it in conjunctionwith the Health Benefits Seminar inLas Vegas.

At the last COP, I asked if you hadan issue to speak up. You guys havedone that and I thank you ...and Ihope you continue.

This is really a tough time to be abranch leader. There is a lot of pres-sure on the workroom floor. You haveFSS, COR, NRP, JARAP. I want tothank every volunteer, officer, stew-ard for stepping up. I appreciatewhat you do. You have to imaginewhat it would be like to work withoutthat representation and benefits thatit brings.

We are going to protect the dignityand respect that comes with being acity letter carrier. It will take all ofus. We have each other. Please don'tforget that.

Q: At the last COP you said thatyou would have updates on theweb site for the contract CD.

A: Yes, we are in the process ofdoing that.

Q: Can't we get credit for custom-er connect leads.

A: There has been talk that man-agement is taking our leads andgetting credit for themselves.Yes, we are looking at that.

Q: What are these smaller FSSmachines in Phase 2.

A: All we have is a test on a ma-chine in PA this summer.

Q: Customer Connect. We are notgetting the opportunity to getleads.

A: I just signed a new customerconnect agreement.

Q: Currently we have GPS in eve-ry vehicle. Supervisors are ask-ing us if we are going to be backon time. Are there any guide-lines?

A: They tell us what routes theyare going to be installed in and inwhat offices. As long as they aretelling us, it's okay. Many compa-nies are using them.

Fall 2011 COP: Puerto Rico, Septem-ber 18 & 19. Everyone who has notmade reservations should do so now.

Breakfast and lunch are included.

If you haven't attended a COP meet-ing in the past 4 meetings; minuteswill not be mailed to you.

Nominations for Spring `12 COP:Chicago is nominated.Chicago, April 15, 16, 2012.

Floor: I would like to thank Mattiand Larry Brown yesterday for theircomments. We need more support forCOLCPE— “Gimmie 5”. It's all aboutleadership. Only 5% of the member-ship, in most branches, give to COL-CPE.

If we don't have the solidarity to facethe issues on the workroom floor weare not doing what needs to be done.

We have to educate our membershipabout the issues and the legislationprogram being supported by theNALC. Go back and educate yourmembership, not only about FSS andCOR but about the issues that everycarrier faces.

Floor: We need to get the locals in-volved in moving these bills throughstate houses.

(Continued on page 14)

PAGE 14THE BEAST OF BURDENNALC BRANCH 290

Committee of Presidents (COP)

Floor: We need to go back and con-vince carriers to get on E-Activist andto get them to give $5 (COLCPE)

Floor: We are as strong as our weakestlink. We need to network. The biggestbranches need to work with the smallerbranches that have programs that don'twork. I hope there are no members inhere who are going to go back and be a204B. I am going to go back and standup to management. I do that becausewhat they do is wrong. We are losingmembership due to attrition, limitedduty ...we need to network. The branch-es who are not here today. Reach out tothem.

Floor: We chartered a plane from Br.24 to go to Wisconsin to demonstrate.Last Saturday there was a demonstra-tion in LA; 25000 workers were thereand the media gave us no coverage.What is going on is about breaking or-ganized labor. There have been conces-sions by labor.

Floor: If they changed 9 words in thefederal law the NALC would cease toexist. We have to get to the member-ship to get them involved.

Floor: What we have done to increaseCOLCPE contributions; we have hadgiveaways for those who sign up forCOLCPE or who increase their contri-butions. There are laws about this.Check with the NALC legislation de-partment first. We have socials that arespecially for COLCPE contributors.

Floor: We open every meeting to dis-cuss how to be a good union member.

Preparing for Local Negotiations:We need to develop a way to quicklycommunicate with our membership. Wehave to let the public know, throughour membership, about the issues thatwe face.

TE's: We have made progress when welost casuals. Every day as a TE, you areon probation. We are holding forums forTE's to educate them and our stewards

(Continued from page 13) about the issues they face. Twice ayear we have these meetings. Wehave a TE liaison who uses e-mailto network with all of our TE's.

The TE's are being told to call dailyto see if work is available for themeach day.

I have one TE who spends $1000 amonth for health benefits.

Step B Decisions: In our district,the Step B team just increases thesettlement payments rather thanaddressing the problem. This issomething I hope the Nationaltakes a look at.

Attendance policies: We havehad some issues with attendancewhere carriers were LWOP'd ontheir check.

We are grieving these. They haveattendance indicators that they areusing (many are cited).

Disaster Planning: The inspec-tion service was used to locate car-riers during Katrina. We are work-ing on ways to contact our familiesduring emergency. In Portland, weare working on a plan for earth-quakes. What are other cities do-ing? In Portland, carriers were notinvolved in the disaster planninglike police and firefighters eventhough we are in every neighbor-hood 6 days a week.

Jobs with Justice: How manypeople have Jobs with Justice intheir cities? We have asked JWJ tohave a panel that listens to con-cerns of carriers. Carriers told sto-ries about forced overtime, workmethods and it gave the public aninside look at the problems thattheir letter carrier faces daily. TheLabor Council and JWJ are twothings we have to utilize.

MSP Discipline: Management isusing them as one more tool fordiscipline. There is a green lightfor discipline and steward time

from higher up. I think in somecases 613 time is being falsified bymanagement. During negotiationsthey want to show how much mon-ey is being spent on steward timenationwide, to an arbitrator.

Carriers are being charged withfailure to follow instructions whenthey fail to generate an MSP. If thecarrier states that “yes I did scanthat MSP”, it falls back on manage-ment to show proof that there wasno malfunction of the scanner orupload. We have carriers facing 14day suspensions for MSP scans.

The USPS goal for Express Mail is98% and they never make that.Then a carrier misses one scan andthey are disciplined.

During an investigative interviewcarriers should state that they per-form their duties in a conscientiousmanner. “I scanned that item.When I hear the beep, I assume theitem was scanned properly.”

We have no way to verify that theMSP scans were registered proper-ly.

I spent 2 years as a DRT. (DisputeResolution Team) We never uphelddiscipline for an MSP scan failure.

The grievant should be on 632 timewhile being interviewed by thesteward.

Comments from the podium:

How many members present planon attending Puerto Rico?

Floor: COR. I hope we have theability to be more involved withCOR.

Meeting Adjourned

Notes scribed by Chuck ClarkNALC Branch 3825

This is an edited version.

Birthdays

CongresswomanLois Capps

1110 Longworth House OfficeBuilding

District of Columbia 20515-0523

Phone: (202) 225-3601

Fax: (202) 225-5632

Santa Barbara Office

101 W. Anapamu St, Suite C

Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Phone: (805) 730-1710

Fax: (805) 730-9153

PAGE 15 THE BEAST OF BURDEN NALC BRANCH 290

Richard Gereaux 1Rosendo Preciado 3Minh Tran 3James Creeth 4Vito Carone 4Joseph Macias 5Howard Cobb 7Beryl Herbert 10Joe Pensabene 10Gary Heuer 13Eric Spencer 13Ray Minc 14Dionne Van Meter 15Carol Lavagnino 16Eileen Smith 18Manuel Chavira 19Edward Ochoa 20Benjamin Tiscareno 23Vik Sidhu 23Joe Grijalva 23Robert Bose 25Jose Chavez 27Patricia Adger 30Albert Head 30Marcee Tabb 31

A warm thank you for the kindwords and flowers. It means somuch.

Daniel, Erica and the Parks family

Jim Weedon 1Robert Ripley 1Mark Cummins 3Jeanne Hohly 3Bill Holbrook 3Fran Valdiva 4Ryuta Yamaguchi 4Nancy Guzman 7Jack Woods 10Jack Puckett 10Evelyn McKnerney 13Sherman Goldman 17Bahador Jafarpour 17John Applequist 18Frank Holguin 18Gilbert Velasquez 19Carlton Roberts 20Jim Yoder 22Michael Sjollema 24Laurie Wreesman 24Jen-Ai Mayo 24Daniel Cordero 25Joe Liscano 25Frederico Ceraos 26Ron Morris II 26James Norman 27

Senator Barbara Boxer

112 Hart Senate Office Building

District of Columbia 20510-0505

Phone: (202) 224-3553

Senator Diane Feinstein

331 Hart Senate Office Building

District of Columbia 20510-0504

Phone: (202) 224-3841

President Barack Obama

The White House

District of Columbia 20500

Phone: (202) 456-1414

Fax: (202) 456-2461

Website: www.whitehouse.gov

Cindy Gutierrez, LMT

453-1635

specializes in

myofascial trigger point therapy

deep tissue, sports, swedish

massage

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S. POSTAGE PAID

SANTA BARBARA, CA

PERMIT NO. 662

Address Service Requested

“Beast of Burden” …………...E-mail branch290@yahoo.com

Place Address Here

NALC Publications Awards —

Small Branch

The Beast of Burden

1990 — Cartoon: Honorable Mention

1992 — Editorial: First Place

1994 — General Excellence: First Place

1996 — Feature Story: First Place

Feature Story: Honorable Mention

News Story: Second Place

General Excellence: Third Place

1998 — Promoting Unionism: Second Place

Feature Story: Third Place

General Excellence: Honorable Mention

2010 — General Excellence: First Place

On the Cover...

A woman letter carrier inZumbrota, Minnesota circa 1920At that time, about five percent ofthe nation's 943 village carrierswere women.Photo from the U.S. Postal Service

*Union Meetings*

May 2nd & June 6th

Rusty’s Pizza on Cabrillo

6:00 PM Door Prize!